Story: Ji Hae-soo is a psychiatrist in a hospital in Korea. Due to some events in the past she is scared of intimacy. Her personality as well as her trauma make it difficult for her to have a relationship that lasts for a long time.
On the other hand Jang Jae-yeol is a popular novelist who had his ex-girlfriend plagiarizing his novel. Instead of getting back at her he cancels the lawsuit and decides to go back to writing. A construction for three months starts in his home and he moves into his house in Hongdae for the time being - which eventually makes Hae-soo his roommate along with Hae-soo's senior Jo Dong-min and Park Soo-kwang, a young man who suffers from Tourette syndrome.
As the four of them live together they eventually get to know each other and despite not really liking each other at first Hae-soo and Jae-yeol fall in love. Over time, they help each other to heal their scars from past traumas and tragic events within their families.
Personally I thought this story line sounds like the most basic K-Drama stuff you can find. Just by that description and by knowing K-Dramaland I had an idea where this would go and had pretty much 90% of the story figured out between episodes 2 and 6 which is actually sad. This drama in itself was kinda obvious or maybe it was just me. While I kinda do like the idea of two messed up characters getting together and helping each other this was just turned into the basic romance and especially Hae-soo's character was a victim of poor writing in my humble opinion. While I liked her at first I came to hate her as the story continued. In the early episodes, the story was quite fast-paced which made it very interesting and kept me going but towards the end it turned out so slow that I found myself getting annoyed over it.
Cast: Jo In-sung as Jang Jae-yeol. While his character is the typical good-looking player in the beginning it turns out soon enough that there is more than meets the eye. I do see his character to be one of the better developed ones in this drama, especially regarding the events of the past. It seems like the writers were really thinking about how his character could or should be developed. As an actor Jo In-sung definitely did a great job portraying him. The acting felt real and I totally believed everything he said. Definitely a great actor in a great role.
Gong Hyo-jin as Ji Hae-soo. As some of you might now I love Gong Hyo-jin ever since Master's Sun and she is still one of my favorite actresses. But her character in this drama was okay in the beginning and started to turn into a stupid, useless crybaby female lead somewhere along the way. I do remember that it was the end of episode 6 and the beginning of episode 7 where I was close to yelling at my laptop because how blind and stupid can a person be?! After calming down I still continued to watch it and it got slightly better again but let's say I still can't bring myself to like her character in this drama. However, I see it more as a thing of bad writing. The writer(s) probably didn't really know what to do anymore and fell into the cliché-trap.
Sung Dong-il as Jo Dong-min. The old man in the household, Jo Dong-min, is quite an interesting character. While he can be noisy and childish he also has a serious side to him that mainly shows when he's treating his patients. I totally enjoyed the acting of Sung Dong-il and think that this was a great show for him.
Lee Kwang-soo as Park Soo-kwang. How creative to turn the syllables of the actors name around if you can't think of a character name. Anyway, as a character Soo-kwang suffers from Tourette syndrome and therefore has trouble with females. But he loved Oh So-nyeo for quite some time and started to not only care for her but buy her a lot of things as well. Regarding the acting I actually enjoyed seeing Lee Kwang-soo in this drama. I don't know much about Tourette syndrome patients but it seemed like he really learned about his character and managed to make it seem real.
Jin Kyung as Dr. Lee Young-jin. I don't know much about her but I liked her acting. As a character Lee Young-jin goes through the struggle many women seem to know; choosing between your career or your own family. I felt like I could understand her and that this character really came to life so definitely kudos to the actress for doing such a good job.
Lee Sung-kyung as Oh So-nyeo. A pretty girl doing a lot of things she actually shouldn't do but she doesn't care. That's Oh So-nyeo. I think Lee Sung-kyung did well even though her character came off a little annoying and more than a little bit manipulative but then again it was probably again the writing and she didn't do a bad job in following what she was supposed to be like.
Other actors in this drama include Do Sang-woo, Do Kyung-soo, Yang Ik-joon, Tae Hang-ho and Cha Hwa-yeon.
Soundtrack: The OST of this drama actually includes quite a few huge names in the K-Pop and OST business like Davichi, Crush, Wheesung, Hong Dae-kwang, Yoon Mi-rae and M.C. The Max. The Korean song I probably like the most was Crush feat. Punch's "잠 못드는 밤 (Sleepless Night)". While I did enjoy the OST overall I have to say that the songs that stand out the most are not Korean songs and are actually in no way related to this drama. I'm talking about "Hero" by Family of the Year specifically. While I neither liked nor disliked the song before I still knew it (which 90% of the people commenting on Youtube didn't seem to do) I have it stuck in my head now.
6.5/10
Overall this drama was, and is, one of the most hyped dramas of 2014 and again it seems to be my own problem. I love the actors, I liked the idea but I literally ended up either yelling at my laptop or playing on my phone towards the end of the drama. And what I mean with my own problem is this; I dislike dramas most people love most of the time. And I like dramas people heavily criticize. Is it because of expectations? Possible, I was looking forward to watching this drama. But I couldn't bring myself to give it a better rating than 6.5, I even considered a worse rating with 5.5 or 5.0 for some time but I've seen much worse dramas.
