While seeking
vengeance against the birth mother he believes abandoned him for
frivolous reasons, a tortured young man falls in love with his
half-brother’s best friend.
First impression
Part
standard-issue Kdrama love triangle and part angsty makjang fest,
this drama is a strange,
miserable beast. Clearly influenced by the terrible-people-doing-terrible-things genre of shows like What Happened in Bali, by
episode 2 I’m Sorry is
already hinting about a tragic ending to come. Once a
character is shown quoting from Romeo and Juliet’s death
scene, all hope is pretty clearly lost.
Final verdict
Looking on the
darker side of life seems to be the speciality of screenwriter Lee
Kyung Hee. From gigolos to high school dropouts, from kids with AIDS
to murderers and the people who take the blame for them, her dramas
are the perfect antidote to the candy-coated unreality of most Korean
television. If you can handle the tragedy of it all, you’re in good
hands with her: every character is nuanced and sensitively drawn, and
every awful turn is balanced with a moment of grace and beauty.
I’m Sorry, I
Love You is an especially rare
bird: It’s not every day you come across a Kdrama romantic
lead best described as mean, rude, and dirty. But in spite of his
awful behavior, this flawed, supremely damaged antihero still comes
off a sympathetic figure. Twice abandoned as a child, once by his
birth mother and once by his adoptive family in Australia, Cha Moo
Hyuk views the world through a jaded, amoral mask. But beneath that
mask, he’s a sad, lost little boy who loves fiercely and longs for
fairness and a sense of belonging. And when Moo Hyuk’s life begins
to intertwine with his birth family’s, all his worst intentions
disappear one by one.
A bleak,
viscerally gripping story of missed opportunities and seemingly
impossible redemptions, the actual events that take place in I’m
Sorry are largely beside the point. It’s the characters and
their interactions that make it worth watching. A lesser show would
have turned them into one-note, mustache-twirling villains, but
instead, they’re almost all worthy of pity: the desperate mother
who all but ruins her son with her love; the spoiled, self-obsessed
boy who eventually stands up as a man; the girl who comes to realize
the difference between a crush and real love, only to lose everything
in the end.
If I could travel
back in time and alter the course of this drama, I would have stepped
in at about episode 10. That’s the point where it started to suffer
from back-and-forth-itis, focusing on the will-they-or-won’t-they
romance between the leads rather than confronting the big, awful
secrets and lies inherent in its plot. By the self-consciously tragic
finale, some of the most serious issues the show had to offer were
utterly unexplored. (Another time-machine worthy change? Convincing the director that disguising oneself as a 1970s porn star is no way to win a woman’s heart.)
But in spite of
its rough patches, I’m Sorry, I Love You (note
the significant comma placement) is a moving character study about
finding ways to see behind people’s masks, and learning to love
what you find there.
Random
thoughts
• Episode 1.
Gesh, buddy. Even I’d be a better assassin than you—at least
I know when you’re trying to kill someone, you should should at
them, not the nearby wine bottles. Get it together, would you?
• Episode 2.
Ye gods, is this show all about value. Halfway through episode 2
and we already have two cases of traumatic head injury resulting in
brain damage? Even for Kdrama, that’s got to be some kind of a
record. Lee Kyung Hee, its screenwriter, sure gets a lot of mileage
out of that old saw.
• Episode 4.
You know, nothing ruins a nice homoerotic shower scene like
probable brotherhood.
• Episode 9.
Nice Guy was an enjoyable watch, but never quite grabbed me
emotionally. This show, on the other hand, has me pinned in a
half-nelson of feels. I can’t believe how wrapped up I am in these
(largely unlikable) characters, especially because I’ve been able
to see the site of this particular train wreck for about six episodes
now. No more melodrama for me for a while, or I'm going to need
anti-depressants.
• Episode 12.
This episode gave me an idea for one of Donnapie’s Asian drama
memes: That awkward Asian drama moment when a couple is so great
together that you’re rooting for them to get married (or at least
have lots of hot sex) . . . even though they're almost certainly
brother and sister. That's awkward, all right.
Screenwriter Lee Kyung Hee’s other dark melodramas, including Nice Guy, Will
It Snow at Christmas?, and A Love to Kill
The excruciating tragedy of What Happened in Bali,which also
happens to star I’m Sorry lead So Ji-sub (in a much less compelling role, though—he mostly walked around looking like he had an epic case of constipation).
Amnesia, antiheroes, voiceover bargains with god, and romantic leads staring at each other from opposite sides of busy roads.
Why is it that so many Korean dramas include the same elements and themes?
Having just finished watching two
series written by Lee Kyung Hee—the wrenching, one-two punch of
Nice Guy and I’m
Sorry, I Love You—I’ve been thinking a lot about one answer to this question: authorial voice. Like most big, brand-name screenwriters, Lee’s work tends to include a number of common threads, most notably everything mentioned in the first paragraph of this post.
The points of similarity in a writer’s work can be little, like
the Hong sisters’ affinity for love talismans like You’re
Beautiful’s Piggy Bunny and
Greatest Love’s
beleaguered potato seedling. They can also be big, like the two body
swap comedies written by Choi Soon Sik: 2006’s Please
Come Back, Soon-Ae and this
year’s Oohlala Couple.
And then there’s Moon Hee Jung, who
in the past two years has written both Can You Hear My Heart? and
I Miss You. I disliked
the former about as much as any Kdrama I’ve ever seen, largely
because the heroine’s cutesy ways made me seethe with hatred
every time she appeared on screen. On the other hand, I’m loving I
Miss You (as of episode 6,
anyway). The weird thing? The shows are chock full of similarities.
Both
begin with a pair of children being taken from their homes by an
older woman who eventually raises them as something close to
siblings. In CYHMY young
Ma Ru and Dong Joo are abducted by Dong Joo’s mother and whisked
off to spend their growing up years in South America. In I
Miss You, the pairing is Soo
Yeon and Hyung Joon, who end up living with nurse Jang. We don’t
have many details yet about what their life was like away from home,
but I’m hopeful that this will be fleshed out as the series moves
on. It’s nice that the nurse saved both the kids, but based on
what we’ve seen of her she’s not exactly the mothering type.
In both shows,
the young captives grow up as inseparable companions who love each
other intensely. The bromance in Can You Hear My Heart? is as
tender and visceral as any Kdrama romantic relationship, and the show
is peppered with intimate scenes of the two boys—often in bed.
(Platonically, I’m sorry to report.) I Miss You has switched
things up a bit: as boy and girl, its birds-of-a-feather captives
have a similarly touching relationship, but their sizzling chemistry
might actually get consummated at some point. (Please, please,
please.) They, too, hang out in bed together.
Both
dramas also showcase a nuanced mother figure who somehow manages to be simultaneously pathetic, tragic, evil, and loving. In CYHMH, it’s the woman who raised Ma
Ru and Dong Joo. She
carefully manipulates the boys with her maternal charms, and her
relationship with them is a key point in the drama. I Miss You may actually prove to have a
pair of less-than-perfect but loving mothers—nurse Jang and Soo
Yeon’s mom. Once ready to abandon her daughter or die with her, Soo
Yeon’s mother has since proven to be an important guardian to both
Jung Woo and detective Kim’s daughter.
Other
character types are repeated in each of these dramas—the creepy
dad, the beside-the-point friend, the joker of a male lead who
manages to find a bright smile in the darkest of times. But if Can You Hear My Heart is a reliable predictor of I Miss You’s trajectory, the most interesting of
them all will be a conflicted antihero who flirts with the dark side
but eventually finds redemption. In CYHMY, this
was Bong Ma Ru, who did a litany of selfish, unsavory things to build
a better life for himself. As of episode six no character in I
Miss You quite matches this
description, but I suspect it’s what lies ahead for Hyung Joon,
played by the simmering Yoo Seung Ho. Here’s his character
introduction, as translated on JYJ3.net.
Expressionless.
His gaze is cold, his mind is composed too.
However,
only one girl is an exception. Only to that girl is he caring.
He
doesn’t express it with words. Whatever the girl wants, he knows
and will satisfy her.
Thus,
the others regard him as cold, but she merely calls him indifferent.
There
is no way for failure, everything is correct.
Therefore,
all his big clients have absolute trust in him.
To the
extent that all the large players in the stock market want him as a
son.
However,
he uses his most pained wound as a weapon, and is a man who lives
while embracing scary cruelty.
I
think it’s safe to say that our Hyung Joon is more than the show
has let on at this point. Is this “scary cruelty” from his past?
Or is he the one behind the mysterious attack in episode 6? Maybe he did it because he sees violence as the only way to protect Soo Yeon. All I know for sure is
that I can barely wait for this week’s episodes to find out more.
While my reaction to I Miss You couldn’t be more different from my reaction to Can You Hear My Heart, the two shows share a common backbone. Even working with so many of the same raw materials, though, they present their stories in different ways: one is kindhearted and sweet (or so it wishes), and the other is gritty and naturalistic.
It’s possible to look at the common themes, characters, and scenes running through most Korean dramas from a cynical perspective, seeing them as evidence that the writers are content to repeat past triumphs rather than innovating. But there’s another way to understand this repetition, especially when it’s the product of a single screenwriter like Can You Hear My Heart? and I Miss You: A full, faceted exploration of a single concept just takes more more time than one drama allows.
Note 1. When I was bitten by the Kdrama bug, Soompi was one of the first websites I started visiting regularly. It’s huge and frequently updated, and the scope of its coverage is amazing: from dramas to Kpop to celebrity gossip, Soompi’s got it all. So I’m tickled pink to report that I’ve been invited to contribute commentary and reviews to the site—the first installment of which has already gone up, as shown in the fangirl screen grab above. I’ll be posting there once a week (although the material will probably all go here, too).
The thing I find most amazing about Soompi is how long its been around: It was founded in 1998 by an American fan of H.O.T. (How Answer Me 1997, eh?) Back then I had only the dimmest awareness of Korean entertainment, largely gleaned from a friend who was attending Berklee College of Music in Boston. Although she was always reporting things like “The Korean Britney Spears is in my composition class!,” the concept of Kpop was mostly a curiosity to us. We were too busy following our favorite American boy band around the country to really care, and I was in fact founding my own website devoted to them. That website—and the whole fandom, really—is long gone now, so I appreciate how special it is to create something lasting on the Internet. When its age is calibrated to Internet fandom, Soompi is probably the equivalent of a thousand years old. (For fun times, check out the old versions of the site archived on The Wayback Machine. Note, in particular, the first item in the list of updates on the left.)
As a newcomer to Kdramas, I’ve found Soompi’s amazingly active forums to be an endless source of fascination. They’re the place to go for behind-the-scenes photos and news updates for current shows, but even more interesting are the threads devoted to old shows. During the depths of my obsession, I swear I read every single post in the 650-page Coffee Prince thread, which made me feel as if I had traveled back in time to experience the show’s original fan reception. It’s bizarre yet wonderful to read post after post debating whether this mysterious Gong Yoo guy would be a good actor or not—looking back five years later, I think it’s safe to say he was a success in the show.
Someday I’m bound to run out of things to say about Kdrama, but that day has yet to come. So in the meanwhile... Onwards!
Note 2. The next time I say something like ”Oh, Korea’s not that different from America,” I would like someone to remind me of the below photo. It’s from a prayer ceremony held earlier this month for the upcoming drama Alice in Cheongdam-dong. Most notable in the image? The head of a decapitated pig, all blue-tinged and...decapitated. Also, the fact that it appears have something into its mouth. What is this, the silence of the hams?
Note 3. There’s a fox in my neighborhood, and I can see why the real animals may have inspired the gumiho myth. I kept being woken up in the middle of the night by an unholy wailing that sounds thisclose to human. I’m not sure who’s more freaked out—me or my cat.
A young man out for revenge falls in love with the stepdaughter of his first love, a woman who betrayed him after he gave up everything in his life to protect her. Makjang and madness ensue.
First impression
From its very first scenes, this drama is a high-octane thrill ride
that promises a wealth of soap-opera-style pleasures. Murder!
Intrigue! Evil stepmothers, shrewish young women and manipulative
young heroes-disguised-as-villains! Seriously...what’s not to like?
No matter how much I love Korean drama,
it’s a rare thing to come across a show that I would feel safe
recommending to anyone, no matter what their personal interests. Nice
Guy is one of the few shows that fit this bill—it does most everything right, and the things it does wrong are easy to overlook. It’s a
near-perfect mix of the things Kdramas do so incredibly well:
romance, intrigue, and melodrama. And unlike most television shows
(whatever their continent of origin), it even rewards thoughtful
viewing and deep consideration.
With its carefully
structured plot full of subtle reveals, exciting reversals, and
ambiguous, nuanced antiheroes, Nice Guy’s scripttakes
what might have been a vehicle for soap-opera makjang and gives it
real emotional heft. On the surface, its
story contains the same old hoary elements that come up in all
melodramas: miserable childhoods, tragic illnesses, and chaebol power
struggles. (Amnesia, every drama writer’s magic-bullet plot device,
makes a few fortuitous appearances, too.) But these things are just
window dressing: this show’s true soul is found in its characters
and their journeys. On the voyage from degradation and desperation to
strength and wisdom, they clash again and again, nearly destroying
themselves and each other.
It’s the viewers’
good luck that this deeply flawed group of characters is brought to
life by a stellar cast that delivers almost universally spectacular
performances. From Song Joong Ki’s steely-eyed “nice guy” to
Moon Chae Won’s fiery heiress and Park Si Yeon’s beautifully
damaged, ruthless social climber, its actors regularly say more with
a single look than could be contained in a thousand pages of
dialogue.
Nonetheless, Nice
Guy is not perfect. Its first half was dragged down by dissonant,
cartoony elements in the Choco/Jae Gil storyline. And by the last
stretch of episodes, the complicated plot started to feel more like
an intellectual exercise than an emotional one. The finale also left
a little something to be desired, as far as I’m concerned. It
didn’t really resolve the workplace storyline (I guess the winner
was the person driving the nicest car in the coda?), and for a show
that’s all about the importance of taking responsibility for one’s
actions, the male lead got off the hook awfully easily. (For more involved, spoilery discussion of the coda, scroll down to the cut line at the bottom of this post.)
While it might not
be my favorite show ever, Nice Guy is still one of the finest
examples of its species: dark and drawn to the things that
break us, it explores the horrible things people will do to save
themselves, and the precarious ways they can earn redemption for
them.
Random Thoughts
• Episode 3.
Kudos to this show’s makeup department for using Ma Ru’s
wounds as an excuse to lovingly highlight Song Joong Ki’s delicate,
finely wrought features. That’s the kind of craftsmanship I can get
behind.
• Episode 8.
So they made a huge deal about her leaving with nothing in the
previous episode—and now she has a car all of a sudden? What? It
was even specifically mentioned that she left her car keys behind at
home...did she carjack some poor ajumma?
• Episode 12.
The harmonica. LOL. The harmonica...did Ma Ru pick up some mad
mouth harp skills in the pokey, or what?
• Episode 14.
I appreciate that narrative demands that the good guys don’t
win until the last minute, but must they always be such idiots along
the way? How could Ma Ru not be smart enough to have someone
physically verify the person they were meeting? This bumbling might
turn me team Jae Hee after all.
• Episode 14.
I’m in mourning for poor Eun Gi, who started out a spitfire and has
since lost every iota of personal agency. On the bright side, at
least she’s still allowed to speak, which is sort of more than you
can say for the heroine of Will It Snow at Christmas, an
earlier drama written by Nice Guy’s screenwriter.
• Episode 15.
Only in Kdrama fandom would knowing that someone opened their
eyes during a kiss be a spoiler of a Dumbledore-dies level of
awfulness. And yet, they included this very moment in the next
episode’s preview.
• Episode 16.
In life and in television I’m all for people getting what they
want most, but I can’t even consider the possibility of Choco and
Jae Gil ending up together. They have cute, sibling-style chemistry,
but he seems way too old for her and they’re a terrible physical
fit. The thought of them really kissing makes my skin crawl a
little...but I still suspect the show might be headed that way.
• Episode 16.
The only other show I’ve seen by this screenwriter is Will
It Snow at Christmas, which I also really liked. It’s
interesting that the two dramas have similar plot structures—each
has three separate, nearly self-contained story arcs, as if someone
hit the reset button mid-drama. This show’s beginning was all about
Ma Ru’s obsessive love for Jae Hee, its middle was about Eun Gi’s
struggle with amnesia...and now we have to wonder what the final four
episodes will hold. Lots of twisty-turny betrayals and a happy
ending, I hope.
• Episode 16.
So I just realized what the combination of Song Joon Ki’s little,
girlie face and his rough man hands reminds me of. The cover of Tiny
Fey’s Bossypants.
• Episode 17.
The icing on the Nice Guy cake? Seo Eun Gi having a
nervous breakdown as she wanders around in her wedding dress, like
Miss Havisham’s long lost Korean granddaughter. Well played, show.
• Episode 19. All the acting in this show is good, but the bench scene in this episode is actually stunning. For that one moment, we see the true Ma Ru, with all his flaws and graces etched right into Song Joon Ki’s suddenly not-so-handsome face.
• Episode 20. The cherry on the icing on the Nice Guy cake? The fact
that the finale’s opening credits have a different ending than the
ones for the rest of the episodes. It’s like every single thing
about the drama has evolved during its run.
• Episode 20.
I think the coda is filmed in one of the (gorgeous) spots
prominently featured Padam Padam—the bakery and vet’s
office are in the very same building, even.
While watching Korean dramas, I often come across words American speakers of the English language are tragically lacking. Sure, we have bon mots like kerfuffle,mooncalf, and onomatopoeia. But what about selca, CF, and skinship?
It’s clear that Korean has borrowed many words from the English language; as far as I’m concerned, it’s high time the English language returned the favor. Here’s a list of Kdrama terms and concepts essential to life in the modern world, wherever you are.
Gong Yoo unveils his chocolate, Big
Chocolate abs
Meaning:
Chiseled abdominal muscles that stand out like the segmented pieces on a chocolate bar
As seen in:
Big, and every single drama
that includes a gratuitous shower scene (Thank you, Korea!)
American
parallel: Six-pack abs
While
America does have an exact equivalent for this term, it’s not
nearly as wonderful. Sure, abs can look like a six-pack of beer as seen from above, but why associate something so marvelous with cold,
hard, metal? The Korean conception of chocolate
abs is
much more appealing. Who can say no to a nibble, after all?
Yoon Eun Hye and Lee Seung Gi sure make a cute couple.
You should get on that, Drama Overlords.
CF
Meaning:
Commercial film
As seen in:
Greatest Love
American parallel: Commercial
Like so many entries on this list, CF is actually a short
version of an English phrase that doesn’t even exist in
English-speaking countries. Why CF evolved in Korea and
not on American shores isn’t clear, but I suspect it has something
to do with the frequency of celebrity appearances in ads: it seems as
if every big Korean star shills for a list of products approximately
as large as my town’s phone book.
This abbreviation allows the arty word film to be appended to something we
Americans see as slightly crass—celebrity endorsements. Somehow, this tiny addition manages to class up the concept to the point of making it sound like an art form. It’s all about
positioning: a commercial is
something you fast-forward through; a commercial film is a
work of art that just happens to be shilling a kimchi refrigerator or
foundation for men.
Maybe someday we Americans will start talking about CFs, too. After all, “serious” actors like Brad Pitt are now appearing in
television ads, which seems to indicate that a change is brewing. (Who can
blame him for that bizarre Chanel ad, anyway? He’s got a
lot of kids to put through college.)
If Jan Dihad spent more time fighting in Boys over Flowers and less time
saying Fighting! it would have been a much better drama
Fighting!
Meaning: An
expression of encouragement
As seen in:
Boys over Flowers, and every
other modern Kdrama romantic comedy
American parallel: You
can do it!
Along with its distinctive arm gesture,
Fighting! started off as a
cheer used during Korea’s 2002 World Cup matches.
If the (many, many, many)
Kdramas I’ve watched are any indication, it caught on big time and
is now an indispensable part of communication in Korea.
It’s no great
surprise that Fighting doesn’t really have a direct equivalent
in America. If Fighting is Korea’s cultural keyword,
America’s is Cool; we rarely offer expressions of
encouragement and support. (The horrible, dated expression “You go
girl!” might once have worked, but nowadays it’s exclusively used
for the purposes of mockery.)
Ironically, this
word that the English language is sorely lacking is actually an English word in the first place. If we adopted it in its new, Korean
form, it might just make us better people. All I
know for sure is that I’m always encountering situations
tailor-made for Fighting!,
but its effectiveness is diminished by the need to
explain what it means before I can say it.
I’m sorry, but I can’t write a caption for this picture. I’m too busy
restraining myself from making naughty jokes about eating ramyun.
Suffice it to say, these are the boys from Flower Boy Ramyun Shop
Flower boy
Meaning:
Pretty, pretty boys who
aren’t afraid to put some effort into how they look. (Did I mention
that they’re pretty?)
As
seen in: Practically
every Kdrama made since the 2009 airing of Boys
over Flowers
American
parallel: Metrosexual
Like
many Western fans of Kdrama, Boys
over Flowers was my
first exposure to Korean television. But when I started watching it
on Netflix streaming, I had literally no idea what the title meant.
Boys? Flowers? In America, those two concepts rarely go together.
In
Korea, though, flower boys are all the rage. Heck, there’s even a
series of television shows created specifically to take advantage of
their appeal: tvN’s “Oh Boy” dramas, which includes Flower
Boy Ramyun Shop, Shut Up: Flower Boy Band, and
the eagerly anticipated Flower
Boy Next Door.
Key
traits of flower boyhood are a slender body, a delicately lovely
face, and fastidious personal grooming habits, sometimes even to the
point of wearing makeup. Being a pretty boy is something Korean men
actively aspire to, which is why in 2011 they were
responsible for a quarter of worldwide sales of cosmetics made specifically for men.
Mainstream
American culture would probably consider most flower boys too
feminine to be attractive, but we in the know realize that life
without flower boys is barely worth living.
Kim Ji Won, you were so cute in What’s Up that I completely
forgive you for To the Beautiful You.
Fourth
dimensional/4D
Meaning:
Someone
odd or spacey
As
seen in:
Endearingly goofy Park Tae Hee from What’s
Up and
dreamy Yoon Ji Hoo in Boys
over Flowers
American
parallel: Space
cadet; weirdo
Regular
human beings live life in three dimensions. But some people seem to
exist on a different plane, never quite thinking or acting like
anyone else. They’re easily distracted, whether by pretty things or
big ideas, and prone to misunderstanding what seems obvious to those around them.
I
suspect that people in my life would be especially grateful if this
phrase entered the English language: they’ve probably spent a lot
of time trying to figure out how to describe me, after all.
You know it’s true love when a flower boy dyes his hair gray for you, as Kim Bum’s
character has done in this scene from The Woman Who Still Wants to Marry
Noona
Romance
Meaning: A
story focusing on an woman’s relationship with a younger man
As
seen in: The Woman Who Still Wants to Marry and I Do, I Do,
among many others
American
parallel: Anything
involving the icky, condescending word Cougar
When
I first started watching Korean dramas, words like noona
and
oppa were
stunningly exotic; as a speaker of English, I’ve spent most of my
life calling everyone I know by their first name. Koreans, on the
other hand, have at their disposal a complicated network of words
indicating almost every kind of relationship, from your father’s
older brother (keun
aboji) to
the youngest person in your group of friends (maknae). There’s a case to be made for either of these approaches: the
American way of doing things emphasizes equality, while the Korean
way emphasizes interconnection.
But
lacking a similar classification system, we Americans don’t have have an easy way to describe a romantic
relationship between a woman and a younger man. (Not that we have
much call to do so, anyway: As long as an age difference isn’t
enormous, it probably wouldn’t be mentioned at all. And if it is
enormous, in the post-Demi-and-Ashton world it’s almost certainly a
relationship between a older man and and a younger woman.)
On
other hand, Korean dramas glory in older women dating younger men.
There are a number of sensible reasons for this: It’s a good source
of narrative friction in a society that values age-based hierarchy.
Plus, mandatory military service in Korea means that it’s harder to
pair actresses with their peers—until they’re safely in their
thirties, a chunk of the male population is otherwise occupied at any
given time.
As
genres go, the noona romance is probably my favorite. So what happens
when similar plotlines appear in Western entertainment, like the
upcoming Hello, I
Must Be Going?
I spend a lot of time explaining to my friends that “noona”
doesn’t indicate a matinee showtime, that’s what.
Lee Hyun Woo, you were so darling in To the Beautiful You that no forgiveness is necessary.
Selca
Meaning: A
photo you’ve taken of yourself
As seen in: Cha
Eun Kyul’s selca diaries in To the Beautiful You
American
parallel: To the best of my
knowledge, there isn’t one
Fifty
percent of the profile pictures on the Internet are probably selcas,
yet we Americans have yet to realize that it would be handy to have a
word to describe them. When we finally do catch on, the Korean
version will fit right into our language: it’s a mashup of the
English words self
and
camera, after
all.
I don’t think they waited for marriage in Can We Get Married, btw.
Skinship
Meaning:
Affectionate touching, often
involved with romantic relationships
As seen in: Most cable dramas, including the currently airing Can We Get Married?
American
parallel: Long strings of words
like “physical displays of affection,” but nothing as short and
catchy
There’s
an urban legend that the Eskimo language doesn’t include a word for
snow. Instead, the
legend states, there are words for “heavy, wet snow,” “snow
that’s falling slowly,” and “hard, crusty snow.” The theory
is that in a world where it’s almost always winter, specific,
descriptive terms for snow are more useful than the general word.
And
that, my friends, is why there’s no American version of the word
skinship. Physical
intimacy here isn’t a big deal; we’re prone to casually touching
those around us and displays of affection happen all the time. For
example, consider my favorite recess game during elementary school:
Kiss Tag. This is exactly what it sounds like—the person who was
“it” had to kiss whomever they could catch, at which point the
kissee became the new “it” and repeated the process. By the end
of the first game, I had the kissing experience of the average
thirty-year-old Kdrama heroine. (I was a slow runner, by fate or design. I’ll never tell which.)
Even in America, it’s hard to imagine the word Skinship
not coming in handy: It’s
shorter and more concise than most of our descriptions of physical
intimacy, so why not use it?
Have you been hearing a mysterious, high-pitched “EEE!!!” sound for the past week or so? Well, I must apologize: that’s the noise I’ve been making ever since I first heard about this new entry in the Oh Boy series of dramas, following after Flower Boy Ramyun Shop and my beloved Shut Up: Flower Boy Band.
Based on a webtoon about a girl loner who spends all of her time scoping out her dreamy next door neighbor, FBND is bound to be a high-energy, youthful delight. But the real kicker is the genius casting of its leads: Yoon Si Yoon (Me Too, Flower) and Park Shin Hye (Heartstrings). They’ve each been the best thing about every drama they’ve ever been in, and their doe-eyed cuteness seems utterly compatible. (Almost too much so, in fact. They could be siblings. Uh-oh...)
Although it’s pretty much standard procedure to shoot Kdramas live, allowing for on-the-fly course correction based on public opinion, the grapevine says FBND will begin filming soon. I find this heartening: scripting and filming a watchable show on a week-by-week basis seems spectacularly difficult. (Just ask the production team behind Faith.)
I’m hoping this show will find a middle ground between the lightweight FBRS and gritty SUFBB, but wherever it lands I’m almost certain to be a happy, happy girl.
I hate to wish away months and months of my life (especially when they contain long vacations), but will you just get here already, January?
I’m a sucker for coming of age stories set during high school, so this new drama is at the top of my must-watch list. Also intriguing is the potential for Degrassi-esque brand continuation: at least nominally, it’s a remake of a series that ran for four seasons beginning in 1999.
Based on its huge cast of young actors, I imagine its storytelling will be episodic, with each hour focusing on a different group of characters with problems centered around their classroom. I wasn’t crazy about this approach when it was used in Hello My Teacher, but that’s probably due to that drama’s tragic underuse of Korea’s greatest natural resource, Gong Yoo (an alum of the original School, might I add).
School’s adult cast of teachers includes an interesting pair: Jang Na Ra and Daniel Choi, aka the lead couple from 2011’s Baby-Faced Beauty. (Random fact: According to his Drama Wiki page, Daniel Choi has been in the advertising campaign for McDonald’s “triangular pie.” Yum. Triangular pie, just like Mom used to make.)
After being
kidnapped and brought back in time by a noble Goryeo warrior bent on
saving his Queen, a modern plastic surgeon finds herself at the
center of political turmoil and mysterious legends about a heavenly
doctor from a thousand years earlier.
First impression
Is it possible
that the team behind Arang and the Magistrate created this
show on the sly with the intent of making Arang look even
better than it actually was? Because that’s all I’m getting from
the first episode, which looks and feels chintzy and makes some
risible narrative decisions right off the bat. Smart writers don’t
go from the tensest, most exciting moment in an entire product right to boring,
character-establishing flashbacks. Right?
Final verdict
Here’s what you should watch Faith
for:Its
compelling pair of love stories and the humane, multi-faceted
treatment of its four leads. (Also, there’s the matter of Lee Min Ho’s luscious, kissable mouth. Just saying.)
Here’s
what you shouldn’t watch Faith for:
Logic, narrative flow, or a satisfying overarching storyline.
It’s
possible to enjoy this show for its swoony, slow-boil romance, but
the second you give your brain cells free reign everything falls to
pieces.
Time
travel is a notoriously difficult narrative element that requires
careful thought and advance planning, and I suspect that the makers
of Faith were in short
supply of both. As soon as you start dabbling in Möbius-strip
storylines where the present depends on the future and the past,
you’d better tread carefully. Faith is
a textbook example of what happens when you don’t: it vaporized any
hint of narrative tension by revealing too much of the big picture.
Thanks
to the interplay of Faith’s
three time periods, it
was always clear that nothing was really at stake. As someone from
the future, the female lead knew from the beginning how the story
would end for all the major players in the past; she’d memorized
their fates for a school exam, for the love of God. This spring’s
similarly themed Queen In-hyun’s Man managed
to neutralize the same problem by making it clear that the time
traveler’s actions in the past could impact the future. But Faith
never figured out how to do
this, leaving it with three main characters who were never in
jeopardy, and whose ultimate paths were always predetermined.
The
show then had one possible source of tension: the
question of whether Eun Soo, its female lead, would decide to leave
the past. But it blew even that.
It’s true that Faith’s animated opening sequence was fun and eye-catching, and even reminiscent of some scenes from 2010’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. But it was also the root of this show’s undoing. In order for it to happen, the female lead’s trip to the Goryeo era could only end one way. It strapped the plot into a straight jacket, and these writers were no Harry Houdinis. When your entire story hinges on constantly rescuing a character from mortal
peril, it’s unwise to rule out the possibility of that character’s
death with your opening sequence. This also applies to big decisions:
if a character is going to spend multiple episodes deliberating over
something, the thoughtful writer makes sure it’s not an utterly
moot point.
Faith’s cast of thousands and poorly incorporated magical elements
brought even more pointless wheel-spinning to the table. When one
good guy can fearlessly take on twenty or thirty bad guys and emerge
without a scratch, what’s the point? It’s all just meaningless, cartoony violence. (Which, might I add, looks particularly clumsy and
poorly choreographed when seen in such close proximity to the
dazzling acrobatics of Arang and the Magistrate.)
The defanged main antagonists were also no help. I’m sure the
writers wanted them to come off as nuanced and flawed, but all the
back and forth just made it hard to take them seriously.
You can tell that Faith wanted to be more than just a distraction—it wanted to be good. It gave us lovely little character moments, like when the male lead watched his opponents remove their dead from a battlefield. Many of its actors did fine work with well-drawn characters. Ultimately, though, its many macro failings overcame its few micro successes.
Random
thoughts
Episode 4.
Lee Min Ho’s on-screen fighting skills have certainly improved
since Boys over Flowers—not
that that’s saying very much. Even in this drama, though, most of
his action scenes involve more showy wire work than impressive
choreography.
Episode 5. Faith continues to be cheesy and lower-rent than Arang, yet I
continue to watch it. It’s easier for a comedy to deal with this
kind of high-concept storytelling: as soon as the impossible
situation starts to be taken too seriously, the show feels
ridiculous. Goryeo X-Men? Time-traveling plastic surgeons? Killer
flutes and great white whales . . . erm . . . wigs? At its heart,
though, Faith is reasonably compelling and has a good deal of
forward momentum. But as is always the case with sageuks, I could
live with more epic love story and fewer political machinations.
• Episode 5.
I sure hope the female lead has some hair dye and tampons in that
huge purse of hers. Otherwise, her year in the past is going to be
awkward at best. And I have to say that bathroom humor isn’t really
my favorite trend in Korean dramas, but is this ever a missed
opportunity to have some discussion of old-school toilet habits. What
would an outhouse be like that served all the people in the palace?
Ick.
• Episode 6.
This is the first sageuk I’ve seen that’s set in an era other
than the Joseon period. The Goryeo getups aren’t quite as appealing
as the Joseon hanboks—the actors all look like extras from a Star
Trek episode.
• Episode 7.
Daylight savings time, you rock! I thought it was 4:40, but it's
actually 3:40. I have a whole extra hour to watch dramas before bed!
::does pathetic dance of victory::
• Episode 14.
The female lead should have just erected a billboard reading “You’re
totally going to die in childbirth. But on the bright side, your
husband will be really torn up about it.” It would have been more
subtle.
• Episode 17.
I’ll say one thing for this
show: its female lead isn’t an idiot, and is refreshingly free from
the cutesy, ineffetual mannerisms of so many Kdrama girls.
• Episode 21.
Thank heavens you traveled back in time, Eun Soo. The thought of
all these tragic Goryeo women being cursed to live their entire lives
without professionally formulated makeup and skin care products is
too horrifying to consider. You are truly God’s doctor.
• Episode 21.
This show needs more metaphorical swordplay and less actual
swordplay, if you get my drift.
(I guess this show will be filmed in 12 Grimmauld Place?)
Alice in Cheongdam-dong
Romantic comedy
16 episodes
December 1, SBS
I’m willing to bet that by the time this drama makes it to mainstream English-language sources like Netflix, its title will have changed: Alice in Gangnam has a different sort of ring to it these days, doesn’t it? Cheongdam-dong is indeed part of that famous neighborhood, where it’s renowned as an upscale shopping hub that provides the real housewives of Gangnam with their luxury goods.
Purportedly, Alice in Cheongdam-dong is based on a novel. According to the show’s Soompi forum, its source material is part brand forgery shenanigans (ala I Do, I Do) and part hardworking girl struggling to support her family (like Coffee Prince, one can only hope). In a shocking twist, there also seems to be a little bit of Indecent Proposal thrown in for good measure. (Seriously. Read the article.)
I’m getting mixed signals on this one: it’s a fish-out-of-water romantic comedy (good), focusing on the relationship between an “endlessly positive girl” (well, duh) and the president of a luxury brand (excellent, especially as Park Shi Hoo of Family’s Honor is playing this role, hopefully at his most sarcastic and bitchy). On the other hand, said hardworking girl wants to be a clothing designer (again?), or failing that, the wife of rich man (sigh). And while I like this show’s lead actors, I’m finding it difficult to imagine Park Shi Hoo and Moon Geun Young in a romance. On top of being awkwardly pocket sized in comparison to him, she’s almost ten years younger.
Korean television has always loved exploring how the richer one percent live, but in the wake of Psy’s omnipresent novelty hit “Gangnam Style,” pop culture seems especially primed for a new drama trend: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I’m hoping there will be some genuine exploration of what wealth and privilege really mean in modern Korean society. But in the meanwhile, I can certainly make do with the kind of sparkly, whimsical rom-com promised by Alice in Cheongdam-dong’s new teaser trailer. (If its creators were going for a mad hatter vibe with Park Shi Hoo, I have some bad news: between the Colonel Sanders neckwear and the prominent ears and teeth, all I see is the white rabbit.)
(A weird footnote: Although most bloggers covering this drama say it really is based on the novel Cheongdam-dong Audrey, the book’s publisher apparently sued SBS this summer, at which point the station was claiming the show and book were unrelated.)
(This poster is just like I like my melos: DRIPPING! WITH! MISERY!)
This drama shows all signs of being a classic K-melo: it’s built around a tragically separated pair of young lovers who are reunited as adults, only to be kept apart by an angsty love triangle.
I Mis You is like a vortex of hope and fear for me. I’ve adored Yoon Eun Hye since hitting “play” on Coffee Prince’s opening episode, and ever since I’ve longed to see her in something more meaty and serious than the light-as-air rom-coms she seems to gravitate toward. Yoon Eun Hye may not be the most skilled actress or pick the best projects, but her utterly likeable persona and charming awkwardness always shine through. I’m also a huge fan of melodramas; the more insanely over-the-top and full of misfortune they are, the more I tend to like them.
But that’s where the fear comes in: I Miss You was written by the same screenwriter as Can You Hear My Heart, one of my least favorite shows of all time. I’m hoping that my violent reaction to CYHMH can be attributed to its overly cutesy acting and lousy direction, but I’m not so sure. Beyond that, I Miss You’s tumultuous, wank-filled backstory is every bit as melodramatic as its plot (read more about the hot mess at Drama Beans and The Vault). And then there’s the fact that this drama’s cast was only finalized a week before it began airing, which means most of its filming will be alarmingly close to live.
I want to love this drama (and probably will, in spite of myself), but it’s hard to imagine anyone on this makjang merry-go-round finding time to focus on creating a decent show.
(If you two were any more adorable, my brain would explode.)
Ah, it’s that time of the drama cycle again—new and upcoming shows are getting a lot of press, and I’m doing a lot of drooling over them. Rather than posting one big list today, I thought I’d post about one new drama every day this week. So stay tuned!
Without further ado, here’s one currently airing show that I’m planning to begin marathoning about two seconds after its finale is subbed.
Can We Get Married?
Family
16 episodes
Currently airing Monday and Tuesdays, jTBC
Dramas that don’t get a lot of
coverage by the big news sites have a way of slipping under the radar, but
this romantic comedy with family leanings sounds too good to
miss. Revolving around a mother’s search for the perfect men to
marry her two daughters, the story uses four couples to explore love
from a variety of perspectives—from new romance to impending
marriage to divorce.
Also of note are its youthful stars: The every-guy lead is played by painfully handsome Sung Joon, known around these parts as the still-waters-run-deep bandleader of Shut Up!: Flower Boy Band. And if female lead Jung So Min can make being a doormat seem likeable in Playful Kiss, who knows how amazing she’ll be when playing an actual human being?
