Mystic Pop-Up Bar



There are some K dramas that are excruciatingly bad, there are some that are so bad they are funny, there are some that could be great but are fatally flawed, some are great, and some are good. Those last two are exceedingly rare. Mystic pop up bar is a good K-drama.  Here's what makes it good. Its story is told in an appropriate length - it doesn't drag anything out. The acting of the main characters is good, and believable. We can believe that the two older main characters are legitimately 500 years old, and despite that time, they remain human. I also like the fact that none of the characters are "cool". Many a drama is ruined by having characters that are supposed to be cool. I can see why this happens, in that a lot of the actors in k-dramas are also K-pop Stars, and they probably don't want to do anything that destroys their image. However, in this series a K-pop actor is a character who is socially awkward for very good reasons, and even when those reasons are removed he doesn't suddenly become the coolest guy in the room. The female lead is also a great choice. While she is attractive, she is not so attractive as to be unbelievable, which is a flaw that many of these k-dramas have. I fully believe that she is a 500-year-old woman with anger issues. In Tomorrow, the supernatural aspects of the story are not explained nor explored, and this is frustrating. In this drama the supernatural aspects also aren't explained, but it's not frustrating, it's taken as a given by the characters that these things exist. Another great part is how it plays up the tropes that are so present in these dramas and are usually taken seriously. There's an episode where desperately the main characters are trying to find someone to help, and there's a scene in it in which the 500-year-old woman beats up some school children who are taking money from another school child, and it's never made clear that they are actually bullies or if the child who gave the money just owed them money. So that's pretty funny. Uncanny Counter takes these tropes seriously and does a better job with them, but ultimately is ruined by inconsistent writing, which is so frustrating because parts of it are brilliant. Nothing in this series is brilliant, but it's very enjoyable. I would recommend it for someone who wants to dip their toes in K-drama but doesn't want to watch the more popular titles.

Leverton Review 9/10

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