Graceful Friends

Drew by the heavy marketing, I have high expectation for this series. Watched until episode 13 and decided it is enough and gave up. Simple and predictable plot, but that is not the problem, simple plot can be sophisticated with good execution and presentation. Which is what this TV show lack. The director wants to produce an aura of suspense but the end product gives the feeling of incompleteness and leads to nowhere.

Characters have no depth and actually irritating and annoying. Dialogue cheesy and boring, at times, hilarious and illogical. It could be more bearable if actors are good. The lead actress - Yun-ah Song is a disaster, void of expression and 90% of time is stony faced. It is always a pain to watch bad lead actors and actresses because they dominated most of the screen time. The villain - Tae-Hwan Lee, overacting and just flat out bad acting. His translation of a bad person is to forcefully open his eyes as if in shock.

Personally I feel it is a waste of time and not recommended.

A group of students who are members of an amateur dramatic group are linked with the murder of a teacher. Twenty years later they are still friends but history seems to be repeating itself as there is another murder in which they will all fall under suspicion. All of them have dark secrets which will be exposed as the series evolves and some may not be such close friends as they thought. A very well acted story where each character is developed gradually as the story leads you in different directions until the truth is exposed. My only criticism is that it could have condensed the story by about 2 episodes but even without that it is still entertaining.

I gave this an 8 rating for the mystery and "who done it" value. However, I didn't particularly like the K-drama as a whole. It centers around a group of very close friends that were in college together and now are in their 40s and living in the same town. The series basically has an adult theme centering around unsolved murders, extortion, rape date drugs, obsessive old love, adult film director and actresses, getting duped by underage scammer, paying scammers to convict friend's wives into bed to trick them into getting caught so they can have a chance to get their old girlfriend back, innocent children involved, etc - all the while in college boys protecting boys and later in their 40s men protecting men. Each person has their own personal story as to why they are the way they are and is divulged slowly. The 16th episode you find who the real recent murderer is. The 17th episode is an add on to divulge the final update of each of their personal story ending. I was really disappointed in my favorite character Jo Hyung-Woo's update on his personal story. How ridiculous. I think the script could have been better.

... if it was not for the last two episodes that really left me with a "so what?" feeling.

Good cast, good story, solid start until at least episode 8. Then it goes downhill somehow as it starts to just drag on with too many repetitions. It made me feel like they just took it up the hill with all the story lines and then just dropped it to tumble down. All of the things that mattered just did not matter anymore and this made no sense. If only they did not drag it on for 17 episodes and maybe wrap it all up in 10 or maybe 12 episodes at most, it would have made justice to all that was going on.

But still it is a good watch, especially if you are over 45 as some things the characters are struggling with hit quite close to home.

I have always been a film person and would see like a dozen on an average weekend. Always paying attention to the cast, cinematography, screenplay, film editing and direction. Some years ago I was introduced to the South-Korean series. At the beginning I had some difficulty of dealing with that whole new dynamic. Once I understood how it worked I became a huge fan of K-dramas and spend most of my free time watching them. The characters here are so real and intense that young people may not understand what is happening. The cast wonderfully chosen show remarkable performances. A conclusion totally unexpected and the impassivity of the female lead character puts this drama on a upper level. I laughed, I cried and I shivered. Certainly, a must-watch drama.