Cheese in the Trap (2016)

I will say before I get into the pitfalls of the plot, that I thought the actors were all really great. They are what kept me going through this show. I can't tell you how many frustrated tears I cried about how the plot was developing mostly because Seo Kang Joon especially kept me supremely emotionally invested in the plot. I thought all of the actors were really great. I believed them. I felt their pain in their eyes. The problem inherently to me lies in the writing. The main lead and female leads characters are just the worst. For the male lead, there is Tsundere...and there is sociopath. And the amount of red flag behavior that the female lead justified and brushed off was such a concern for me as a woman. If I'm watching a romantic plot and the male lead is someone I would warn my friends about or even have an intervention because that gives me a pretty large cause of concern. I just couldn't really enjoy this show. It stressed me out and made me unhappy and Im pretty relieved I managed to get through it.

It's nice to see some early roles that are well acted from actors I really enjoy, but if you aren't here for a purpose like that I would honestly avoid this drama unless you like being frustrated and upset and the end of a drama.

Lire davantage

I loved this drama over all and recommend it for others to watch. There was romance, comedy, action, etc
rolled into one. Wherever anyone feels the drama fell short is on the interpretation of the viewer. In life we
truly dont always get what we want, when we want or how we want it. Also who we love and how we love
them doesnt always meet the expectations of others. The acting was superb, the characters likeable, the
story could have been tweaked a little bit and the ost was awesome. I would love to see a continuation of
this drama in the future, after the webtoon is over, to see how well the lives of these characters have
improved.

Lire davantage

A supposedly great drama was badly ruined

Watched it while it was on-air. I really loved it in the first half. It really had potential to be a masterpiece, if they kept the original plot as the webtoon, which was already very popular at that time.

But they ruined the series in the worst way. They changed the original plot and without asking the author and cut Park Hae Jin (the male lead) out of the series and replaced his scenes with the unknown second male lead's, while Park Hae Jin was the reason why a lot of people watched this series when no-one else in the cast was well-known back then.

The author and the series's fans got so angry back then, including Park Hae Jin who was also a big fan of the webtoon. But I can't rate it 1 at least for Park Hae Jin's efforts. Then to make up, the author asked Park Hae Jin to remake the webtoon into a movie version. But it's not the same. So sad for a supposedly great drama.

Lire davantage

I watched this show because I’ve become a pretty big fan of both Kim Go Eun and Nam Joo Hyuk and they’re both in this show. I had really high hopes for this one since I’ve had a good running streak of really great Korean dramas set in college. I really enjoyed Weightlifting Fairy, Kim Bok Joo and so I was riding that high when I started this one.

So this show follows our main female lead, Hong Seol. She’s a struggling college student that is trying her best to stay afloat. She’s working, she’s studying, and she’s trying to figure out how she’s going to pay for next year’s tuition because she doesn’t have a lot of parental support. Plus, her family isn’t well off and whatever money they have was used to send her younger brother abroad to study in the states. So yeah, Seol’s on her own. She doesn’t have a lot of free time but the free time that she does have, she spends with her two best friends. When she meets Yoo Jung, a rich guy that all the girls love, Seol isn’t that interested. They have nothing in common and she keeps catching him doing weird things. Things that she’s not a fan of and because of that, she tries to steer clear of him…but he keeps showing up wherever she is, and…he’s interested in her. Getting to know him wasn’t in her plans but because they keep bumping into each other, she gives him a chance.

This show started off really strong. The main character, Hong Seol did a great job of hooking me into what she had going on. Between her and her two best friends, I was really rooting for this show to be a huge success and it almost was. The lengths that the hero went to get shit done was low-key a turn-off. He had a God complex that didn’t sit right with me throughout the entire show and even in the end, I wanted to knee him in the balls because ugh. There are only so many times that I can forgive someone for doing some creepy shit and letting it slide. Even after understanding the way that he thought and the way that he was, I still didn’t like it. Or him for that matter. I was much more invested in Hong Seol’s relationship with Baek In Ho (the second lead) and that almost never happens. I’m usually a stickler for the main couple no matter how much I like the second lead but this is the first show where that wasn’t the case.

I wanted to like this show because of Kim Eun Go and Nam Joo Hyuk but even with that strong start, the middle and the ending didn’t do anything for me and that bummed me out.

Lire davantage

OMG... But not in a good way

First of all, this is solely my opinion and I do not judge anyone who liked it.

Personally, for me, Cheese in the trap gives off the same vibes as Nevertheless. (But not as steamy as Nevertheless, if you know what I mean ;) )

Same moody, angry-ish, scary-ish ML, but IMHO unlike Park Jae Eon (Song Kang's character in Nevertheless), Yoo Jung really is a manipulative and very scary character, who only got interested in Hong Seol just because he thought she was like him. He is mostly emotionless, cold and brutal.
Even though Hong Seol is a pretty good character, who developed throughout the series, I still think that her choice of staying with Yoo Jung was just plain stupid.

Baek In Ho (SKJ) - I admit, I suffer from SML syndrome, but choosing Yoo Jung instead of Baek In Ho was worse than in True Beauty (I mean Hwang In Youp <3 lord have mercy).

Most of the characters in this drama are just trash
Hong Jin Tak (Hong Seol's dad) - incompetent, arrogant, childish, abusive
Kim Yeong Hee (Hong Seol's mom) - just meh... putting all her worries on her daughter, without giving it a second thought. She didn't even new her daughter's friend's number to call them. All they cared about was the younger brother.
Hong Joon (Song Seol's brother) - well.... not too bad.

But the worst of them all - Baek In Ha. Just her name makes me cringe, I mean she takes the cake, of all the K-dramas that I have watched, THIS is the most horrific character of them all and no disrespect to Lee Sung Kyung, her acting skills are improving from one dorama to another.

THE ONLY light in this horrible group of people is Kwon Eun Taek (Nam Joo Hyuk) - Lovable, goofy, caring, sweet, charming, friendly, loyal... all the good qualities that a person could have <3


Overall, I gave the score of 3, even though the plot is kind of interesting throughout the whole drama, they just killed it and made it just trash... again, IMHO <3

Lire davantage

Finally after 8 months i have completed this drama.
Honestly don't know how people can rate anything more than 3 star for this show.
Story beginning was good. But how could they call MF & FL as main character.
ML is a psychopath.
FL has no character value, no brain, no thought process.
I liked most of the support characters and acting.
Just so you know i watched final 6 episodes in 8x speed, Couldn't bring myself to spend too much time on this.
Finally after 8 months i have completed this drama.
Honestly don't know how people can rate anything more than 3 star for this show.
Story beginning was good. But how could they call MF & FL as main character.
ML is a psychopath.
FL has no character value, no brain, no thought process.
I liked most of the support characters and acting.
Just so you know i watched final 6 episodes in 8x speed, Couldn't bring myself to spend too much time on this.
Finally after 8 months i have completed this drama.
Honestly don't know how people can rate anything more than 3 star for this show.
Story beginning was good. But how could they call MF & FL as main character.
ML is a psychopath.
FL has no character value, no brain, no thought process.
I liked most of the support characters and acting.
Just so you know i watched final 6 episodes in 8x speed, Couldn't bring myself to spend too much time on this.
Finally after 8 months i have completed this drama.
Honestly don't know how people can rate anything more than 3 star for this show.
Story beginning was good. But how could they call MF & FL as main character.
ML is a psychopath.
FL has no character value, no brain, no thought process.
I liked most of the support characters and acting.
Just so you know i watched final 6 episodes in 8x speed, Couldn't bring myself to spend too much time on this.

Lire davantage

Story: As an ongoing reader of the original webtoon, I can say that the drama captured the the story quite well in most aspects. The story, in both the webtoon and the show, is interesting, complicated, and realistically portrayed. With it's intriguing and lovable characters and it's well done sub plots, it keeps making you want to know what happens next. The vibe is similar and would be a great alternative to the webtoon if you don't mind missing out on a couple of things and don't mind a second rate ending.
One of the few things that bothered me was the way that Yoo Jungs story line was told. If you read the webtoon, you'll see a much greater emphasis on his mentality and how he became how he was. In the show, he's made out to be a bad person who didn't deserve Seol, but in the webtoon, he was just a child who grew up with a neglectful father and was forced to be apathetic and distant. You get to see more interactions with his father and his classmates in his childhood, and you can see how much of an affect his father had on him; he wasn't born manipulative, he just lacked genuine guidance and comfort. As someone who related to Yoo Jung, I was sad to see his character dealt with in such a way. In the drama, his childhood and his way of thinking isn't focused on as much as it should have been.
He also lacked a lot of scenes too in comparison to In Ho. I liked In Hos characterization just the same as in the webtoon but was sad to see him take so much screen time away from Yoo Jung. The lack of screen time for Yoo Jung also affected the way his relationship with Seol developed, it didn't feel as real as it was in the webtoon, there were much more interactions between them and the way it paced just made much more sense.
The ending was average at best. Maybe it was because I was expecting much more, but it left me disappointed and not satisfied. They could have added at least one final scene between Seol and Yoo Jung at the end, but it was left missing. The story felt incomplete.

Acting/Cast:
There was not one scene from the main actors that I felt could have been acted differently, besides from one of the supporting roles. The supporting actors were almost as good as the leads, but I felt it was a bit exaggerated at one part. Other than that, I can't see myself complaining for both the acting and the actors, I was happy with all of the cast. Each scene felt so real and genuine, and I found myself taking time to appreciate the main actors' acting at some points.

Music:
The soundtrack was beautiful and fitted the vibe of the show perfectly.

Overall:
Had there not been the issues with the ending and the characterization, I would have given this drama a 9 and maybe even a 10, but I had to drop it down to an 8 for it's faults. The show is worth the watch whether you decide to read the webtoon or not, but I would recommend reading it before watching the drama. If you give it a read before starting this show, you'll understand Yoo Jungs character much more and his relationship with Seol. If you decide to watch it after, it would be a great bonus if you like the drama.

Lire davantage

I was watching this due to people telling me its really good and funny. and then i knew it was a webtoon series. i guess people came flooding on the drama because them being a fan of the webtoon.


So I started 1st episode without any expectation, as I always do with K dramas. Aaannnd I really didnt like it. The plot was boring, predictable. Doesnt work for me. The characters are ok, but not interesting enough. Casts I must say did a good job, although I dont really follow any of the actors. This drama doesnt draw me in the first episode. Cinematography also made me bored. I think everything is slow paced.

However when reading the review people told that they reallllyyy love it! and it was extremely entertaining. So setting aside my desire to dropped this drama, I carry on to the 2nd episode in case it get more interesting. NOPE. I finished the 2nd episode in vain and finalised my decision to drop the drama.

I went to Dramabean and read every episode preview, and Im glad I dropped it.


Well im not saying my opinion is definitely right, it depends on people which drama they prefer. It just doesnt fall under the zone for me, and hope everyone else had fun watching this drama.

Lire davantage

This is my first review here on MDL. I purposely didn't watch this while it aired, but that didn't stop me from seeing spoilers from many of my Facebook groups, so much so I had to leave them. So needless to say I had an idea of the ending before I watched it. I hate knowing what's going to happen in a show because I keep picturing it in my head and it takes away from my enjoyment.
Enough of that, on to the review...
I loved most the actors, they each brought their own slice of life character to the show. Some did a better job than others in their acting, some went too over the top and became borderline annoying. (In Ha and the stalker)
I wish I could say I enjoyed it, but I didn't. I could relate to many of the characters from my college days and now on my job. So my lack of enjoyment may have been due more to it being too close to home. Some parts did, however, seem forced to make the impact needed.
As this appears to be based on an ongoing webtoon I accepted that fact as I watched, more out of a morbid curiosity than anything else. I couldn't get into it as I wanted to, with regards to Seol and Jung's relationship, but that's just my response. Sorry, I didn't see what all the hype was about. Too many parts and characters, just seem to appear for the effect then disappear into thin air.
It's definitely a second lead syndrome drama. I liked In Ho from Roomates and here he did a great job. Jung played his role to perfection, and was one of the main reasons I continued to watch it. For the most part I couldn't even like him, and kept thinking WTH?
Seol was not likeable to me either, and even mean at times, silly at times, and simple at times.
Loved most of the ost will add to my favs.
As for the drama, once was more than enough for me. I'm left feeling a bunch of nothing after a few sparks. I could feel hurt when I should have felt hurt. Just a few laughs that were short and resulted from some silliness.
In the end it seemed like lots of characters that overlapped but just for effect, nothing else.

Lire davantage

I wasn't really planning to watch this drama yet because it didn't appeal to me enough to watch it but as fate would have it, I chanced upon the Official MV of this drama's Part 3 OST, 'Such' by Kang Hyun Min (ft. Jo Hyuna of URBAN ZAKAPA) and I naturally got hooked.
I definitely could relate to the College Life setting, it was pretty much how College Life is in general, you either use or manipulate others or you get used.
Episode 11 was my favorite episode of all, although I'd hate to admit that the story after Episode 11 started to lose it's charm. But overall it is a very real-life-like drama. The dynamics of all these characters and why they act the way they do and how they also question their actions and how they all try or don't try to understand each other, how their fixated with their own emotions and their 'seemingly' lack thereof, and how behind all those,the source of all those actions stemmed from an innocent good intention. it shows the complexity of Human Relations and also the simple solution to the complexity. It shows not only love between a man and woman but also involves friendship, sibling love, familial love, love for self, and for others.
Acting and Casting was AWESOME! DAEBAK! Chemistry was there (I secretly even wish some romance happened in real life for the main characters and the supporting characters.)
Enjoy!

Lire davantage