Click here for the reviews of all the other episodes of ‘A Good Day to be a Dog’.
Han Hae-na is a high-school teacher who lives with her sister and belongs to a family with a generational curse – they turn into a dog at midnight if they kiss somebody! So she is constantly getting dumped by her boyfriends due to her ‘no kissing’ clause. At age 28, when she accidentally kisses a colleague in a drunken stupor, Han Hae-na has 100 days to reverse the curse, or she will remain a dog forever.
Based on a webtoon of the same name by Lee Hey, the Korean series “A Good Day to be a Dog” is a fantasy-romance starring Park Gyuyoung as the lead, Han Hae-na, who is cursed and unable to kiss anyone. Hae-na has a crush on the adorable History teacher, Lee Bo-kyeom (Lee Hyun-woo), but keeps her feelings to herself. One night, while out for dinner with her fellow teachers, she becomes overly intoxicated and mistakenly kisses Jin Seo-won (Cha Eun-Woo) because he was wearing Lee’s jacket. As a result, she transforms into a dog that night and needs Jin’s help to rectify the situation, even though he appears to dislike her.
The primary plot of “A Good Day to be a Dog” is completely explained in the first episode, along with the basic introduction of all the primary characters. First off, fans of the original webtoon will have plenty of reasons to rejoice because the makers of the live-action adaptation largely stay faithful to the source material, with just a few minor tweaks here and there. For example, in the webtoon, Hae-na makes it back home before her first midnight transformation into a dog, but in the series, her transformation takes place outdoors. And just like the webtoon, all characters are very good-looking, but I would’ve preferred if all of them did not look like K-pop idols or models. “Do people have to be handsome to become teachers these days?” a character jokes in the show, which was definitely funny, because all the teachers are indeed too shiny.
Cha Eun-Woo doesn’t seem like the best choice to play a math teacher, he is drop dead gorgeous and doesn’t look much older than the actors cast to play high-school students in the series. Lee Hyun-woo is a lot more goofier & yet seems slightly more mysterious than Cha Eun-Woo and could’ve been the lead instead. “Based on the first two episodes, Cha Eun-Woo appears better suited for roles as an action hero, a historical prince, or as the lead in a romantic drama that complements his looks, similar to his previous works such as “My ID Is Gangnam Beauty” and “True Beauty.” I’m not saying he should be typecast, but he does seem a bit miscast for this show. It’s the script’s inherent comedic elements that make things work for his character rather than his own performance. On the other hand, Park Gyuyoung is much more animated and amusing as Han Hae-na, with great comic-timing, making her character a lot more fun. Ryu Abel plays her spunky sister, who has limited scenes but is quite endearing as the protective sister looking out for Han Hae-na, although it’s her best-friend Song Woo Taek (Cho Jin Se) who does most of the heavy-lifting when is comes to helping the cursed sisters out.
The scenes where Hae-na turns into a little dog are super-cute, some of them require special-effects, which were also executed well and add to the comedic mood of the story. However, at 60 minutes, the writers aren’t able to maintain the comedic tone or interest for the full hour and perhaps each episode should’ve been trimmed down to 45 minutes. In the second-episode for example, there’s a long-drawn sequence of Hae-na going to an escape room with Jin, Lee and another teacher, which was supposed to have funny moments, but fell pretty flat.
Regardless, “A Good Day to be a Dog” seems to be a fun enough series for those who want to see a fantasy-romance with a dash of comedy. It’s not rib-tickling, but is still pretty amusing, with a very good looking cast to boot. Besides, there are probably a whole lot of K-drama fans, who’d just be streaming this for Che Eun-Woo!
You can stream the series on VIU.
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Any drama based on a webtoon will have handsome main characters because they try to stay true to the source material. Seowon is the ML and in the webtoon he’s an introvert, while Haena is the opposite. Both Eunwoo and Gyuyoung play their characters exactly as they are and look in the webtoon. I see no problem with that.
I honestly thought this was a lot of fun (the scene when Seowon escapes from random dogs was hilarious) and I can’t wait for next Wednesday.
Eunwoo is perfect for the role that’s it
His character is that type go and read webtoon first he is doing good according to his character first do a little research before passing negative opinions.
I disagree with you. Cha Eunwoo is best as SeoWon. As a person who has read this webtoon, I can vouch that he incorporated the essence of Jin Seowon. His sync rate is 100% here and I am loving his acting. In fact, I think it is the students who were miscasted. They should have hired actors who are 18-20 instead of 23-24 years old people as students. Eunwoo is 26 years old and he is playing a character who is 28 years old.
And Jin Seowon, the lead is not supposed to be goofy and smiley. I don’t know why people say anything without knowing the story. Just coz a character is laughing doesn’t make him a lead. There are people in this world who are shy and introvert and they can be leads too.