Jang Nara - Han Ji-min - Han Hyo Joo - Han Ga In - Han Eun-jung - Han Chae Young - Choi Yeo Jin - Choi Kang-hee - Choi Jeong-yoon - Park Chae-rim - Chae Jung-an - Bae Seul Ki - Bae Doona - Ha Ji Won - Kim Hee Sun - Lee Na Young - Harisu - Park Ji Yoon - Lee Jung-hyun - Eugene - Song Hye Kyo - Jeon Ji Hyun - Lee Hyori - Kim Hyo Jin - Kim Hee Sun - Lee Young Ae -

Monday, July 9, 2007

Exhibition of Fireworks

Shin Na Ra's life is shattered when her boyfriend comes home from a three-month business trip in San Francisco. Noticing he is detached, she keeps bugging him until he admits that he cheated on her during his business trip. Being heartbroken, girl goes out to drink and in a drunken stupor she leaves her ring in a glass of Soju. She comes back to find out a man named Na In Jae has actually swallowed her ring, and starts trying to get the man to return the ring. The man refuses, but later reconsiders after finding out his football team needs a cheerleader. He promises to give the ring back to Shin Na Ra in exchange for her to be his team's cheerleader. Although they started off on rocky terms, Shin Na Ra and Na In Jae start growing more and more attached as time passes, but Na Ra still can't forget her boyfriend of seven years, and Na In Jae has a crush on a girl he's known for a long time.

The story really isn't that interesting, and the presentation turned out to be sloppy as well. It's a shame because I'm really a fan of Han Chae Young's but her acting didn't turn out so well in this series. The main problem is that her character just lacks depth, and throughout the series she seems to always be a third-wheel in the love relationships rather than the main character.

Personally, I don't enjoy plots with main characters that sway in and out of love so easily. For most of the series, the main male lead isn't actually in love with the main female lead, and for the first third of the series, the female lead isn't in love with the male lead. The antagonists, who are in love with each other for a while, suddenly shift around to other partners left and right. The series seems to be just a humongous love mess that seems will never get sorted out, and the same inane events seem to happen over and over again. The seventeen-episode series, which is average by Korean drama standards, seemed way too long and overdrawn, and episodes 11-14 seemed very filler and somewhat unnecessary. I'm guessing that Fireworks would be a much better series had it been cut down a little bit (13 episodes would probably suffice).

This drama really stressed crying, but surprisingly I wasn't very moved at all. The main character, Shin Na Ra's crying scenes were too over-the-top and unnatural, which I found surprising since the actress is quite experienced. It seems like there is some sort of crying scene every once in a while, and since this drama had so many of them, it made me take them for granted instead of making me feel sad.

Unlike most series where sub-characters don't really play a big role, the sub-characters in this story could actually be mistaken for the main characters. If you didn't know who was "supposed" to be together at the end, you might not be able to guess the ending, and this was also frustrating. Some may think that this kind of a plot would bring more drama, but it just made me feel as if the story was just taking me on a joy-ride with no end in sight, and it made me "lose hope" a little bit of a nice ending. The ending is nice and happy, but there wasn't enough in the episodes beforehand to really build up the ending, and thus I didn't really feel impacted by the ending.

Truth be told, the series isn't horrible, but it just can't compare to many of the better dramas out there. Everything in this drama just seemed very ordinary, and it didn't really have a profound impact on me. Personally, I lost interest around episode twelve or so, but I finished the series for the sake of this review. I would guess that only truly hardcore fans of Han Chae Young would be interested in taking a look at this series.

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