Starring

Hong Su-zu, Lee Jae-wook, Lee Jun-young

Frankly I don’t have a review in me, but thanks for the laughs, XOXO.

Lee Jun-young was fighting for his life, though. He (assuming it was his decision) made the right call in deciding to ham it up to the skies. He was the only reason I watched it till the end. And to some extent Choi Jin-ho who plays Kang senior and who also wisely decided to do a lot of—

If you want to see Jun play a stupid/evil dude brilliantly, I suggest watching D. P. (S1) and/or Mask Girl. He does only cameos in both, but he is phenomenal. Truly a star in the making. Of course, Imitation is a must-watch idol drama, for Jun, who was also one of the—

I mean I love UKISS, but mostly their pre-Jun eras. Seriously though, Imitation is a great watch even otherwise, not nearly as good as Top Management, but yeah, it’s wholesome and funny.

TBF, the basic premise/idea behind the Impossible Heir is really good. I always assumed it was based on an existing webcomic but it’s not?? There goes that excuse for the choppy AF screenplay.

It’s very much a brodudes-turned-arch-nemesis’ story of rivalry between the bastard son of a conglomerate family and the plucky outsider he befriends. Extreme potential for Xtreme fireworks, but the screenplay was probably written in post, if at all. Given that it’s a fantasy about power and who inherits that power, thematically, it had the bones of an epic, Shakespearean tragedy, however it turned out more a farce—it’s giving more Falstaff than Macbeth.

BTW there is no space on this blog for Hong Su-zu hate. You don’t blame Hong Su-zu for giving us absolutely nothing. You blame the writer (Choi Won) who wrote a shitty role and the producer, casting agents, director, literally everyone involved in putting her in this bilge production. Sure, she does bear some responsibility for tanking so spectacularly, but! Hear me out: I can’t imagine lesser known actors having much of a say in what projects they get to be part of. In fact, I would venture a guess that none of the people who signed on saw the script in its entirety, if it existed in the first place. Surely, they were making it up on the go, and yeah, maybe they kept rewriting Su-zu’s role because she was tanking (a veritable chicken and egg quandary), but who’s to say, really. The cast couldn’t very well abandon a sinking ship without getting sued. Su-zu, it appears, just gave up trying. And I would honestly do the same. She was like, “I showed up, right?” And come on, you know Na Hye-won was written to be nothing more than a red herring, a sop thrown to convention. I would be mad too. And I would be petty, and probably do even worse than Su-zu.

Despite everything, I didn’t find it a tedious watch, not even a little. I guess they were going for The Penthouse-like makjang vibes, but 12 episodes is not enough to achieve that sort of a sweeping, larger-than-life atmosphere. Budget not taken into consideration ig. 

This series is a perfect example of a bad but enjoyable watch, and I would any day choose this over any of the so-called hits that are literally a drag to sit through. Also, this is completely random, but I really liked that last exchange between Han Tae-ho and Kang Seong-ju—there were, weirdly enough, a lot of (probably unintended) undercurrents in that one scene, because of the set-up in that gargantuan office, as well as the framing and camerawork. It actually left me feeling a little wistful for what-could-have-been, if they’d taken the time to run through one or two (or a 100) more drafts before moving to production.

Good OST, though.

PS: A moment of silence for all of us who watched the show because of those IG edits that made it look like a BL.