Life On Mars : A journey I wanna remember for a longer time.

The reason why I started this drama in the first place was Jung Kyung Ho, being his big big fan I just couldn't stop myself from clicking on the first episode. Though this drama got released in 2018, I came to know about it only recently, through a picture I found on Pinterest. Okay so, the very first few minutes of the drama gave me 'The Prison Playbook' vibes, I mean it was like I was seeing Joon Ho from Prison Playbook in the male lead character, Han Tae Joo. The later few minutes moved so fast that I sat there thinking 'What's happening?!' and boom we are taken back to 1988. And here, I felt that it was destiny. I mean, Reply 1988 is my most most favorite drama and this year 1988 was enough to make up my mind and I was like, 'Okay let's watch more'.

And I guess, I would have regretted a lot if I had given up on this drama in the very first episode itself. As I watched more and more, I fell in love with some of the lead characters, I fell in love with the plot, the way that the story was being told to the audience, not too clearly but in a way that made sense very gradually . Yeah, to understand the minutest details in this drama, you'll have to be very focused as every second of this drama seemed important to me. My kind of genre has always been Slice of life and I am not a big fan of Crime Thrillers but this one, this one made me fall for it way more than what I had expected and I liked it better as it had too many life lessons in it that sometimes I couldn't figure if I was actually watching a crime thriller or a slice of life.

If I need to talk about Jung Kyung Ho's acting here, then I must say this is his best performance so far. Yeah, I have been watching the Hospital Playlist Series too and he's a killer there but still I don't know if it's because of the abundant screen time he has got here, I could witness his full potential, a character who's clueless about what's happening around him, who doesn't know what is real and what is not, I can truly say it must have been very hard for Kyung Ho to give life to this character, Han Tae Joo. I felt like I was watching the amalgamation of Joon Ho from Prison Playbook and Jun Wan from Hospital Playlist in Han Tae Joo. And I got to see Jung Kyung Ho as an action hero here which was quite amazing to witness, I would sometimes clap my hands or scream or jump as if I was seeing him fight for real.

Initially, I envied Han Tae Joo for getting to go back to 1988, going back to that year when he was just 8 years old, he got to see how his family lived, his young mother, his young father, the neighborhood where he grew up. I couldn't stop thinking how cool it would be if I was given the same chance but that feeling didn't last for a long time as I saw him completely broken after seeing the happenings in his family which he had no idea about, as he was just a child back then, to whom his dad was a superman and his family was the happiest. He had to fit into a world which he wasn't used to for 30 long years, he had to fit into his new workplace, with the strange people there who seemed absurd initially, all these things made me pity him and every time he said, 'What am I doing here?', I felt like I was hearing my vulnerable self, aren't we all victims of '"lack of belongingness" at some point of time?! And when his eyes showed this constant feeling of desperately wanting to go back home, I realised how important home is to a person, and that home isn't necessarily home, home is where you truly feel alive, where you truly feel happy, where you feel yourself, where you feel complete.

The Captain, Kang Dong Cheol (played by Park Sung Woong) reminded me of Lieutenant Paeng from Prison Playbook, how he trusted everyone close to him and treated his subordinates just like his children, made me respect him and so he easily became my most favorite character from this drama. Through him, I learnt how important trust is in our lives and that it is natural for the people who trust you to expect trust back from you and that this trust can do wonders if it is mutual. He's a person who thinks from his heart, who trusts people, who lives by his own principles, he's definitely a gem of a character.

Through Ms. Yoon (played by Go Ah Sung), the female lead, I learnt how important it is to love the job you do, how important it is to break off the norms as much as you can and keep doing what you have too. In those times, when women were treated as sub-ordinates to the male officers, Ms. Yoon kept on surprising me with the decisions she made throughout, a character that deserves appreciation and by the end, I was really really happy for her. The excitement and joy she had while solving the cases made me realize how important it is to love what you're doing and to choose to do those things that you truly love.

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Now coming back to this drama, Life On Mars, it talks about so many things that I have lost count. Big big emotions are nicely packed into small small scenes, you laugh, you cry and most of the times you're on your toes. When I realised the fact that the crimes occurring in our society is somehow somewhere related to the society itself, I was surprised and a lot disappointed. The fact that the people who are rich spend very less time in prison despite doing a bigger crime and the people who are poor spend larger time in prison despite doing a meagre crime, irked me. I was irked by the fact that we have started exchanging justice with money, has the world become so materialistic that anyone can do any crime in the world as long as he has enough money to fill in the pockets of the officials who apparently have studied their asses off just so they can stop exactly those things that they are doing right now? And like this, there were so many times when I had to stop and process the things I just heard, saw and realised, this drama surely has made me see things in a different light, it definitely leaves a spark in the minds of the audience to think if what they're seeing is truly what's happening or if there's something more to it that they don't know yet.

I wouldn't lie saying this drama is a life changing one but I would for sure say that this drama is worth watching, each episode is like 1 hour and my 16 hour investment into this definitely didn't go waste. I have tried my best to not give out any spoiler as this is a crime thriller and even one spoiler can spoil the beautiful flavor of this drama. I think some people had problems with the ending, well I can't help it as we all have different opinions. In my opinion, this ending was definitely one of the most beautiful endings I have ever witnessed, I'm not lying! Trust me, I was smiling teeth to teeth as the drama ended and I talked about the ending for like half an hour with my brother highlighting the reasons why I liked it so much, even now when I think of the ending, I feel happy, I'm exaggerating this so much because usually I feel sad or heartbroken or not satisfied when a drama ends, after Misaeng and My Mister, it is this drama that made me feel content, super satisfied and happier.

If you're a crime thriller fan, then this is the best choice to watch right now, right this minute and if you're like me, a Slice of Life fan, then too you can watch this one, I liked it so maybe you'll too and I bet you, you won't regret.

Dropping my favorite quote from this drama which I think I'll carry with me for this lifetime.

"The place where you can live with a smile, that is your reality (home)"

Happy Watching guys!