Grade: C
Category
Workplace romantic comedy
What it’s about
A high-powered shoe designer discovers she’s pregnant after a one-night-stand with a younger man, who just happens to be a professional knock-off artist specializing in luxury brand shoes.
First impression
This middling rom-com is part Baby-faced Beauty and part Me Too, Flower. Talk about unholy combinations—why didn’t they just go ahead and throw some Secret Garden in there to ensure that I’d really hate it? I’m even immune to its eye candy: the male lead isn’t my type, and I loathe high heels. (In fact, I quite happily buy most of my shoes at a store called Farm Way.)
Final verdict
Although as mediocre as they come, I Do, I Do is not completely without charm: it has its moments of sweetness and humor, and the cast is reasonably likeable. Having said that, though, this drama is also flawed in a way weirdly similar to its classmate Big. Rather than building shows around the elements that made their plots unique and compelling—body swapping in one, and a single, career-first woman who suddenly finds herself pregnant in the other—these shows chose to spotlight what made them average. For Big, the stumbling block was writers who overestimated the appeal of its central romance and decided to chuck all of the other story elements in favor of it. In the case of I Do, I Do, the true heart of the series was obscured until the very end by time wasted on repetitive office politics. Both shows also managed to be structurally unsatisfying in pretty much every way possible—their overarching plots failed to sustain momentum, and on an episode-by-episode basis they didn’t even bother trying to achieve any sort of narrative tension. Big and I Do, I Do also closed with events that, from a storytelling perspective, should probably have happened by about episode 8. (But you’ve got to hand it to I Do, I Do—at least it didn’t have the second male lead playing the baby in the final scene.)
If only this show had embraced its true premise rather than watering it down with standard Kdrama workplace shenanigans, it might have been the moving story of an independent woman rising to the challenges of unexpected motherhood. As it is, I Do, I Do is an empty exercise in form over function that has neither a heart nor a soul.
On the bright side, if you’ve recently been concussed and are in the mood for an easy-to-watch drama that asks nothing of you (but also gives nothing in return), you could probably do worse than watching I Do, I Do. Like watching Big.
Random thoughts
• I’ll give this show one thing: it’s an interesting 180 on traditional Kdrama gender roles. Instead of a prickly male lead who needs to be convinced to love someone, Park Tae Kang is a goofy, big-hearted underdog who desperately wants to succeed—a hardworking drama girl who just happens to be a boy. And Kim Sun Ah, wonderfully, is totally cast as the irascible Jun-Pyo type, only without an F4 to back her up.
• Episode 1. I’m all for no-nonsense career girls, but you know what would have been really awesome? If Kim Sun Ah’s character had owned her sexuality and gotten out of that bed totally naked—and totally unembarrassed. Instead, welcome to the standard “But I’m so shy!” moment of post-coital Kdrama anti-bliss.
• Episode 7. So at this point it has become clear that the creators of this show missed a key Kdrama commandment: Thou shalt not combine a dull, go-nowhere plot and a lead couple with zero chemistry. I Do, I Do is the worst of both worlds: all the boring office politics of a workplace drama with none of the episodic rewards of seeing our hero learn and grow, and all of the wangst [wank + angst = wangst] of a romance, with none of the cute lovey parts. Why am I watching again?
Watch it
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Everything you said was totally true. It was never more than just okay and the only saving grace was it having little sweet moments here and there. I died laughing at "But you’ve got to hand it to I Do, I Do—at least it didn’t have the second male lead playing the baby in the final scene." LMFAO!!! I actually thought the male second lead was the most interesting character on the show. I just couldn't get into the male lead, he was a terrible actor. I don't even speak Korean and I could tell he was awful. And you're right, in that way it was like Big all over again, no matter how much you like one of the lead characters, if you hate one of them and they seem to have no chemistry it's hard to buy the love story.
ReplyDeleteBTW thanks for recommending Protect the Boss. I am watching it now and I love it!! The lead female character is awesome (though she's a little scary looking, her eyes are like unnatrually huge). This show is a case of reversal of roles too, helpless male lead and strong independent female lead. I died laughing in the third episode where the girl sticks the ice cream to her butt and pretends it was an accident and then she does it right back and says "Ooops I'm sorry... I did that on purpose, just like you did." Hahaha!!!
I guess there's a time and a place for shows like I Do, I Do, but it's not on my TV :b It's also weirdly similar to Scent of a Woman, Kim Sun Ah's last drama. That one also had an open-ended finale, but with the different subject matter (a medical crisis revolving around death, not gestation) it worked a lot better.
ReplyDelete::whispers:: When it comes right down to it, I think Kim Sun Ah's overrated. She was picks interesting shows and is always good in them, but she's not one of those actresses I'll watch anything for.
And yay for Protect the Boss! The end gets a little draggy, but I was happy to stick around for the charming cast. I *love* both Ice Cream and the girl wrestler. The female lead is an acquired taste though—before PtB she was in My Sweet Seoul (with Lee Sun Gyun from Coffee Prince!), and looked like a completely different person. I think the weird eyes are a result of the post-fame visit to the plastic surgeon they require in South Korea.
I would agree about Kim Sun Ah, she's alright, but like you said I think her strength lies more in the fact that she picks interesting dramas (unlike Jang Geun Suk, who I think has the potential to be a great actor if he didn't always pick safe and boring dramas). I am on like pins and needles waiting to see what YEH's next project is going to be because she is so amazing, but hasn't really taken on a super difficult role since CP (Lie to Me was great, but it was a rom-com, not a super in depth role). I read an interview of her that was done at the beginning of this year right after she started film school and she said she was going to take on a project in the latter of half of the year but hadn't decided what yet. I keep waiting to see if anything is announced, so far I haven't found anything.
DeleteI agree that this drama was C grade, but I did find it kinda cute. I think I was able to enjoy the fluff a bit more due to the fact that I was watching this alongside the heavier dramas of Man of Equator and Bridal Mask along with a family drama that had me pulling my hair out. And I thought the lead guy was kind of sweet and endearing, if annoying at times.
DeleteI agree about Kim Sun Ah, but I feel that way about a lot of popular actors, including YEH and Gong Yoo(ducking). I liked them a lot together in CP, but I haven't seen them in anything else that really sold me on them. Lie to Me was meh. I was all about LSG in CP anyway. I've seen lot of him since. :)
I agree that Jang Geun Suk has the potential to be a great actor. He's the only reason I could make it though You're Beautiful.
I really like well made rom-coms (though I've been seeing some awful ones recently), I can't always watch really melodramtic dramas or I go crazy. I loved YEH in Vineyard Man and Lie to Me, and Goong was a really huge role for her first drama and she nailed it. I think she is really charming and puts her heart and soul into whatever she does, but that being said, to prove that she's still got the chops she had in CP she's going to have to pick something a little heftier than her previous projects. I don't think I'm going to see that anytime soon though because she started grad school this year and she said that she will be taking on a project at some point during the year but it may not be a very demanding one because she is trying to focus on school so she can better her craft. Maybe once she finishes school in like a year or two we'll get to see her do something awesome.
DeleteI like LSG a lot too, but the thing I think that is so fantastic about Gong Yoo is his ability to really use his facial expressions in his acting. But I agree he as well has not been in any other really outstanding dramas, though I watched his movie The Crucible recently and it was no joke. Really really heavy material, it was hard to watch because it was so intense, but he was awesome in it. Very different character than I'm used to seeing him as.
Yay!! I'm glad someone else agrees about JGS because he has A LOT of haters out there for some reason. I have seen him in quite a few dramas where he was really great but the dramas were just not so great. Even Mary Stayed Out All Night, which I personally really enjoyed for whatever reason, was objectively not a well written drama at all. And You're Beautiful had its good points, but it was a mess as a whole, but he stuck out to me and then I purposefully watched a bunch more of his dramas hoping he'd be in one that was awesome and no such luck.
I loved Mary Stayed Out All Night, though I do agree that objectively it's really not that good. I must have been in just the right mood when I watched it because, even though I could see the flaws, I was able to just ignore them. And I really enjoyed the OST. I also loved Beethoven Virus, but I've noticed that I'm in the minority on that one too. I'm not even sure why I loved that one so much besides the interactions between JGS and Kim Myung Min. It just satisfied something inside me, I suppose.
DeleteI think the JGS hating stems from the way he's publicized. He's referred to as the "Prince of Asia" or something like that. Now, I don't know who coined that phrase but he picked it up and ran with it. It's kind of off-putting. Also, I've seen a couple of ads and things of his that just completely repulsed me for some reason. I love him in a drama, but I don't want a coffee cup with his face on it.
Hahaha!! I don't know anything about him as a person, I've just seen him in dramas. I've just heard that he's not super popular in Korea, but he is in Japan and China for some reason, don't know if that's true or not.
DeleteI liked his role in Beethoven Virus, but I wasn't so crazy about the drama as a whole, I didn't really dislike it, but I felt like it got really repetitive and draggy towards the end. I read somewhere that he turned down the role of Joon Pyo in Boys Over Flowers to do Beethoven Virus. Do you know if that's true? If it is, I'm sure he's still kicking himself over that decision....
I never heard anything about him turning down that role. Personally, I liked Beethoven Virus better than BOF, but I think that JGS would have definitely brought something more to the role of Joon Pyo. If he were in the role, I may not have suffered from second lead syndrome so much in that drama. Doesn't it seem like he can create chemistry with just about anyone? He's very charismatic.
DeleteOh I hated BOF lol, but I suffered through the whole thing because it's like the most famous kdrama ever. I was just saying that he would have gotten bucket loads of money, fame, and recognition for BOF that he didn't get as much of for BV. I like Lee Min Ho in Personal Taste, but he wasn't my favorite in BOF. And yeah, JGS is very charismatic and seems like he would have chemistry with just about anyone. He was even good with that Yoon Ah girl in Love Rain, and she was fairly personalityless lol (although in her defense that drama was just boring).
DeleteSo I'm totally late to this discussion—darn you, real life, for taking me away from Kdrama! ;)
DeleteJang Geun Suk was indeed up for the role of Joon Pyo in BoF. I haven't actually seen many of his dramas, but I think it was smart of him to turn it down—it's pretty much the same role he's just played in You're Beautiful, so would probably have doomed him to a future of playing the privileged snarky guy. Weirdly, the show I liked him best in was Hwang Jin Yi...he was so young and cute and conflicted it was hard not to fall in love.
Both Gong Yoo and YEH are actors I will follow anywhere (and speaking of which, I see that Little Black Dress and The Crucible are both up on Netflix streaming now, so I really I have to get around to watching them). They were both great in Coffee Prince, but part of what made Coffee Prince great was that its stars were these two totally compelling, likeable actors that can manufacture chemistry out of nothing.
Now that they've both had recent dramas that kind of bombed, maybe the added pressure will help them really focus on picking good projects in the future. (Although who would have guessed a Hong sisters show would be as terrible as Big?) I'd love to see YEH playing a prickly, jaded girl who's career-mad with no time for love. Naturally, she would then meet Yoon Si Yoon, who's tying to save an orphanage her company is going to knock down and replace with a luxury resort—and then the sparks would fly ;) Gong Yoo I'd cast as the dad in a Pursuit of Happyness-ish story of triumph. (Sad that he's getting to the age where he'll become and ajusshi instead of an ingenue.)
And I've said it before and I'll say it again: I loved every awful minute of Boys over Flowers. In fact, I was stuck in a waiting room with my ipad for a good chunk of time today, and spontaneously decided to rewatch the first episode. Love, love love, that it's the girl version of Star Wars—a fairy story populated with every archetype that connects right to the collective unconscious. Gets me right here every time ::slaps chest::
I just have to add that there is no need for a girl version of Star Wars. Star Wars crosses all boundaries. ;) OK, I'm a scifi geek. I admit it. Han Solo has always been my hero!
DeleteYou're preaching to the choir here—my sixth birthday party was Return of the Jedi themed, and people picked on me about it well into high school. (I loved that Luke Skywalker, though.) I guess what I really mean is that BoF is girl *specific.* Both genders can enjoy Star Wars, but my it would take more imagination to believe a boy liked BoF than to believe the Death Star is up there somewhere right now.
DeleteLove the old starwars so much!!! Not a huge fan of the new ones though :(
DeleteAs far as I'm concerned there are no new Star Wars movie. They were all just part of a cruel joke.
DeleteI would pay good money to make a guy sit through BOF and watch his reactions. Especially one of my brothers. Lol...I can just picture it. The agony!
::whispers back:: I totally heard you talking smack about my Kim Sun Ah! :P I haven't yet seen I Do I Do, or Scent of a Woman, so my judgment on her is honestly a little limited - but I did adore her in City Hall as well. Not entirely sure why, but that drama just hit me right.
ReplyDeletePoor JGS. I'm so used to people defending him that I approached him up front as this mystical amazing actor with a tragic brooding past (hey! maybe they should do a drama about his TV career!?). I've only even seen him in You're Beautiful, and I don't think he did a bad job at all. That drama was just messed up - I barely it out alive, no thanks to just about every female character. *shivers*
I finally figured out why Gong Yoo is amazing though: he basically falls in love with what he believes is a guy... and every girl watching the show is still sitting there drooling. Never lost his masculinity! Not one bit of it! That's how you prove you're glorious at acting! :D
True that!! Any man who can admit that he loves another man and still be that sexy is awesome lol. There are masculine gay guys out there though (not that Han Gyul's character was actually gay, but whatever lol). One of my best friends just came out a few weeks ago and we were all like "WHAAAAAT????" because he's a perfectly masculine guy. Would've never guessed. Broke my stereotype bubble for sure lol.
DeleteGong Yoo just always looks mega sincere to me whether he is pissed or crying or looking in loving adoration, he's totally believable to me, whereas there are definitely some actors out there that just don't sell it to me. And he had to sell it to me for sure because as I've told you guys before, the first time I saw him I'll admit I thought he was odd looking, so my admiration of him really came about because of his portrayal of character first and then I started finding him attractive because I thought he was so awesome. Usually it's the other way around, I'll think an actor is hot so then I try to justify all their mistakes and make them a good actor in my mind lol.
I agree that he was completely believable in CP and very appealing.
DeleteI've found that most actors that I adore are the ones that I found odd looking at first. They are the ones that become more and more attractive every time you see them and/or are attractive in motion but not so much in still shots. I usually find actors that are attractive to me at first glance never seem to live up to that first impression. Actually, I'm this way with men in general. People often think I have odd taste. :)
I completely agree on all fronts. It's that they're odd looking that makes people interesting, I think. Drop-dead gorgeous actors and actresses are a dime a dozen, but it's their soul that makes someone fun to watch on screen. Neither Gong Yoo nor YEH are people you might pick out of a lineup as the best looking, but when you take the time to see the life behind their eyes it's hard to look away from them. (Which sounds like hippie nonsense, but I really think it's true.) And that's why I hate Ha Ji Won =X She's pretty, but there's no there there, if you know what I mean.
DeleteI may have just picked not-so-great Kim Sun Ah dramas to watch—I loved her in Sam Soon (of course), but wasn't really taken with her in either Scent of a Woman or I Do, I Do. And that's all I've seen her in at this point...I haven't dared to touch City Hall because it's written by the people who inflicted Secret Garden on the world.
(Excuse me while I whistle innocently and pretend I didn't just post incredibly mean things on the internet.)
Yes, their eyes both tell it all for sure!!!
DeleteHaha we can both be even because I love Secret Garden and hate BOF....
Amanda, I think you're exactly right. People's faces need the character that imperfection brings to be truly interesting. And I'm with you concerning Ha Ji Won. It kind of looks like the lights are on, but no one's home. OK, maybe that was mean. I didn't like Secret Garden, but loved City Hall. So you can't just go by the writers. Just like I like Harvest Villa, but thought Sign was a dead bore and couldn't get past episode 6 or 7.
DeleteYeah Ha Ji Won tends to be a weak link in whatever she is in. I have seen her in dramas I liked, but she was always kind of boring. I'm personally not so crazy about Park Shin Hye either, she seems to bubbly and brainless well but nothing else...
DeleteBTW, I definitely burned out already watching Summer Scent - but hey I made it to ep 8! I'll skip to the end today sometime and call it done. Now I'm kind of in the mood for a light rom-com. What should I do next? I need a light buddy to watch alongside Time Between Dog and Wolf.
ReplyDeleteI'm really enjoying I Need Romance 2012. I didn't think I'd like it at first, but it's really grown on me. I saw Dr. Champ recently and thought it was cute. That could be either my Uhm Tae Woong obsession or the fact that the first half of the series had a lot of good looking men taking their shirts off. City Hall is wonderful and Stars Falling from the Sky was good. I didn't include other goodies that Amanda has already reviewed.
DeleteI've thought about watching I Need Romance 2012, but I haven't seen the original so I should prob watch that one first. I need to watch City Hall, I always hear people talking about it.
DeleteI really do want to watch I Need Romance 2012 - but I kind of want to wait until it's finished airing. I get antsy having to wait for something, especially if it's something I think I'm really going to adore. The first I Need Romance is perfection itself! You should watch! And of course, City Hall. :)
DeleteDonna, both of your suggestions look enticing... I have not experienced this phenomenon that is Uhm Tae Woong. Dare I try it? And I'm curious, as you mentioned above, is he one of those odd-looking actors you came to adore? Who else fits the bill? My list of such actors probably includes: Gong Yoo, Lee Sun Gyun, Kim Jeong Hoon (I Need Romance, though I didn't like him in Goong), and most recently Ji Hyun Woo (Queen InHyun's Man).. siiighs..
Hmmmm I am going to have to check out I Need Romance....
DeleteThe two I Need Romances aren't related, Julie, so you could really start with either. (Although I hear cast members from the first show do make appearances in the second.) As an added bonus, both are cable dramas so they're only 45 minutes per episode—it's amazing how short that seems when you're used to the 70 minute episodes regular Korean shows have. I LOVED the first I Need Romance and will watch the second one as soon as it's done airing. Like Sara, I can't handle the wait for new episodes that comes with a currently airing show.
DeleteSad that Summer Scent let us down. I definitely want to hear what you think of Spring Waltz when you get around to it, Sara. Spring Waltz was just one of those shows that hit me on a visceral level (like BoF, God help me), and there's no shaking its grip. I definitely understand that this is not at all a measure of the show's quality, though, so can appreciate that other people hate them.
Hah, I need to check out the first I need Romance too. Never did get around to watching that.
DeleteI compiled a short list of actors that I found either odd looking or just plain unattractive at first glance that I came to adore. In no specific order:
Lee Sun Gyun
Uhm Tae Woong
Jang Geun Suk
Jun No Min
Lee Chun Hee
Cha Seung Won
Also, here's a short list of actors who's attractiveness definitely faded though I still enjoy watching some of them.
Hyun Bin
Lee Min Ho
Daniel Henney
Kang Ji Hwan
Lee Joon Ki
Of course, this is just my opinion. Sara, I think what sold me on Uhm Tae Woong is that he usually plays such serious roles, but he's also on the variety show 1 Night 2 Days and he's so dorky that he's just adorable.
I know a guy who looks exactly like Hyun Bin, so I can't perv out over him. It makes me feel weird and dirty, because said guy is happily married with babies. He was lovely in Snow Queen, though.
DeleteI agree about Lee Sun Gyun—through most of Coffee Prince, I only found him hot when he was wearing his hipster glasses. Now I'm always aboard train Sun Gyun. (Although I'm totally un-tempted by that Golden Hour show he's in now.)
I literally don't even know who half of the people on your list are...which is beautiful. Now I need to watch all their dramas =X
I think the roles people are playing can also make a huge difference—Lee Kyu Han in Can You Hear My Heart = no go; Lee Kyu Han in Que Sera Sera = yes, please.
I don't know who some of theses guys are, I will have to investigate...
DeleteAhhh talking about YEH made me really want to re-watch Goong for some reason so I abandoned Protect the Boss temporarily to watch it and I forgot how goshdarn cute and funny it is. I think I am definitely appreciating it more the second go round. I am just having a girly night. I have been on a hardcore diet for a month, all organic food, high protein low carb and I just decided tonight that I needed a cheat day or I was going to go crazy so I had some nice greasy Chinese food and am about to have some Chunky Monkey Ben and Jerry's while I'm watching Goong. Perfect girly night for me :) I will have to run 5 miles tomorrow instead of 3 to alleviate the guilt and then prob 9 or 10 miles for my long run on Sunday (training for another half marathon, Fall is almost upon us!!), but hey right now it's totally worth it!!! :P
ReplyDeleteI loved Goong—such a cute, cuddly show. (Teddy bear finales, for the love of god! Teddy bears!) I had greasy Chinese food for dinner, too, but am just about to watch my first drama episode of the day. (And, barring a zombie outbreak in the near future, will never, ever run 5 miles.)
DeleteIljimae, which I'm watching now, has a lot of potential and eye candy up the ying yang, but it's a lot more of a comedy than I expected. It's almost in the vein of Tamra, the Island in some ways—I hope that Arang has a bit more weight. I like my sageuks like I like my modern dramas: darkish and angsty-ish.
Wow, 5 miles. I'm with Amanda concerning the zombie outbreak. I had a small fries from Wendy's of the kids' football practice. Healthy, huh.
DeleteI never did see Goong. It sounds like both of you really like it, but it never sounded the least bit interesting to me. Maybe I should just give it a try one day.
Gong is light-hearted teenage fun that I really liked, but I don't know that it's essential viewing ;) It's by far the best of the modern-day Korean monarchy shows, though...it's sort of the Korean version of that Julia Stiles rom-com The Prince and Me (which, of course, I also loved).
DeleteYes, love the teddy bears!! Such a great touch!!
ReplyDeleteIf there ever is an outbreak of zombies, I may survive lol. You know there's actually a running app that was just made that is supposed to like narrate a story where there's zombies chasing you and tell you how far and fast to run to get away, I keep meaning to download it lol.
Oh Tamra, what an interesting drama that was. Hmmm I like comedy, now I'm intrigued...
I can't run 5 miles either, but I can shoot a gun!
DeleteGoong.. now where did that drama go wrong for me? I think it was the guys. They seemed so bland. So bland. I think the teddy bears had better chemistry with each other than they did.
I think it's a mark of my obsession that 6 months ago I couldn't look at a Korean's name and remember it 2 seconds later, but now on Donna's list I hadn't heard/seen 3 of them, and the rest I can picture instantly. That makes me happy. :P I mostly agree with your list of the attractive ones who lose points down the line, except Hyun Bin. I think he actually makes the first list for me. He's honestly not that classically attractive - I just like him. Sorry Amanda, that in your world he's married with babies. In my world, he's perpetually single. :P
There are also races that actually have some runners playing zombies and others playing survivors, like Run For Your Lives. Now that sounds like a form of exercise I could get behind (probably literally, as I'm nothing if not slow).
DeleteMy Korean recognition abilities have skyrocketed lately, too ;) Whenever I started watching a new drama, I used to be lost for episodes before everyone's identity sank in, but nowadays I usually recognize half the cast from something else I've seen them in. (It's a good thing that's true of Iljimae, because without previous knowledge of its pretty-faced male leads, I'd never be able to keep them straight.) This has actually changed my experience of dramas a lot—having no idea who anyone was made the shows seem impossibly exotic, back in the day.
Oh my gosh that is amazing!!! I have to do one of those races now!! What beautiful world we live in...
DeleteYeah I see familiar faces all the time now too and I know a decent amount of names, especially the older actors and actress, seems like some of them play the moms/dads or grandmas/grandpas in like everything lol.
Now that I'm also attempting to learn some basic Korean I can also understand a lot of phrases and key words in sentences without the subtitles, it's pretty cool seeing as how I couldn't even pick out the characters names when I first started watching lol.
I'm not super attracted to Hyun Bin, though he is a good actor. I would definitely agree with, Lee Sun Gyun however, he is super sexy to me, even though he really isn't necessarily hot in the traditional sense. In fact, I will admit I was initially more attracted to him in like the first 3 episodes of CP than I was to Gong Yoo before GY's magical charm won me over. That voice....
ReplyDeleteI kmow. I'm really attracted to people's voices. I think part of what killed my Hyun Bin attraction was when I heard him speak English. I know it's not fair, but it was an assault to my ears and I could never look at him the same way. :(
DeleteI downloaded the second Coffee Prince soundtrack and listen to the dialogue clips all the time, just because it's fun to hear people speaking Korean at random moments in my day.
DeleteGod, I'm such a weirdo =X
They probably feel that way about us when we speak Korean too. They're probably thinking "Just stop you're embarrassing yourself" lol. It's funny because I just watched the episode of Goong last night where they are at Shin's bday party and a bunch of his rich friends are speaking in front of Chae Kyung in English and making fun of her because they know she can't understand them, but when she starts speaking the basic English phrases that she knows Yoon Eun Hye's English accent is WAY better than theirs. It made me laugh because they were supposed to sound like the ones who knew English the best, but I'm guessing she's had more practice at it in real life than them because she was touring and interviewing for Baby VOX since she was a teenager. It's just like how in Big that Shin kid who played Kyung Joon in the first episode was supposed to be from America but his English accent was so bad that he was almost unintelligible, but Gong Yoo's English accent was pretty decent and much more understandable when he was playing KJ.
DeleteI am planning on trying to get a job teaching English in Korea (I want to do some traveling before I start having children and while I am still young, plus my brother lives in South China, right above Hong Kong so I would have family close by and I could go visit China too while I'm there), hopefully by next Fall, it just depends how life is going, but I'm already starting to go through all the paperwork muck of getting a passport and what not, but I've been studying Korean a lot just so I'll know at least some basic stuff by Fall of next year and I've already decided that if I actually do get job teaching over there I'm going to pretend that I can't understand any Korean at all in class for the first few weeks to see what they'll say in front of me lol.
I love hearing Kdrama people try to speak English. It actually makes me feel better for being a total failure at all foreign languages =X
DeleteGong Yoo really does a decent job with it, as you noted—a whole section of the drama One Fine Day is set in Australia, and he spends most of it speaking passable English. (Especially when compared to the girl who was playing his sister; her English was impressionistic at best.)
You know who made me sad? Park Yoochin went to middle school in America, but when he had to deliver an English-language speech in Miss Ripley it was clear he had no idea what the words he was saying meant. It must have sucked for him to live here if he couldn't really communicate...
It's crazy that he spent 3 years there and didn't pick it up. But you know learning a language is somewhat about natural understanding of languages, but really a lot about how much time you spend actually trying to use it and learn it. So if he just spoke Korean all the time to his friends and family and didn't spend any extra time learning English then I wouldn't expect him to pick it up so well because English could not be more different than Korean, it's not like learning another Asian language where it's different but at least there are some similarities (Like us learning Spanish, it's not that difficult because it's so similar). I am like balking at the reading and writing aspect of trying to learn Korean because it's so incredibly different and they just use a lot of sounds that we don't use and I'm sure it's visa versa for them when they are trying to learn English. I always wonder what an American accent sounds like to someone else, but alas I will never be able to hear it because I am American lol.
ReplyDeleteSo I rewatched Goong the abridged version (skipped all the annoying parts with people just sitting around talking about the obvious and just watched all the good dramatic parts and the cute scenes lol), and I have to say it was still so good. I found myself crying again int he last episode even though I knew what was going to happen lol. And it struck me this time around that the male lead is a really good actor too (I read it was his first drama as well, the casting people were brave to pick an actor and actress who had both never done dramas before, but it surely worked out for them) and I saw that he had returned from his hiatus this year (apparently was sentenced for drug use and then went into the military when he finished his sentence) with a drama and a movie. I may have to check them out, though I think the movie just premiered a few days ago because I saw some recent pics of YEH at the premiere looking hot as always lol.
ReplyDeleteAnd, thought you'd be interested in this Amanda, a lovely blogger going by the name of VegasPink shared this on my blog wall today:
"Did you know that Yoon Eun Hye was actually first cast as the lead actress, until she was pulled out by her then company? She even went to the first script reading. It was a big news actually because of her immense chemistry with Eric on XMan…. But fortunately, she stood against her company and decided to join Coffee Prince instead when her company wanted her to star in their own production…. Thought you’d want to know since you are a big Yoon Eun Hye and Coffee Prince fan.."
Crazy right? Wish she could've somehow done both CP and Que Sera, Sera cuz her and Eric were really good together on X-Man.
!?!?! YEH in Que Sera Sera? My head just exploded. I can see why they would have wanted her for the role—she's a good fit for the more lighthearted portion of the female lead's part. She would have done a good job for the whole drama, but I think the almost-rape would have been unbearably awful to watch if it had been her. :(
DeleteI really can't see her being that helpless after watching her take down Rain, Eric, and a comedian even bigger than them at wrestling, like no lie she NEVER LOST, that's what she was a legend for on that show. And I picture her carrying huge Gong Yoo's dead weight when she was playing Go Eun Chan, so it would definitely be weird to see her act like she's being that overpowered by a guy. In fact, when I was watching Goong yesterday I turned to my husband in one scene where Shin was angry and like majorly manhandling her and I was like "In real life she could kick that skinny guy's ass" lol. Though her chemistry with Eric on X-Man was like smoking, so that would have been fun to watch in a drama, she was always being fought over by him and Rain, it was hysterical. Hey, they could still do a drama together...
DeleteJung Yoo Mi is a good actress, and she's done a great job in everything I've seen her in, but I just can't get used to the way she looks. She looks like an alien to me lol. I read a review of Rooftop Prince on someone else's blog where they said her guy roomates said she looks like she's "touched" lol, and she kinda does.
I just started watching the new I Need Romance, and Jung Yoo Mi is the lead. She looks a little more normal here—but then again, I always thought she was cute, once you got used to her doe eyes.
DeleteIs that her? I kept thinking she looked familiar, but just couldn't place her. She looks a lot more normal.
DeleteYou know what I looked it up and it's not the same girl in Rooftop Prince. I kept thinking that she looked strange to me, but not quite the same as Jung Yoo Mi, the person that wrote that blog was wrong, and all this time I was thinking it was her but when I looked back at pictures I wa slike "That doesn't quite look like her." I think they got confused because the second lead actress in Rooftop Prince also has the name Jung Yoo Mi. But in any case, she still looks weird to me. I saw her in The Crucible and Que Sera, Sera. I'll have to see what she looks like in I Need Romance 2012. She is a really great actress though, she does and excellent job in The Crucible.
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