Hyena started a few weeks ago and after a very brilliant marketing campaign, I was excited to give it a try. Which leads to where I am today…conflicted. Come discuss the pros and cons of Hyena and help me decide if I will be continuing on this lovers turned enemies turned lovers journey.
Pro: Chemistry out the wazoo
Yoon He Jae (Joo Ji Hoon) and Jung Geum Ja (Kim Hye Soo) burn up the screen whenever they are together. The energy between the two as they banter and fight their way through multiple cases is palpable. It is a delight to see these two veteran actors together.
Con: Unlikable characters
Due to the influential world our two lawyers are representing, we meet a lot of undesirable people. We are talking the entitled rich that think everything revolves around them, and in this drama it does. Sadly, the story arcs seem contrived and are absent of any kind of organic development.
Pro: Unexpected character twists
There are a bunch of twists and turns, mostly related to our leading lady. While her actions are often ethically gray it does provide us for some entertaining moments.
Con: Gray Ethics
Sadly, because of these twists we see some really bad behavior. A lot of it perpetrated by our leads. If this is something that you can’t handle, then this is for sure not the drama for you. I usually remain unfazed, but some of our leading lady’s actions have me wincing.
Con: Boring side plots
Truthfully, if it wasn’t for the chemistry between the leads I would have already dropped this drama. Almost everyone is unlikable and the icky rich people are not getting their just desserts. Which means I have to wade through a lot of “meh” material to get those few great nuggets of OTP interaction.
So we come to the final question… Is it worth it? After thinking deeply and writing this post, I have to admit that it isn’t. I’ll probably be dropping this show sooner then later. There are just so many other dramas that give me happy vibes that it is not worth the negatives I mentioned above.
Til the next first impression,
Kmuse
Dramas With a Side of Kimchi
I like this…first episode was rough, Ms. Jung was very, very, very unlikable…but then it gets better. It’s actually rather fun watching the two leads, I’m in for the remainder.
I dropped this one after the first episode. Not my cup of tea.
I dropped this after 3 episodes. And it is because of the unlikeable characters. Both main leads play people that rub me the wrong way and while the female lead is the one working her way up and probably will have a sad story that made her this way – it wasn’t there yet after 3 episodes. All I saw was two morally corrupt despicable characters that I cannot root for, to the point that any redemption would be futile.
And I’m trying to understand what made House of Cards (which also has morally corrupt protagonists) one of my favourite non-asian series and this something I cannot stomach. I haven’t figured that out yet.