It is not very often I watch a series with so much doubt about its quality, but this particular one I'm reviewing, Cafe Minamdang, left me with no option.
I don't think I will be saying any good thing about this Kdrama and I genuinely won't mind leaking some spoilers because, by the end of this review, I want to make sure that anyone that was already planning to watch this will give it a rest and focus on more serious series.
I just got off the back of watching the well-made Alchemy Of Souls when I decided to dive into this.
For the record, according to the data I extracted from AsianWiki, this particular show has 20% more viewers than Alchemy Of Souls and I was genuinely convinced by the plot and casts that this will make for a very interesting series. But, from the very first scene of the first episode of this 18-episode drama, I started seeing so many things that made me cringe with disbelief.
The Plot was the only decent thing about this Kdrama
As I said, the plot looked good on paper.
This is the story of a former criminal profiler who was framed while chasing a psychopathic serial killer and ends up serving jail time. After serving his time, he used his profiling skill to pull scams as a shaman in his attempt to find the serial killer... and whatnot.
What went wrong?
*****Almost everything. There are levels to this stuff and the plot ticks all the marks for me. I've always been fascinated by Kdramas that have to do with psychos, crime, investigations, action and co.
This series was supposed to be a good blend of all these and it was, but the scriptwriter and director did a VERY POOR job. No kidding.
1. The Funny Stuff.
Every time they tried to bring humour into a scene, it gave me an uncomfortable feeling because all the 'funny stuff' were forced. It didn't seem natural and the sound effects used to heighten the humour ended up having a reverse effect.
Every 'funny stuff' that was added to this show was completely unnecessary. They drifted too much from the main plot and this is fundamentally why this series had to last for 18 episodes.
Jeezzzz... If they only focused on the crime aspect of the show, this would have been killed and buried in 10 episodes and it would have been more interesting.
2. The action scenes.
The female lead was introduced as someone that took out a whole gang of ruthless gangsters without taking a hit. The main lead had a guy in his team who was supposed to be very skilful in martial arts. The killers in the show have been killing since childhood.
Add these characters up and you will expect a very well-choreographed and interesting fight scene. But, the director successfully ruined this side of the show. The action scenes were poorly choreographed.
It's even more embarrassing because I've seen some of these actors do very well in action movies. But all the action scenes in this show were filled with flower boys and girls. It is awful.
3. The Character development.
The main female lead and a bunch of other characters had a role which didn't develop as the show progressed. The character that was most affected by this poor character development is that of Su-Cheol which was played by Kwak Si-Yana.
He was supposed to be a sidekick to the main lead, but the idea of making him act as a mentally deranged sidekick was uncalled for. It didn't add anything to the overall development of the show and it's awful how it seems like the introduction of each new episode worsened his disability.
He had an awful lot of screen time and every freaking one of those was frustrating to watch.
How did this show get such a high rating and viewership?
8.9 rating in Asianwiki 8.0 rating in Mydramalist 7.1 rating in IMBD
Seriously, how did people rate this show so highly? This is no match to any of the first sets of Kdramas I watched back in 2008/2009. It's embarrassing to see something like this in 2022.
Just because the actors made so much effort to bring life to this poorly written and directed show, I will painstakingly give it a 4/10.
Take away all the cheap-rated comedy scenes and the poorly executed action scenes, then... I may consider giving a 6/10.
This is the worst Kdrama I've seen this year. I hope Narco-Saints won't be anything like this. Fingers crossed!
Thanks For Not Missing Any Full-stop Or Comma All images are taken from MyDramaList
Posted using CineTV
