Start-Up | K-Drama Review

I started watching Start-Up because of Nam Joo-hyuk’s amazing performance in Twenty Five Twenty One. The series started well – I liked the flow of the story and there were some great scenes, but I didn’t get particularly attached to any of the characters and after the time skip the whole series lost me. The time skip was done awfully in my opinion. I completely lost interest in the story and I had to force myself to finish it. 

Genre: Drama, Romance
Episodes: 16
Written by: Park Hye-ryun
Directed by: Oh Choong-hwan
Cast: Bae Suzy, Nam Joo-hyuk, Kim Seon-ho, Kang Han-na

Synopsis: Seo Dal-mi is going through a rough time where she finds comfort in letters exchanged between Dal-mi and her secret unknown first love. 15 years later Dal-mi is living with her grandmother, working part-time jobs to one day achieve her dream of becoming a successful entrepreneur. The story continues on a love triangle between Dal-mi and her secret first love who used the alias Nam Do-san and Nam Do-san who is pretending to be the person from the letters.

Story: 3 ⭐⭐⭐
Characters: 3 ⭐⭐⭐
Acting: 4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cinematography: 3 ⭐⭐⭐
Overall: 3.5 ⭐⭐⭐

Review (Spoilers)

My favorite character is Sa-ha which I think says a lot about the other characters in the series. I didn’t find the characters and their relationship with each other extremely enjoyable. Ji-pyeong & Do-san were the worst – literally two manchilds when they were together. Dal-mi & In-jae’s character development was bad, their rivalry was for the storyline only. Of the main characters the only one I was rooting for was Do-san, this man cried more than anyone.

Do-san and Dal-mi’s relationship didn’t feel super satisfying. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have ended together, but there were moments that were questionable and felt distant. My favorite moment is the bus scene, it’s literally the highlight of the show and it made my heart flutter.

The Time Skip

I really didn’t like it. The part leading up to it and everything after, and made the series lose all the credibility I had for it. You are telling me that after 3 years the relationship between Dal-mi and In-jae barely got any better while working with each other for 3 years. There is barely any character development during the time skip. The time skip felt like a few months instead of years, it’s badly executed and the worst part is after the time skip. They want me to believe that every event, like Jip-pyeong is going to confess to Dal-mi, In-jae is meeting her grandmother, the betrayal of the twins & etc is just happening after 3 years in a short period of time PLEASE…!!! I lost all of interest in the story and I just wanted it to end.

I love to hear your thoughts of Start-Up in the comments

Related Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Hello~ welcome to my personal blog! My name is Filip and I have been a K-pop fan since 2014. I write anything I feel like related to K-pop and South-Korea. Thanks for stopping by my blog~! 😊