Interesting`

Well I have to admit when I started watching I was very interested especially about possibly learning more about single mother raising a child on her own. The flashbacks helped fill in some key points but basically 14 years later the same group of students basically managed to come together again. Unfortunately anything after this point basically goes south and I have no idea where the writer's minds went but it sure didn't answer what seriously felt like the plot. Who was the 14 year olds dad?

I think all of the actors did well with what they had but the script was a shambles. Sort side when the supporting cast actually seemed more interesting than the main characters. Seriously no re-watch value here. Thank God it was a short drama.

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Great Story

Well this is like my 5th time watching this series. The main actors have great chemistry and the secondary plots are very well interwoven together. After my 5th time it's still one of my most favorite series to watch. Nothing's perfect but this is one of the closet stories I've watched that came very close. The struggle of getting a job and feeling useful is real. I guess any cultural has some of the same pitfalls. But it seemed like they did bring up some real issues but essentially swept right pass them and made them seem acceptable. That is probably the largest single flaw to this series. Another company sharing something they should not have is wrong in any culture especially after that character already had issues with putting time in for a job. Another problem is making someone the scapegoat and lying but then basically getting away with it and the people in charge allowing. That should have just as severe consequences as well. Other than this one particular story thread the rest of the story is very well done and is hugely enjoyable. Even though the ending ends up great it seems somewhat tainted because of this minor but big social problem that they put into the story but sort of glossed over it in the end. Then again I get the feeling that it happens every where in the world and not just in Korea.

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Discover the right path to the solution

Well originally I thought this was a Korean rewrite of the original movie "Finding Forrester". In that movie it was about bitter old man who lost his brother and was considered a literary genius. He befriends a young man with huge potential but an education system that wants to just use him for what they need him for and the main bad guy is a stuck up literature teacher who was a failure in every sense of the word. Needless to say both stories are virtually identical in general plot the writers of "In Our Prime" ended up changing literature to math but essentially had the same story. But I will say that the Korean movie tended to show how the Korean education system seems to value getting money from "rich" people instead of actually wanting to teach students to strive for personal goals and achievements. It's sad that the educators in this movie wanted to cover up a scandal that essentially made them all accessories to the facts but they were too concerned about saving face and would actually throw an actual "poor" student underneath the proverbial bus because it was easier than to actually set an example to the students and tell the truth. The 3 main characters were amazing actors I'm not familiar with of them except for the actor who played the North Korean defector. Even with the pain and sadness when he thought of what he had taught the student he came back with courage and ended up finding a new path and a new life. Excellent movie. A little sad that I've seen so many Korean movies that seem to make their education system seem very corrupt and dishonest.

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Good general drama

The overall high level story from start to finish is very engaging. Just about anyone from any country can relate to the day in and day out highs and lows that is portrayed in this drama. But as with anything now in 2023 you can see many subtle undercurrents about things in general. Some of the other reviews made comments about this being a China promotional drama to draw tourists back to China. Not sure how accurate that really is but from a drama story stand point it truly stands out because it actually feels like a story about every day people meeting, becoming friends and helping each other while also trying to find their way without the current stress that society has pressured people into believing they have to do certain things in order to consider yourself successful.

There are truly many very heart felt natural moments through out the episodes and all of the actors and characters have meaningful parts thru out. While you can say there's a FL and ML to the drama this has to be one of the few dramas where many characters had pretty good supporting side stories to the main story. The main story and side stories were all very well entwined with each other kudos for pulling that off since that's usually very rare to have happen in most dramas.

The OST was very nice and mellow but towards the end it got repetitive but still nice.

Totally amazing that I actually watched a cdrama that didn't have someone either stealing, killing, getting revenge. While they did manage to have someone die of cancer which seems almost mandatory these days. At least this time it was more to set the whole rest of the story instead of drawing out a bad ending. Lots of Chinese idioms and culture with very positive outlooks in general.

Will probably rewatch again a year or so from now to compare 2022/2023 to how the future is for China. Don't see how it's getting straight 10's except for trying to push towards a high rating to get more people to watch. Sort of feels more contrived to push certain themes and views to foreign viewers.

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Finally

After reading so many of the reviews about this series writing my review seems rather tame. So people gave terrible reviews because they consider it a drama. Indeed the drama in this series was somewhat weak but for me I fully looked at this as being one of the best Korean "Rom/Coms" to date. Yeah they added a little drama but nothing overpowering the true romance and comedy this series was trying to provide. I'm not that familiar with Korean society in general but lately I have been noticing the subject about mental illness or mental trauma. It seems that it's a taboo topic and people would rather lie or cover up. I'm sure if that reflects real Korean society but my Korean friends don't refrute the notion or concept. Irregardless it was nice that the writer's kept the story simple but nice, still provide ups and downs but mostly good emotional ups and not too many downs. I think the back story was just enough and for once the writer's seemed to actually provide the ML's full nice completion of their love but they also provided something for each of the secondary couples in the story. There may be more true "Rom/Coms" out there like this but really liked the fact that the writer's gave worthy ending by devoting the last 5 episodes to just truly the couples, romance and comedy. All of the characters had their moments and this was by far one of the most refreshing series I have watched in awhile. Kudos to the whole cast and the FL and ML had amazing chemistry.

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