Remember; War of the Son is a 2015-2016 show starring: Yoo Seung Ho, Park Min Young, Park Sung Woong, Nam Goong Min, and Jung Hye Sung. When I first heard about this show, I couldn’t help but to feel skeptical about it. Maybe, the synopsis wasn’t so convincing for me to feel invested in it.

 

The premise made me feel that this was gonna be another one of those typical melodramas that I’ve been growing tired of. Even if I felt that the show could be disappointing for the most part, I decided to go ahead and watch it because of Yoo Seung Ho. Those of you that have been following my blog should know by now that I am a huge fangirl of Seung Ho and despite the fact that I wasn’t quite so sure about this show I made up my mind to give it a go because of my Seung Ho.

 

As a devoted fan I would watch anything with Yoo Seung Ho in it no matter what kind of project it might be. This review will help me express the journey that I went through while watching Remember: War of the Son, so here it is.

 

Seo Jin Woo (Yoo Seung Ho) was a person that became a lawyer at a very young age. He was able to become a lawyer at such a young age because he had a condition called: Hyperthymesia. Jin Woo’s father was framed and wrongly accused for the murder that he didn’t even commit. Jin Woo’s goal was to find the real culprit who is responsible for the death of the Seocheon University student and make him go to court so he can prove his father’s innocence.

 

However,the young man’s father faced execution and later on he started to lose his memory due to alzheimer and this motivates Jin Woo to diligently work hard to find the perpetrator. Seo Jin Woo might have had  the superpower called: Hyperthymesia which is an ability where he can remember everything and anything and he tries to use this to his advantage but he found out that he has the same condition as his father does which is the alzheimer’s disease. Would Jin Woo be able to fight the battle of his father after finding out about his condition?

 

Seo Jin Woo (Yoo Seung Ho) passed the bar exam at the age of 22 and was able to become a lawyer, just like that. He loves his dad and has had a good relationship with him too. Jin Woo is almost like a genius because of his certain mental abilities but he goes through a lot of pain because everything that has been going on in his life due to his father being framed for a crime that he had nothing to do with.

 

Lee In Ah (Park Min Young) becomes a prosecutor after seeing Jin Woo’s father being taken away by the law enforcement. In Ah is all about the law being there to help those that are not able to help themselves. This lady is all about truth and justice. In Ah could come off as nosy but she has good intentions for acting this way.

 

Park Dong Ho (Park Sung Woong) is probably my favorite character in this show. I know it’s a bit of a surprise. I thought that I was gonna like Seo Jin Woo the most because it was Seung Ho playing that character but I thought Park Dong Ho actually had an arc and it was way more dynamic.

 

Nam Gyu Man (Nam Goong Min) was a full blown psychopath. I hate to say this but this character kinda made Seung Ho’s character get buried because Nam Goong Min was just ultra crazy.

 

There are a few noticeable side characters. Hong Moo Seok (Eom Hyo Seop), Tak Young Jin ( Song Young Kyu), Seo Jae Hyuk (Jun Kwang Yeol),  An Soo Beom (Lee Si Eon) and Nam Il Ho (Han Jin Hee).

 

Hong Moo Seok was a slimy weasel and watching him just made me cringe every time. Eom Hyo Sup is really good at playing such a sneaky weasel type characters.

 

Tak Young Jin is a goody goody prosecutor and nothing seems to phase him. Also, nobody is able to bribe him with anything unlike a lot of the people in the law enforcement.

 

Seo Jae Hyuk is Seo Jin Woo’s father and he obviously loves his son very much but he has to go through something that is totally unfair. He ends up staying in jail for something he didn’t do and his son tries to help him prove his innocence.

 

An Soo Beom is one of my favorite characters because he has an arc like Lawyer Park Dong Ho. He is friends with Nam Gyu Man and is treated very badly by his friend. Since Soo Beom is treated badly by his friend, this makes him think about other things because he really doesn’t like being treated so horribly by someone that he called friend for a long time.

 

Nam Il Ho is a villain of course but I would categorize him a bit differently than his son and it’s because Nam Il Ho is the one that seems to be responsible for the way his son behaves.

 

My favorite performance was by the actor, Nam Goong Min, he really stole the show for me. Seung Ho did awesome too but I felt that his acting got buried by Nam Goong Min’s psychopathy.

 

There were a few things about the show that made me feel confused. I felt that they didn’t know how to use the characters/actors in an efficient way. A good example would be Nam Gyu Man’s sister. I thought she was one of the main characters but she didn’t seem to have much to do throughout most of the show.

 

I been learning that writing is such an important process in television dramas, movies and even plays. Writing is the first thing that a production starts with so if it is wavering from the beginning then that would not be a good sign. I get the feeling that this show was already a problem from the beginning stage, which would be the writing.

 

I really loved the way this show looked. It’s no way near Hollywood level but for a television drama it looked good and stylish. From what I understand the director of Remember was a director for a film that came out in 2014 called: The Attorney. I think that’s the reason why the drama looked very cinematic. Remember was struggling in most areas but cinematically and visually it was great.

 

The music reminded me a lot of the scores from Hollywood superhero genres. I guess this has been the latest trend in recent years. A lot of the movies and tv shows all over the world seems to be using music that almost sounds like the Hans Zimmer stuff from the movie THE DARK KNIGHT.

 

Seung Ho’s character, Seo Jin Woo is supposed to be from somewhat of a poor background but he has nice clothes but maybe this is due to sponsorship for these dramas.

 

This show seems to be resembling our reality in some way or another. A lot of the law enforcement, corporations, and people that are in power seem to be corrupted.  Remember doesn’t shy away from how corrupted this society is on all levels of power for the most part but at times I felt that the director was going a bit overboard with things and that made it more cartoony than realistic.

 

I thought this drama was decent but it  could have been better though. Before going into it I thought Remember was gonna be a bad drama but after watching the first few episodes I changed my mind about it. I recall the show being really good for the first half of it and it was unexpected but after the halfway point it started getting repetitive and taking weird turns which made me feel frustrated more often than not.