Nice Guy;
Innocent Man
세상 어디에도 없는 차칸남자9/10
It’s
3:00 am in the morning, and I can’t sleep.
I’d like to blame my having watched the series finale of Nice Guy, but
sadly I think it’s just my insomnia kicking in.
It’s been a few hours. I think I
can be as objective. It not, well then you
can blame my insomnia.
Nice Guys Finish Last. Yes or no? See my answer beyond the ‘Spoilers’
mark. Nice Guy the Kdrama though certainly finishes high up there in my
books. Actually upon finishing episode
20, my instinctual thought was to rate this 8/10. Then I looked at the other 8’s on
Mydramalist, and okay, if I only gave an 8 to City Hunter, then Nice Guy
was obviously better than that.
This makes me want to review how I even
come up with ratings. Objectively (which I like to think I mostly
am) I look at acting, directing, and most importantly writing. Subjectively (which, pardon me, I just killed
an angsty 3:00am roach; Die fiend! Die!) I have to consider an overall and
collective feeling, which leads me to objectively ignore the last few mostly boring episodes, for proximity’s
sake, and realize as a whole (wow this is confusing), just what Nice Guy meant to me.
Nice
Guy meant a whole lot to me. It’s also jam-packed with some of the best
collective acting I’ve seen from a Kdrama cast.
And the directing was spot on (when I figure out how I judge a director’s
abilities, I’ll let you know). The story
and plot progression, however, is what I believe made this entire show. The pacing is phenomenal. I only ended up marathoning the first 4
episodes before catching up to its actual airtime schedule, and since then I
haven’t missed a single Wednesday/Thursday evening viewing. Why?
Because this show successfully kept me completely intrigued for 20
hours! Yes, City Hunter was a marathon-worthy drama for its crazy plot, but Nice Guy offers far more than mere plot: It’s literally serving you up a tray of scrumptious
characterizations of recognizable human beings, played by a more than adequately-convincing
cast. Putting aside for the moment the majkang premise, these actors conveyed
with ease a storyline that is simultaneously stimulating and watchable.
I’ll try to move from the vague to the specific: Let’s start with Song Joong Ki, our starring
role. Also commendable as a second lead
role: Song Joong Ki’s eyes. I think they
are literally two separate entities.
When one character became too mushy, the second made us pause, and cower
in fear. How about Moon Chae Won: I must confess I have never really
appreciated any of her previous roles. I
was never even sure if she herself was such a great actress, but with a good script,
she became alive for me for the first time.
And Park Si Yeon: I know most people only love to hate her, but
it takes some skill to portray a character as outwardly evil as Han Jae Hee
while still emoting a sense of fragility.
My hat’s off as well to the array of side characters: Never before have I appreciated the stereotypical
ne’er-do-well character played by Yang Ik Jun as Jae Hee’s brother, Han Jae
Shik. One usually expects a one-dimensional
interpretation from these types of hapless side-characters, but like the rest
of Nice Guy’s roster, Jae Shik comes
out looking just as a real and distinctive a human being.