It's Beautiful Now - Not All That Beautiful, But Fairly Enjoyable!

Has Spoilers, read at your own risk!

Image from Google

The description said family drama and it reminded me of What Happens To My Family KDrama series. The story maintains quite a good pace till about the 20-25th episode after which it starts lagging. The storyline is very predictable but it is those real-life moments that are recreated that make you want to continue watching. 

This is the story of Grandfather Lee who is looking for his long-lost daughter and adopts a son. He does a fine job of bringing up this adopted son, Lee Min Ho, has a doting daughter-in-law and 3 handsome grandsons. The eldest son is nearing 40 but hasn't gotten married yet so the in-laws and friends of the daughter-in-law Kyung Ae keep taunting her for not being serious about getting her sons married. Thus starts the marriage project. 

So most of the first half of the series goes into how the 3 boys meet their better halves, how one tries to con the parents for the prize which they announce as a house Lee Min Ho and Kyung Ae had bought for their retirement, to start his own business and such.

Image from Internet

Among the 3 brothers and their pairs, I really enjoyed watching the eldest son Yoon Jae and his girlfriend and wife Hae Jun's story. It was very realistic, they showed both of them as being mature and practical. Yes, the comedy element made me lean toward this pair when compared to the others.

The middle brother is Hyun Jae, a very good-looking and hard-working, health-conscious lawyer, the hero of the series so he is shown to have the best characteristics, which unfortunately made me nauseous. They've shown him as the ideal man but all those girls swooning, trust me Hyun Jae in real life would be 10 different men. Extremely henpecked favours his GF/wife's parents more than his, seems like a pacifist, too ideal that makes him unrealistic. 

The youngest one Soo Jae is the typical spoilt son of the family. The apple of his mother's eye who sweet-talks her into anything he wants. But after his con is unravelled, his character becomes more focused.

The father Lee Min Ho is also pretty realistically portrayed, doesn't speak much, has his own thought process, an adopted son with scars from childhood. I won't call him perfect but he is more relatable.

The mother is also quite the typical one and favours the younger son more. We see it in real-life situations too, how many ever children a mother has, she always favours the youngest however old he or she gets. 

Hyun Jae and Mi Rae might come across as the ideal couple but they were a cringefest for me. Hyun Jae goes above and beyond for her and her family which is cringey, dialogues like sons-in-law are also family so I will get tested to see if I am a match for donating liver is stupid and silly. How on Earth can a stranger match with his wife's mother really beats me. Had to fast forward this couple's scenes. 

One particular scene which irritated me to the core was when Mi Rae gets pregnant and wants Kyung Ae to take care of the kid after it is born instead of her mother because she has to focus on her career. But when she heard her mom is sick, she immediately says she will take time off/work less to spend time with her mother. Dude is the baby, not a life? Such dumb scenes really sucked the momentum of the series. 

In the last couple of episodes where it is revealed that Hyun Jae could donate his liver to Soo Jung, Hyun Jae goes over the top to do what he thinks is right. I do understand it would probably be the right thing to do but he does not talk to his parents about it and I had emotions just like Kyung Ae. Just because he got married, it doesn't give him the right to overdo stuff for his in-laws. And that Mi Rae, ah she is the most irritating and selfish personality I have ever come across, I think I can write a blog on her alone. She gets disappointed when her mother refuses Hyun Jae's help, I wonder how her reaction would be if it was the other way around. 

In that situation, Hae Jun displayed the exact emotions with maturity and balance. 

The older characters in the series - Grandfather Lee, Kumo Kyung-soon, and Jun Ja, are cute and they play their part to the T. 

There's that irritating sister-in-law too, Jin Joo who is after her mother's money but also helps unravel a secret Soo Jung is hiding. 

Overall it is an okay series, saving grace is the elder brother and his wife, and the cousin Sung Soo and his family. I think the writer had real-life characters who he or she could refer to write this story, especially Mi Rae, for that one thing, hats off to the writer! But not for elongating the episode count lol!

One glaring mistake the director forgot to edit was shooting Hyun Jae before and after a haircut. 

In some scenes of the first few episodes, he has longer hair and then has a haircut, and then again all of a sudden he has the old hairstyle and then again the haircut. 

This series didn't warrant 50 episodes, could have cut short it to 40. 

Ok, of all the episodes, there is one quote that really connected with me, one that helped me sail through my dark days.

I will probably do a separate blog on the women of this series, there is a lot I can think of writing...

Did you watch this extra long series, did you like it? Let me know!