Descendants of the Sun

Likeable actors, a bunch of great lines, two romantic storylines, a military setting, a great soundtrack, beautiful Zakynthos masquerading as Uruk, and many other positives elevate Descendants of the Sun to something you must see. I also formed a stronger attachment to the series because a few weeks after it had aired I visited the cafe in Incheon where several key scenes were filmed and also experienced firsthand how much Koreans can fall for a story from television. The soundtrack was playing in almost every establishment, Joong-Ki Song had become the face of pretty much everything, every other song in the karaoke bar was also from the show, and there were more of those cute big-headed stuffed animals on the shelves than ramyeon. I know, in a few days it'll all go away again, and there'll be a new story. Still, it's incredible what Descendants had managed to do in a few weeks, and not just with all of Seoul. 4.5 stars. (06/27/2016)

When I started watching it, it wasn't the worst, but I kept telling myself I felt like I'd seen this somewhere before. And then I figured it out. Kim Eun-sook, writer. I've seen a few things from her and didn't particularly like any of them, which is why I can't really like this one because the lady in question is being ripped off. She's recycling what she's already used to protect nature, she's just setting it in a military/war setting. Again, I can say the same thing I said with A Gentleman's Dignity – it's all fine until the relationships are addressed; the central couple in particular just didn't grab me at all. I'm going to quote a person now who got it as well and alluded specifically to the central couple: "I don't feel anything." Not to mention that the main female character annoyed me, I couldn't become close with her, and I ended up disgusted with the actress, who I thought had a dead fish eye, so I didn't think she stood out in terms of her acting. The other couple was far more interesting and also better acted. Sure, it had those typical sweet moments, humor here and there, and some of the action scenes were also successful, but as a whole? I didn't enjoying it at all, if I hadn't talked myself out of it I would have thrown it away annoyed after the 9th episode. And I guess I wouldn't have made that mistake again, because it kept repeating the same thing over and over again, and then episode 14 came on and I was just like "are they serious?" [SLIGHT SPOILER!]in the beginning they send them into the black bags without having their corpses (missing for 7 years, no one witnessed their corpses or their deaths) and then the guys get shelled again within a year and a day to get a dose of "deserved" emotions. [END SPOILER]. I mean, the story is pieced together from episodes that are supposed to be appealing to the viewer, but the fact that they're weirdly edited, weirdly put together, nobody seems to care about that; the main thing is that Song Joong-ki is cute, the other couple is cute, they kiss and make adult jokes here and there... I was looking forward to it, but it was a huge disappointment. (04/15/2016)