Kim Tak Goo is the eldest son of Goo In Jong, the president of Samhwa Enterprise, a legend in the baking industry. Although he is an extremely talented baker and seemed destined to succeed his father as president, Goo In Jong's family plotted to rob him of his inheritance because he was born to In Jong's mistress. Tak Goo's determination to become number one in the baking industry drives him to rebuild his career from scratch despite the many trials he faces.
This is actually one of the few dramas that I decided to watch while it's still airing; in fact, the last episode aired last Thursday and I just finished it late last night when I found out that the subbed version was finally out. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, based mainly on an article I found that speculated on how one of the OST songs was sung by Kyuhyun of Super Junior and then another article that confirmed it. ^^ Anyway, I decided to give it a try and I had to admit that the first three or so episodes were a little too melodramatic for me, but I kept on going. It was just heartache after heartache, obstacle after obstacle - but then again, the entire drama appeared to be that way with the exception of half of episode 16, which was probably my favorite. I think what made it different was that the first couple of episodes detailed the background information of the four main characters of the younger generation and followed three of them as they grew up. I do like how we got to know everything as it "happened" and not just through flashbacks, though those did occur, but at the same time, it was like a hammer just banging down on the head of the nail, not letting up for one bit. It was when the kids were all grown up that I got really into it. ^^;
The drama basically follows around the members of a certain dysfunctional family due to the idea of competition and the idea of "I must win, for if I don't, it means I lose" that half of the members had as their motto. There was a ton of that between the mothers as well as the brothers, though it was more one-sided when it came to them. It was sort of frustrating as it was basically one person trying to one-up the other while the other may or may not do the same all in the name of revenge and/or being the Top Dog. Then there was the love from within the "sides" that enabled all of it. Even so, I loved every minute of it; I even ventured to watching some parts of the raw episodes in an attempt to know what would happen next. It really was torture to wait for the episodes to air in Korea, then get subbed and released. There was a moment where the Chinese-subbed versions were released days before the English versions so I just stuck with those -- until they stopped, that is. Anyway... like I said, it was a ton of frustration wrapped up in a 30-episode drama with a sprinkling of light-hearted moments as well as some budding romance and love triangles all about. There's also a lot of bread that made me want to make bread, haha.
Anyway - and here are some spoilers - it actually ends happily. Well, for most of them, at least. The last episode had quite a bit of waterworks, though not as much as there could have been. The "evil" characters got their dues for the most part and those that were "evil" but only due to circumstances eventually found their happiness as well. However, it struck me as odd as how the two main rivals acted like they were best of friends, exchanging sidelong glances and secret smiles. Don't get me wrong; it made the fangirl in me all giddy, but at the same time, the more realistic part of me was all like, "What? Is this some alternate universe?" I could see it happening, but not without a longer timespan in between - there wasn't even a subscript that stated "[Insert Number Here] Months/Years Later" - they were just happily working together. Perhaps I'm just thinking too much and making it more complicated than it is, haha.
In short: I loved this drama and it was pretty good. The acting was good, the plot was very nice (though the backstabbing never seemed to stop), the romance was there but it wasn't the focal point, the characters were well-developed and some were very complicated (i.e. Ma-jun, Yu-kyung), and the bread was delicious. Well, at least they looked it. If you're one of the ones that goes for good ratings, it ranked as the number one drama for its timeslot from the 6th episode onwards.
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