Black Dog (2019–2020): K-Drama Review [sort of]
Aired: December 16, 2019 — February 4, 2020
When did I: May 20–22, 2020
It’s been a long time since I did my “best out of 3” method, wherein I’ll choose 3 interesting deuramas and watch each of those dramas’ 1st episode. Through this method, I get to know which one is worth the watch for it already had me interested even though its only episode 1. The hard thing here is when all those dramas’ 1st episodes got me hooked. There was this one time wherein I have to choose between Circle, Sky Castle and Prison Playbook, all their 1st eps got me hooked but Circle got me so curious on what’s going to happen next so I watched it first, then ended up watching all of them respectively, although I must say that Prison Playbook became my most favorite one even though I watched it last.
So this is only the second drama from the ‘best out of 3’, the 3 dramas I have to choose from are Drinking Solo, Black Dog and Familiar Wife respectively so I still have one 1st ep left to watch, after that should be the time where I’ll decide which drama I’ll watch next. But here I am already making a review. Seems like I’ve already decided what to watch next but I’ll still give Familiar Wife the chance, just to be fair, who knows? I might find that drama more interesting, it starred Ji Sung after all. But then this drama starred Ra Mi Ran. Say the name, RA. MI. RAN. Our Ssangmundong’s Cheetah! And Seo Hyun Jin, our Han Se Gye!
So lemme talk about this drama’s episode 1. I searched the web for same opinions as mine. Because I get the “is it just me or…” feeling so I had to make sure and it turns out it’s not just me, I'm not alone on this feels. This deurama has the same vibe as Misaeng, the comments that I found called this as “Misaeng: Teachers Version”.
As episodes go by, all I can say is that this drama is an upgraded version of Misaeng. It totally has the same concept and pattern of characters that I had to search if they have the same director/writer. Here’s a table to show the similarities I noticed between the two dramas. Warning though: the table contains a big amount of spoilers.
Maybe that’s why this drama felt close to heart. I love Misaeng even though I didn’t understand most of it because the drama’s target audience were office workers, which I am not. I think it will be the same with Black Dog, even though the workplace is a school, I feel like I still won’t understand a thing because South Korea and Philippines have different education systems. Still, this kind of drama is my cup of tea. K-Dramas that gave me a glance on how systems in South Korea runs are what I live for. Usually these kind of dramas are under the slice-of-life genre, which is one of the best genre out there in my opinion.
Also, it was only ep 1 but it already had me emotional and almost crying. The cinematography and OSTs will tug at your heart and make you feel sorry for the main lead’s sad life so you’ll also feel that you need to see this character’s success, you want to see her smile, laugh and become friends with someone genuinely. I didn’t expect too much from this drama and somehow already predicted how things would turn out because of its similarity w/ Misaeng, even though, this drama still had managed to crawl its way into my heart and became one of my favorites. A heart-warming drama, indeed. It may be slow paced and lacks romance, but that’s what I'm actually looking for. Black Dog is an underrated one since not anyone can be fond of this type of drama, but if you have the same preference as mine, then you need to watch this.
I don’t know how can I explain the feelings I’ve felt while watching this. Because it depicts reality and shows what really happens inside the faculty office. As a student myself, I felt guilty for my behavior towards my past teachers. While there really are twisted and jerk teachers out there whose inconsiderate actions can’t be justified, most of our teachers also have their own lives and only humans who also gets exhausted, an acceptable reason for them to get ticked off sometimes. This drama made me realized their efforts and I couldn’t be more thankful of their kindness and consideration. Being a teacher is one of the hardest jobs out there, most of the time it requires you to put your students first and your family second, you don’t even get to rest on a day off and holidays, vacations ends early than it should be, this drama shows all of that.
Overall, I love everything about Black Dog. Especially our Go Haneul songsaengnim aka Go Sky saem, Seo Hyun Jin played this role so well. The same with Ra Miran and the others.
