Warm & Cozy Review

Title: Warm and Cozy
AKA: Jeju Island Gatsby
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Mystery
Episodes: 16
Broadcast Period: May-2015 to Jul-2015
Cast: Kang Sora, Yoo Yun Suk, Lee Sung Jae, Kim Sung Oh, Seo Yi Ahn, Jin Young, Ok Ji Young, Lee Jung Moon, Lee Han Wie

Is an enduring romance between an angry ant and a lazy grasshopper possible? Lee Jung Joo (Kang So Ra) has worked tirelessly for five years for a clothing company to try to improve her station in life. But despite all of her hard work, life keeps throwing curveballs at her and she is left with no job or boyfriend. Angry at the world, she ends up on Jeju Island to start over and rebuild her life. Baek Gun Woo (Yoo Yeon Seok), on the other hand, has always had a comfortable life. As chef restaurateur of a restaurant called Warm and Cozy, he doesn’t have to work that hard to succeed because his family has always paved the way for him to succeed. But falling in love with the scrappy Jung Joo may be the toughest challenge he has faced in his carefree life. Can the two opposites find love in the scenic island of Jeju?

Apparently, the Hong sisters wrote this drama, but as far as I know all their works are mostly enjoyable and fun, plus they are pretty well-known in South Korea. However, this drama couldn’t have been more boring. I found myself struggling to get through it. Now the story sounds simple, but with the Hong sisters I expected it to be easy, to be fun, to be effortless. Yet, it was anything but. Kang So Ra was the perfect Jung Joo, since she’s the best when it comes to naive and clumsy characters (except for Misaeng, still can’t forget her in that one). However, I didn’t enjoy Yoo Yun Suk’s acting as much as So Ra’s. He was okay but not that outstanding, and definitely lacking for a main character. The characters from Jeju did an amazing job and I enjoyed the secondary characters acting as well. It is sad for a drama if the only thing you can say was good, were the cast. I could go on and on about how dull and repetitive this drama is, but I won’t. Instead, I implore you to simply not watch it. If you like a drama with character development, where there’s something to look forward to every week, and where the leads don’t fall into a recycled formula each episode, don’t waste your time with Warm and Cozy.

☆☆☆☆ / 4 out of 5 stars

♥♥/ 2 out of 5 hearts

Answer Me 1994 Review

Title: Answer Me 1994

AKA: Reply 1994

Genre: Romance, Comedy

Episodes: 21

Broadcast period: Oct-2013 to Dec-2013

Cast: Go Ara, Jung Woo, Yoo Yun Suk, Kim Sung Kyun, Son Ho Joon, Baro and Min Do Hee 

In the 94’s the first Kpop group emerged, but also the basketball hype was massive after the success of the TV series “Last Game” about a high school basketball team. That led the Korean basketball team to get noticed a lot and made them get their own fan bases. A member of that group is Sung Na Jung (Go Ara) who loves Lee Sang Min, one of the most popular players.

When the Sung family, Na Jungs family, moves to Seoul from the country side, they decide to become a boarding house for country kids that start in college. They themselves are a family of three, mom, dad and daughter Na Jung, but also neighbor ‘Sseureki’ (Jung Woo) that used to be friends with their son who passed away, and he somehow filled that spot in the family. Moving to the boarding house are: ‘Chilbong ’(Yoo Yeon Suk) a baseball protégé, ‘Samchunpo’ (Kim Sung Kyun) a clean-neat fool of a country bumpkin, ‘Haetae’ (Son Ho Jun) a kid who wants to be more Seoul-ish, ‘Bingeure’ (Baro) a kid who doesn’t know what to do with his future, and Jo Yoon Jin (Min Do Hee) a Seo Taiji Boys fanatic.

This drama revolves around how these youths also known as generation X, are living in the big city and how they accustom to life, love and future…

I am a huge ‘Reply’ fan so this one I had to watch, even though I never heard of any of the actors. I seriously fell for them all and I like the overall story a bit more than the first Reply drama. I knew - like many others - what the ending was going to be due to the way of portraying the drama, and also the flow of it all, and yet I sort of had the same feeling in the other drama. The drama is a bit different though, due to the focus on historical things instead of idols and kpop, which made me a bit more intrigued while watching. The couples were cute, funny, and had me rooting for them from the beginning.  I love they kind of did a mix of both 1997 and 1994 towards the ending, kind of makes you squirm.

So all in all, a definite watch!

☆☆☆☆½ / 4½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥½ / 4½ out of 5 hearts