descendants of the sun REVIEW & rant (from someone who dropped it after 10 episodes...)

 Hello everyone and welcome to today's review of the ever so popular drama "Descendants of the Sun" starring Song Joong Ki & Song Hye Kyo. The actors were married for about 2 years I'm pretty sure after making this drama and I'm hoping they had more chemistry in real life than in the drama..although since they broke up, you can't be so sure. But I'm not here to rant on that matter, as I don't really follow any of their news and stuff. This review is solely of the drama itself. But I will say, watching it now in 2024 after the actors have broken up, it was a bit hard to concentrate on the couple in the drama without thinking after it..

P.S. I watched a lot of this drama with my brother (well more like..forced him to watch it with me lol)

First Impression:

DOTS is a romance drama with medical/military themes

Ep 1 starts off with introducing us to our main male lead Yoo Shi Jin (Song Joong Ki), who is a soldier. 

Our male and female leads meet, after a dramatic incident with a thief who steals someone's motorcycle (I think). Our female lead..um..what was her name..*actually forgets and googles it..* oh that's it: Kang Mo Yeon is a surgeon/doctor at the hospital where the male lead and second male lead (who's romance with the second female lead interested me WAY more than the main couple) bring the injured thief, who later joins the army as well.. Anyways, insert slow mo of SJ and MY staring at each other while "I love you.." plays in the background..I think.. although they've only just met. 

So right off the bat SJ really likes MY and wants to go out with her and she seems to like him as well. But in the next few episodes, every chance they have to go on a proper date something comes up and SJ has to go on a mission or two somewhere.. so because of this and MY finding out that SJ's job is very dangerous and he might possibly even die on a mission, she decides not to be with him and they break up for about eight months, because SJ has to go to some made up country Uruk on a long mission there. 

Now most of the story (up until episode 10 at least) plays out in this (made up country) Uruk.

MY ends up going there as a punishment for not wanting to spend the night with her boss (the chairman of the hospital) and RIGHTFULLY so! 

also MY doesn't know yet, but who do you think is also in Uruk? you guessed it, SJ! 

This is kind of the build up of the story so far. Of course we see MY rejecting SJ a couple of times, since she's still unsure because of his line of work. But eventually by around ep 9 or so, she confesses in an embarrassing but nice to watch manner..

Overall Look and Feel Of The Drama:

 So it may be just me, but I really didn't feel much chemistry between the main couple. But because of all the good reviews out there, I really thought I'd start feeling something if I'd just keep watching.."am I missing something?" I kept thinking to myself. Like when they kissed the first time I was happy, but only for a second and then I felt like I had to almost force myself to act happy that they kissed, because I just couldn't feel much.

 Now mind you there are mixed reviews of this drama. On the one hand people think it's the best drama they've seen and on the other it's the worst. So who to trust? I'd say don't be like me watching 10 episodes without being that interested, and instead just watch the first 1 or 2 episodes and then decide if you should watch or not, or you'll end up wasting so much time on something that's not even worth the watch (take it from me)

Next, can we please talk about the filter/colouring they used! I have mixed feelings, because on one and it kind of suits the vibe of the drama and is a lot better than a lot I have seen, but on the other it really doesn't do justice to Song Hye Kyo's beauty. most of the time in fact it just makes her look very washed out. So that bothered me.

So I tried my best not to nitpick, but with my brother by my side, we both couldn't stop making fun of things..there are quite a lot of cringey moments..

So you may be wondering what kept me watching this drama? the second couple <3 I also preferred the second male lead over the main one. I was more interested by their story than the main couple's, but even they couldn't keep me watching for long..

What are some good points?

First off let's start by admitting that probably the only or main reason we watch these dramas is to see guys in military outfits, am I right?? Is it just me? 

Whether it's King2Hearts, Crash Landing on You, Fall in Love 2021 (Chinese drama) or this drama, one of the main things I liked them for was seeing guys in army outfits lol. 

So if you enjoy seeing men in army costume as much as I do, then you'll probably enjoy this drama.

I'll note that compared to a lot of dramas out there this one isn't even that bad, but if this drama is just alone without anything to compare it to in order to make it seem better than it is, it's not that good.

Beautiful Greek scenery. I have to admit that I do like when dramas are filmed in some other countries. So I did like that they were supposed to be in Uruk and stuff.

The 3 other couples besides the main and second couple. the daniel doctor guy and his wife, the two bickering older doctors, the doctors about to become parents. I did like that they gave us quite a few options on who to root for if you didn't like the main couple.. however that did leave us with several side plots..

Would I recommend?

So despite it's flaws, there are some things to enjoy about this drama. If you're able to ignore the cringey moments and lack of chemistry, or if you are one of the people who'll someday have this drama on their "favourites list" because they end up loving this couple, then I'll think you'll like it even more than me. Otherwise I wouldn't really recommend it and there are many better dramas to spend your free time watching..

Goofs:

The old manager of the power plant guy: this guy was kinda funny to watch ngl.. especially when I thought of him wearing a pink ballet tutu lol (I can't unsee it..)

The foreigners in this drama who were speaking English aren't even native speakers: So it's not just in this drama, but I find it kind of funny that when these dramas have people speaking English in them, most of the time they aren't native English speakers or at least fluent in English..

 

 

[ if you get anything from this review, I guess it's that just because a drama gets very hyped up doesn't always mean it's an amazing drama. if you're one of the people who love this drama, then please *respectively* let me know what you liked. I hope this little rant of mine was at least a little helpful. see you all hopefully soon and have a blessed day/night :) ]