“You can’t go back to the good times, but better times will come. New memories will be made.”

Gogh, The Starry Night is part of my Idol Actor Challenge, as it stars SNSD’s Kwon Yuri ♥

The drama is 4 hr long episodes on SBS, but first aired as 20 short episodes on China’s Sohu TV. It’s a webdrama that was a co-production between China’s Sohu TV and S.Korea’s Kim Jong Hyuk Studio.

Gogh, The Starry Night follow Go Ho (Kwon Yuri), a young woman who works in an advertising company. She has a bad tempered, but solid sunbae in Manager Kwang Tae Ho (Kim Young Kwang). A new manager comes in and Go Ho is sent to Team B, which just so happens to now be headed by her ex-boyfriend Hwang Ji Hoon (Lee Ji Hoon).

Go Ho must traverse the work place and her love life becomes incredibly complicated when it’s not just her ex and Tae Ho who are vying for her attention, but three others in the office!

Go Ho is cute, but she has also been hardened by her bad breakup and family situation. She has a temper of her own and isn’t afraid to let it loose. I really enjoyed that she stood up for herself and this also allowed her to have fun and be in control of the situations she found herself in. Also Go Ho was one for bickering and I love that!! On the side, Go Ho wants to be a writer and she starts an article series about the men in her office and the ways she star rates them. This was a super fun inclusion and introduced the male characters really well. It also shows Go Ho’s growth and understanding of people’s depths throughout the drama.

Tae Ho was the typical grumpy, bad tempered but incredibly hot male lead who is secretly helpful and caring to the female lead. Am I trash for that? Yes.

I will say, Kim Young Kwang mumbles a bit in this and I found that kind of distracting. Also Tae Ho’s character development is kind of confusing and all over the place. I think the writer wanted him to be too many things.

Hwang Ji Hoon, though his reasoning is kind of heartbreaking I understood why Go Ho didn’t choose him, I still wanted to see him be happy at the end. He cries so much! And certain needless things happened to this character near the end and I didn’t understand why. Parts of the “drama” were convoluted and unnecessary. He was actually really adorable and nice and I would have liked more resolution here.

And talking of resolution, this drama was so choppy! The beginning started so well, but we ended up having lots of threads that were either ended off screen, not talked about or not even expanded. We spend the majority of the drama watching the two teams battle it out to win a client with their advertisement. Do we see the ads? No. Do we know who won? Kind of… but only in passing. Was I satisfied? No.

The production was great up until the last hour or so and then there were suddenly scenes that had no transitions that made it jarring. Scenes were out of order and flashbacks were a big thing. It honestly felt like writer had an end goal but ran out of time so had to rush the last quarter.

This concept of office romance is nothing new, but there is a reason why we tune in. If this had been better paced and had the same quality of – well everything – in the first half as the second it would have been great! Especially as Yuri and Kim Young Kwang have great chemistry!

The acting was good, again nothing amazing, but for this kind of drama it doesn’t need to be. Yuri surprised me, as the only acting I’ve seen of hers so far was in ep 2 of Fashion King where I don’t think I saw her blink once! I’m excited to see more of her works!

Also shout out to me squealing when Lee Jong Suk and Park Shin Hye had cameos!! 😂

RATINGS:

• Plot: 4/10
• Acting: 7/10
• Production: 6/10
• Enjoyment: 6/10

OVERALL ENJOYMENT: 5.75/10 

CREDITS:

• Written by: Shin Yoo Dam
• Directed by: Jo Soo Won & Kim Young Hwan
• Executive Producers: Kim Hun & Coco Ma
• Producers: Son Gi Won & Charles Zhang
• Cinematography: Choi Sung Ho & Kil Sang Su
• Release Date: July 2016 – China/ October 2016 – S. Korea

Thanks for reading! I hope you’re having a lovely day~