My Beautiful Bride Review

Title: My Beautiful Bride

AKA: Areumdawoon Naeui Shinboo

Genre: Thriller, Romance, Melodrama

Episodes: 16

Broadcast Period: Jun-2015 to Aug-2015

Cast: Kim Moo Yul, Lee Shi Young, Go Sung Hee, Ryu Seung Soo, Park Hae Joon, Son Jong Hak, Lee Jae Yung

The storyline is about Kim Do Hyung (Kim Moo Yul) whose fiance, Yoon Joo Young (Ko Sung Hee), vanished from the surface of the earth and he found himself in an everlasting journey between the past and the present in order to find her. There’s a violence and power hierarchy when it comes to the world of the underground. The first step are the loan sharks and if they can’t get the amount of money the debtor owes them the Shadows take charge of the overall situation. Everything started three years ago when the leader of Shadows, Song Hak Soo (Lee Jae Yong), was caught by the police force after a massive operation under the command of Cha Yoon Mi (Lee Si Young) and Park Hyung Sik (Park Hae Joon). While searching for his fiancee, Kim Do Hyung quickly finds himself against the Shadows.

OCN indeed! Cruel City style indeed. Bloody, intense, heavy, noir till the end. It's exactly what I adore and love. I decided to watch it impulsively and just fell in love with it. It gives you this happiness and a thought that I did well watching it.  Oh boy what a surprise it was, reading that it was the same director as the one behind Cruel City that directed this drama. It made me draw parallels between those two. The dark world there is deep in society, a man fighting for what he believes and a woman that is desperately entangled in that world. Damn was I impressed and freaking hyperventilating half the time? YES, because of all the fighting and racing. I didn’t know how cool a man in a suit riding a mountain bike after a car before I watched Kim Moo Yul in action. At first I was not sure why they picked this actor, I mean, I don’t know him (and that’s very rare!!! Unless he was a rookie/newbie), when I looked him up, he had a lot of work and apparently a well-known person (shock). Although he was kind of a stranger for me at first, I slowly fell for his acting! He is not that handsome when you see him at first, but he becomes more and more charming and real throughout the drama. The girl and the rest of the cast were amazingly good too, I don’t think there were one single person that didn’t give it their all because you could even feel threatened by the gangsters behind, so definitely thumbs up to them. One thing that bothered me was how they tried to prolong the drama, before I started I really wondered how they were going to fill up 16 episodes, with him trying to rescue the girl. And as expected it did feel stretched out in the end, but somehow you kinda overlook it because of all the action. All in all, great OCN.

☆☆☆☆½ / 4½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥½ / 4½ out of 5 hearts

Bunjis Verdict

Hmm, OCN keeps disappointing me. This is yet another one that I could have avoided watching.

As far as police and thriller dramas go, this one had a good starting plot, and then suddenly ended becoming a mafia/gangster/wanna-be-underground’ish war. It started very intriguing where any person watching would become very confused and even doubt your own eyes and yourself. I thought it was well-thought, until episode 4 (or somewhere after that). It just goes downhill, and ends with something as ridiculous as all-on war between gang mobsters. I know it was a sub-plot to begin with, but it ended by becoming the main plot? Also, I understand if you must do that, but it just feels like a desperate attempt to make it scary.

BUT! Besides that, I gotta say the acting was on point, so was the dialogue. So, if you like mobster movies, and like thrillers, this is a definite pick. Plus, it has a bit of mystery which makes it watchable.

To sum up: an interesting and intense police action drama, with a “bit” of gangster in it.

☆☆☆☆ / 4 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥½ / 3½ out of 5 hearts