Cunning Single Lady (2014)

Worthwhile Watching

I like to find those dramas that are not rated very high but are really enjoyable. It is like finding a "diamond in the rough". This drama for me met that criteria. It is not rated that high, but was able to watch the drama till the end without cringing.

For me, a great drama is when I connect with the leads and I am able to experience their inner conflict. In this drama, I was more of a witness of tragic lives versus "walking the path" with them.

We all know the KDRAMA formula: You shall meet the OPC (our primary couple) within 1st half hour, then next 6-8 episodes is flirting, and around episode 14, usually the mom will transform from a loving caring person to a self centered BI**&^ and causing the OPC to breakup. The last 10 minutes of episode 16 OPC find love and live happily ever after.

This drama followed the formula very well but what I enjoyed about the plot about this drama was the little twist: The OPC start of hating each other and finding love and their dream by the end.

I could have rated this drama higher than 8.0 but did not want to go as high as 8.5.

In the last episode, I would like to have seen more of OPC lives together at end. After all one of the main issue was: Would they be more successful as a married couple 2nd time around? Instead, the director and the editor chose fill 10 minutes of recap with scenes that I just spend 16 hours watching.

I didn't like "the walls are listening" setup meaning that there is always that person listening to what one thinks is a private conversation. I think the director could have chosen more clever way of discovering the truth to tell a more powerful story.
For me loose ends were:
what happened with the death tarot card.?
Other than OPC being jealous, how did they transform to discover that they loved each other? In this FL, is the one who instigated the divorce but I didn't see her take responsibility of her action. Instead, she waited for ML to pursue her? It was little confusing.

In spite of my complaints about the contents of the drama, I enjoyed it.

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Cunning Single Lady is one of those dramas that you need to sit down and watch it continuously without the distraction of other dramas because you won't remember to finish it if you do. I liked Cunning Single Lady, I did, but to me, it doesn't compare to Go Back Couple, which had a similar plot minus the time travel. Maybe it's because I saw Go Back Couple first, but I think Go Back Couple had a better balance and incorporation of comedy than Cunning Single Lady. Go Dok Jae literally had me snorting my drink out of my nose because he was just so entertaining. There weren't too many roll-on-the-floor laughing moments in Cunning Single Lady, which meant that the plot stayed on the more dramatic side rather than light. Also, in Go Back Couple, we really got to know more than just the main characters which was nice because we had a very good picture of the whole story. In Cunning Single Lady, I felt like any parents could kind of stand in for their parents and we wouldn't really notice the difference.

Also, even if the main leads of Cunning Single Lady had a nice story, the second leads (the 2 siblings) had a turn in character toward the end of the drama (literally the last 3 episode) that saddened me as the viewer. Even though they weren't "evil" in the end, it bothers me that the writers took their characters in that direction; it wasn't only cliched, it was also simply unnecessary and unrealistic. It felt like a cop out to me. In regards to the ending, it was happy, but I feel like the ending was rushed - literally the credits started to roll and I was like, "oh. I didn't realize that was the end end. Mkay." It wasn't a rushed ending that negatively impacted the drama, but I think they could have taken out the drama of the siblings and wrote a better paced last 2 episodes.

The music wasn't bad, it just went unnoticed most of the time. Some of the songs were good (though, not good enough for me to re-listen to), others were unremarkable.

The acting for the entire cast was good, but I didn't develop any intense need to watch another actor/actress in a new drama after this. Although, Joo Sang Wook is very handsome and he was enjoyable to watch. Haha. I wonder if he is that goofy/awkward in real life or if that was strictly written for his character. :D

Anyway, overall, this was an enjoyable drama, but I don't think I would watch it again nor pull up specific scenes to rewatch.

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This is the usual and often divorced drama plots. There is a divorcee who want to get back together, and lady who wants the divorces, guy have an interest with the divorcee and the two divorcee wants to get back together. This is the average story of this drama. The whole point of this drama is for the women to get back his rich husband. While, the rich husband is such an idiot that she basically lost her whole life because of what he has done. This is the story of this drama. They have an on and off relationship between the two and yet they still want to get back together? This is my first impression of the story after watching it. However, with the other rivals, how can they get back together? They use a different approach with eh story by having a younger boy rival and a bad memory past women rival. This suggests that they would be the antagonist of the whole drama, but the matter of fact they are not. They are just the two person within the drama who want to get want they want to engage a new experience and forget the bad memories. In contrast, this is a drama that I would not recommend for re-watch. The reason behind this is because it is biased to one side of the character, instead of weighing it fairly. This means that the story is biased to sang wook character. Their moments with min jung are quite a lot which completely disregard kang joon feelings for her. So, the story of this drama is pure favouritism to sang wook character and completely ignored the other side of boy rival. Likewise, they also disregard gyu ri’s character which is kind of disappointing. This is the most disappointing outcome of this drama’s storyline.

I feel that the reason why this drama have a lot of viewers because of their casting. Sang wook and min jung because of their past dramas which garnered a lot of attention. Gyu ri’s background with drama activities and the flower boy rookie kang joon. I think that this is the main reason why there are still a lot of watchers of this drama. The casting basically impacted this drama. This is because if the casts are very good, viewers will tend to watch it and take no notice of the plotline of the drama. Therefore, I would say that this drama is purely on casting attention than story gainer which is quite depressing. I look forward to dramas that have a good story than good castings.

I will not make any reviews about the music they have used. I completely ignore the soundtracks they have used because I focused more about where the story is going and headed on.

In conclusion, I would not watch to re-watch the drama because the whole story is so cliché. It is predictable, yet very complicated. They focus more about casting famous rookies and experienced actors. For example, sang wook, gyu ri and min young. The rookies suchs as hellovenus yooyoung, infinite myungsoo and 5uprise kang joon who is known as the flower boy rookie now. Therefore, this drama revolves around the best of the best actors but not the best of the best storyline.

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