Pinocchio (2014)
Grade:
C+
20 Episodes
Ki Ha-myung and his family are living
happily together until a horrific accident during a fire leads to
several firefighters losing their lives. The news reports start
speculating that Ha-myung's father - the fire chief - is still alive, since his body was
not found in the wreckage and purposely left his men to die in the
factory explosion. Ha-myung's mother eventually commits suicide from
the slander they are powerless to stop, attempting to take him with
her, while Ha-myung's brother is thrown in jail for threatening the
reporter who was the driving force behind all the news about their
father. Shortly after, Choi In-ha, a young girl with the Pinocchio
syndrome (she hiccups whenever she tells a lie or hides the truth)
comes to live with her grandfather in the countryside. They discover
that the grandfather has adopted a boy he found while out fishing and
thinks the boy is his own son who died 30 years ago. Ha-myung,
renamed Dal Po, goes along with it because of his love for the old
grandfather, and because he does not want to reveal his identity to
In-ha, for she is the daughter of the very reporter who destroyed his
family.
As
interesting as the premise sounds, this was a total miss. It took me
over three weeks to finish this show, despite the fact it had nearly
all the same elements of many successful kdramas. I had the hardest
time sitting through this show, and I definitely won't watch it
again. I did like the soundtrack, though, and it did have some
favorite actors (Lee
Jong-suk from “I Hear Your Voice” and Park Shin-hye from “You're
Beautiful”), but again, it did not draw me in. There was lots of
crying, probably more from the guys than the girls, which at first I
appreciated but by the end it was just annoying. Ha-myung suffered a
terrible tragedy, but he cried almost every episode, several times an
episode, and it was not endearing.
