Wednesday, November 29, 2017

TV Review: While You Were Sleeping

                                             While You Were Sleeping Review
While You Were Sleeping is about a young woman named Nam Hong Joo who has been having dreams about things that will happen in the future since she was a child, sometimes the dreams are of good things that will happen but most of the time there about bad things that will happen. Hong joo has never been able to change the future that she has seen in her dreams no matter how much she has tried so by the start of the series she has given up on using her dreams to change the future until she sees that her mother will die after she has been in some sort of accident which leads Hong joo try to find a way to prevent the accident in order to save her mother but really all it does is make her worry. Around the same time that Hong joo has the dream about her mother Jung Jae chan, a rookie prosecutor ends up moving in next door to Hong joo and shortly after he moves in he ends up having a dream about Hong joo's future which ends in her trying to kill herself because in that future she is being framed for a crime and her mother had died. At first Jae chan doesn't think the dream means anything until he notices that things are happening the same way they did in the dream and this leads him to doing what he can to change what happens and he is able to succeed in changing the future but he ends up looking foolish to everyone but Hong joo who is grateful that he saved her and mother from a bad future and that someone has similar abilities to her.

After the first episodes most of the other episodes in the series deal with Hong joo and Jae chan trying to find a way to prevent bad futures from happening and most of the futures tend to involve whatever the current case that Jae chan is working on. At first Jae chan is reluctant to actually believe in the dreams or do anything that could cause him to loose his job because he's afraid that he won't be able to make things any better but Hong joo is able to convince him that he should at least try to make things better and that she won't be disappointed in him if he fails. Han Woo tak a police officer who was saved by Jae chan preventing the accident in the first episode also develops the ability to se the future in his dreams and he ends up befriending and helping Hong joo and Jae chan with preventing bad futures from happening and he is the one who is the most interested in trying to figure out why and how they have the abilities they do.

This show is one that I found myself enjoying mostly for the characters and the relationships that they have between them rather than because of the series plot. Hong joo was someone who comes across as pretty odd and she is completely okay with that I loved how she completely embraced all her weirdness. Although Hong joo could be pretty quirky I like that she is someone who is still clearly very smart and we see that she is very good at her job as a reporter once she goes back to it, I also like that she is someone who has a very firm sense of right and wrong. Jae chan is someone who likes to look a lot more well put together than he actually is and he is a lot more fearful of looking foolish and gets embarrassed a lot more easily than Hong joo does since he's about just as quirky as she is but he's more ashamed of it. I like that Jae chan is someone who has to work really hard to be successful at things and that he is often filled with self doubt when it comes whether or not he'll be able to win the cases he's working on but I like that at same time he can't not do what he believes is the right thing to do even it's something that makes his life harder. The character of Woo tak is different from Hong joo and Jae chan in that he seems be a lot cooler and more normal than the two of them but he like the two of them is unwilling to not do the right thing just because it's easy.

The relationship between Hong joo and Jae chan is one that is built on the friendship that the end up developing at the beginning of the series and is one that is built off the small gestures of affections that they show each other through out the series. The things that make their bound what it is are the smaller moments such as Hong joo telling Jae chan that she wouldn't be disappointed in him if he failed as long as he tried or Jae chan holding Hong Joo's hand and promising to hold her hand when she returned to work while knowing that doing her job could lead to her death in the future. Through out the series Hong joo and Jae chan are there for each other offering emotional support to one another whenever they need it and they are able to communicate openly through which is something that made me love them so much as a couple.

Overall I really loved this drama there are so many characters and relationships that I didn't mention in my review that I loved as well and they really made the series all the more wonderful or interesting for existing. This show was one that was made by it's characters and I was more than happy to watch them grow over the course of the series. This show was one that I thought had a great look to it and I thought that the music was great as well. Please tell me your thoughts on this drama.

2 comments:

  1. I loved the premise of it! Always knowing what the future holds is such an interesting conflict. I love Lee Jong Suk as always! And it seemed there was a pretty good connection between him and Suzy ( though I'm sad to hear about the break up of Suzy and Lee Minho. I hope he's doing okay. :( ) Anyway. You know all my thoughts from my review... but it was good one. I still think I like both Pinocchio and W better. I need to catch up on the rest of his stuff!

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    1. This series did have a pretty interesting premise and yet I still found myself most intrigued by the characters like I always do. I really thought that our two leads had a very nice connection with each other as well although I heard a lot of other people disagree on that point. I will agree that objectively speaking that Pinocchio and W are better shows but I'm not sure if I prefer them over this show on a subjective level yet in time I'll be able to tell were I'll rank these series in comparison to those. I too still have a few Lee Jong suk series to catch up on and I still have to watch all his movies so you really aren't that far behind me.

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