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Nam Goong Min was fantastic, the rest – ehhhh... That drama asked for a lot from me when it came to suspension of disbelief and I couldn’t always manage it.
Also it took me a while to get over dissonance between a romantic comedy about the cute quirky couple and a serious drama about the serial killer. IMO The Girl Who Sees Smells wanted to be these two things at once and didn’t really succeeded at mixing them together into one coherent show.
I’m glad I watched this drama, for Nam Goong Min and a few other things, but I can’t really recommend it.
More below with spoilers. I will get all the complaining out of the way first. And then I will spend the rest of the post talking about the things I liked, which means that mainly I will rave about Nam Goong Min and his acting talent. 😊
When I wrote about suspension of disbelief it wasn’t the titular girl who sees smells I had in mind. You say that this woman was knocked down by a car three years ago, was in coma for the next six months and now her left pupil is bigger than her right one and in an eerie blue-green color, and that’s why she can see smells? Ok, that’s perfectly fine, I accept that. But a lot of other things that supposed to be realistic, at least in that TV show way, were just so bad. During the last six episodes I fast-forwarded a lot. Because a lot depended on coincidence and the police behaving like complete idiots. Or people keeping secrets without there being the reason for it, just because the information must be withheld. Because if it wasn’t the plot would be resolved in one episode.
Kwon Jae Hee is shown to be a cold, intelligent, meticulously planning serial killer. You don’t need to dumb down the cops to drag out the final confrontation. That killer is smart enough to deceive the cops who can also be smart but have to play by the rules. Or make the drama shorter if you don’t have enough material for 16 episodes.
There were other, less annoying things, but it all added up to my general disappointment with this drama. I wouldn’t have finished it if not for Nam Goong Min.
Shin Se Kyung playing the main character Oh Cho Rim is a beautiful woman, and she is still very beautiful even when one of her pupils is bigger and in different color. But whenever people see her without contact lens that makes her left eye look normal they recoil as if she’s suddenly a hideous monster. One time there was even a child that started crying hysterically in fear when she saw Cho Rim’s eye.
The male lead Moo Gak had been so traumatized by his sister’s death a few years ago that after two months of no sleep and constant pain, he'd fainted and was clinically dead for ten days. When he woke up, he'd lost the sense of smell and taste, and is unable to feel pain. To show that the drama has him for instance drink a cup of boiling hot coffee and other things like that. But he only doesn’t feel pain, he isn’t invincible, so drinking scalding hot coffee would still damage the inside of his mouth and his tongue. Bur the consequences are never mentioned. And there is a lot of things like that when it comes to his inability to feel pain.
But were a few things I liked, and it wasn’t only Nam Goong Min’s performance.
One of them was a very cool second female lead Lieutenant Yeom Mi played by Yoon Jin Seo.
The best scenes in the whole drama are the ones from episode 14 when Kwon Jae Hee kidnapped Yeom Mi and kept her for six days in his secret murder chamber. It were just the scenes of two of them talking and playing mind games. And it looks as Yeom Mi is in a worse position and Jae Hee has all the power, she is kidnapped and kept locked up after all. But still she can read him quite easily, and rattle and unnerve him. And you can see that he is impressed with her ability to do that. And I love Yoon Jin Seo’s acting in those scenes. She’s great in the whole drama, but especially here. When she looks so poised and calm, not showing any fear, when Jae Hee can see her, but you can also see her anxiousness and worry when he leaves.
The main couple was cute and got together pretty quickly without dragging out “will they/won’t they”, which was nice. I enjoyed their scenes in the first few episodes. And there was no unnecessary love triangle, and for a short while I was afraid about that.
But the best was definitely Nam Goong Min. This is the second time Nam Goong Min as a villain stole the drama from everyone else for me. He looks beautiful. He has a few scenes when he works out shirtless – thank you for that, drama. 😊 And he is, as always, amazing as Kwon Jae Hee. On the surface he’s all smiles and easy charm and soothing voice with people. And then there is the scene when the viewer finds out that this charming young man is a serial killer – and his face is so calm, but his eyes go so cold and merciless... It’s creepy and perfect and beautiful to watch. I wish we got more about him, his backstory and what made him into the serial killer. There were hints, but nothing was confirmed, and I was left wanting to know so much more.
I browsed Youtube for fanvids and BTS vids and I have one rec:
Heathens - Kwon Jae Hee fanvid by Mini Moo
Also it took me a while to get over dissonance between a romantic comedy about the cute quirky couple and a serious drama about the serial killer. IMO The Girl Who Sees Smells wanted to be these two things at once and didn’t really succeeded at mixing them together into one coherent show.
I’m glad I watched this drama, for Nam Goong Min and a few other things, but I can’t really recommend it.
More below with spoilers. I will get all the complaining out of the way first. And then I will spend the rest of the post talking about the things I liked, which means that mainly I will rave about Nam Goong Min and his acting talent. 😊
When I wrote about suspension of disbelief it wasn’t the titular girl who sees smells I had in mind. You say that this woman was knocked down by a car three years ago, was in coma for the next six months and now her left pupil is bigger than her right one and in an eerie blue-green color, and that’s why she can see smells? Ok, that’s perfectly fine, I accept that. But a lot of other things that supposed to be realistic, at least in that TV show way, were just so bad. During the last six episodes I fast-forwarded a lot. Because a lot depended on coincidence and the police behaving like complete idiots. Or people keeping secrets without there being the reason for it, just because the information must be withheld. Because if it wasn’t the plot would be resolved in one episode.
Kwon Jae Hee is shown to be a cold, intelligent, meticulously planning serial killer. You don’t need to dumb down the cops to drag out the final confrontation. That killer is smart enough to deceive the cops who can also be smart but have to play by the rules. Or make the drama shorter if you don’t have enough material for 16 episodes.
There were other, less annoying things, but it all added up to my general disappointment with this drama. I wouldn’t have finished it if not for Nam Goong Min.
Shin Se Kyung playing the main character Oh Cho Rim is a beautiful woman, and she is still very beautiful even when one of her pupils is bigger and in different color. But whenever people see her without contact lens that makes her left eye look normal they recoil as if she’s suddenly a hideous monster. One time there was even a child that started crying hysterically in fear when she saw Cho Rim’s eye.
The male lead Moo Gak had been so traumatized by his sister’s death a few years ago that after two months of no sleep and constant pain, he'd fainted and was clinically dead for ten days. When he woke up, he'd lost the sense of smell and taste, and is unable to feel pain. To show that the drama has him for instance drink a cup of boiling hot coffee and other things like that. But he only doesn’t feel pain, he isn’t invincible, so drinking scalding hot coffee would still damage the inside of his mouth and his tongue. Bur the consequences are never mentioned. And there is a lot of things like that when it comes to his inability to feel pain.
But were a few things I liked, and it wasn’t only Nam Goong Min’s performance.
One of them was a very cool second female lead Lieutenant Yeom Mi played by Yoon Jin Seo.
The best scenes in the whole drama are the ones from episode 14 when Kwon Jae Hee kidnapped Yeom Mi and kept her for six days in his secret murder chamber. It were just the scenes of two of them talking and playing mind games. And it looks as Yeom Mi is in a worse position and Jae Hee has all the power, she is kidnapped and kept locked up after all. But still she can read him quite easily, and rattle and unnerve him. And you can see that he is impressed with her ability to do that. And I love Yoon Jin Seo’s acting in those scenes. She’s great in the whole drama, but especially here. When she looks so poised and calm, not showing any fear, when Jae Hee can see her, but you can also see her anxiousness and worry when he leaves.
The main couple was cute and got together pretty quickly without dragging out “will they/won’t they”, which was nice. I enjoyed their scenes in the first few episodes. And there was no unnecessary love triangle, and for a short while I was afraid about that.
But the best was definitely Nam Goong Min. This is the second time Nam Goong Min as a villain stole the drama from everyone else for me. He looks beautiful. He has a few scenes when he works out shirtless – thank you for that, drama. 😊 And he is, as always, amazing as Kwon Jae Hee. On the surface he’s all smiles and easy charm and soothing voice with people. And then there is the scene when the viewer finds out that this charming young man is a serial killer – and his face is so calm, but his eyes go so cold and merciless... It’s creepy and perfect and beautiful to watch. I wish we got more about him, his backstory and what made him into the serial killer. There were hints, but nothing was confirmed, and I was left wanting to know so much more.
I browsed Youtube for fanvids and BTS vids and I have one rec:
Heathens - Kwon Jae Hee fanvid by Mini Moo
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(Also, awwww, your icon! <3)
no subject
(Also, awwww, your icon! <3)
Thanks. I spent an hour yesterday making Nam Goong Min icons. I’m not very good at it, but I really wanted a cute icon of him smiling – like the one you have. That one, and the one with this comment, were the best of the bunch. 😊
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Randomly, my brother really enjoyed Hot Stove League and is trying to persuade me to watch it. *g*
I made a few Chief Kim ones, but sadly none of them came out very well. /belated reply, hi!
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And what do you mean your Chief Kim icons aren’t good? They are and I’m taking this one. 😊
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