Favorites: Six Scenes from Answer Me 1997

As always, stolen from the wonderful Drama Queen Tumblr

Although it’s possible to watch and enjoy Answer Me 1997 without a lick of knowledge about Korea in the 90s, this is one of those shows that recaps make a thousand times better: it’s so full of insider details that most Americans are unequipped to fully appreciate it on our own. (That Hak Chan was actually played by a former Sechseis member was a mind-blowing revelation, let me tell you.)

As is so often the case, both Dramabeans and The Vault are great sources of information and discussion about the show. I was especially struck by a comment the Dramabeans recapper made, calling one scene her “favorite thing in a show of favorite things.”  Especially during AM 1997’s first eight episodes, that’s exactly how I felt. It seemed that every scene burrowed its way into my brain as my favorite drama moment ever—only to be immediately supplanted by the one that came next.

So in light of my ongoing obsession, I thought I’d wring one more post out of this show. Thusly, I give you a spoilerific discussion of my six favorite scenes in Answer Me 1997. 

(P.S.—Spoilers ahoy!)

(P.P.S.—I swear this is my last post about Answer Me 1997 . . . for a while, anyway.)

The Time Traveler’s Drama: A Chronological Map of Answer Me 1997

Then...

The best time slip drama of 2012 wasn’t about Joseon scholars traveling to the modern world, or doctors going back in time to Korea’s Goryeo period. Instead, it focused on a single decade in the lives of six young people from Busan.

Answer Me 1997 is one of those shows that has it all: lovable characters, a compelling storyline, and perfect direction. But what makes it truly stand out from the competition is its innovative puzzle-box narrative. Rather than following the traditional structure of a beginning, middle, and end that all occur in one unbroken chronological sequence, its plot is built like human memory, constructed of countless fragments of life strung together thematically at the whim of the person at their center. Like AM 1997’s script, our perception of the world doesn’t always obey the sequential logic of storytelling: Although effect often follows cause, in our minds the two sometimes occur the other way around. In the world of Answer Me 1997, we the viewers are time travelers, slowly uncovering big-picture reality as we journey from one strange, unimagined era to another—from family dinners during high school and teenage nights on the doorstep of a pop star, to ten-year reunions and the moment when a woman becomes a mother.

This looping storyline might have existed as a cold narrative experiment, but Answer Me 1997 uses the ability to time-skip as a way to fully explore the depths of its characters. By the end of the show, we know them just as they know themselves: frontwards and backwards and side to side, from childhood to adulthood, from beginning to ending and through all the points in between. This is why Answer Me 1997 feels like such a revelation: It weaves its characters from a never-ending supply of life experiences, just as we weave our personal narratives through the curation of our own memories.

Answer Me 1997’s first few episodes are true marvels, deftly carrying the viewer along as they bounce from time period to time period. But as the show continued, the storytelling edged toward the traditional—making the later episodes feel merely above average rather than extraordinary.

and now.

Partly because I’m so reluctant to give up this show, and partly as an excuse to pull apart its house-of-cards construction, I rewatched the first two episodes and created a chronological map—a boiled down recap that focuses on only the sequence of the most important events. Looking at the map, it’s easy to appreciate this drama’s densely woven structure. Just like in life, the present day is made up of thousands of past days, all vying for our attention as we go about the business of living.

Thanks to all this dizzy time slipping, Answer Me 1997 is a one-of-a-kind unicorn of a drama: it’s a supremely relatable show about how then becomes now, and how now—with the help of our memories and old friends—can become then.

CHRONOLOGICAL MAP

Throughout the map, flashbacks have been marked with dashes—what’s usually seen as the show’s “present day” is flush left, with every subsequent level of flashback marked by a single dash. (In fact, if I were to do this for the whole show, the dash structure would be even more involved—by episode 16 we realize that the true present day is actually February 2013. And then there are the flashbacks to the parents’ teen years in the 1960s . . . !)

Character List

Shi Won = SW

Yoon Yoon Jae = YYJ

Tae Wong = TW

Yoo Jung = YYJ

Episode 1—[Untitled?]

2012/July: Character introductions at the reunion; “Today, at this table, one couple will announce that they’re getting married.”

—1997/April: Character introductions

—1997/April 29: YYJ’s 18th birthday

— —1994/April 29: YYJ’s 15th birthday

— —1995/April 29: YYJ’s 16th birthday

— —1996/April 29: YYJ’s 17th birthday

—1997/April 29: SW gives YYJ coupons for this 18th birthday

— —1990: The funeral of YYJ’s parents

— —1995: YYJ and SW’s middle school graduations

—1997/April 29: TW punishes YYJ at school; SW travels to Daegu to see H.O.T.; the tape and t-shirt fiascos

Episode 2—Things Are Beginning to Change

(Note: * indicates a hypothetical time or date that’s been inserted to make following the sequence easier)

2012/July: The reunion, more hints about the soon-to-be-wed couple and talk about YJ’s impending boob job

— —1997/February: YYJ’s circumcision

—1997/April, 8 pm*: The card game; SW has run away from home

— —1997/April, 6 pm*: SW’s report card arrived; fight with dad (2 hours earlier)

—1997/April, 8 pm*: Back at the card game

— — 1997/April, 11 am*: At school, YYJ makes a bet (9 hours earlier)

—1997/May: YYJ loses the bet

— —1997/April, 11 am*: SW blames YYJ for taking her biology book; YYJ denies it (9 hours earlier)

— —1997/April, 1 pm*: SW and YYJ fight at lunch (7 hours earlier)

— —1997/April, 4 pm*: SW torments YYJ with the frog (4 hours earlier)

—1997/April, 8 pm*: Card game; SW discovers YJ’s poster collection

—Spring of 1997: The kiss

— —Childhood: Flashback montage

—Spring of 1997: The kiss; SW punches YYJ

2012/July: The reunion still more hints about the couple, and discussion of SW and YJ’s friendship


(P.S.: Due to a temporary brain malfunction, some readers got a glimpse of an unedited version of next week’s post this morning. [So embarrassing!] If you’re wondering where that other post went, come back next Tuesday.)

Coming Soon: Late Summer 2012

In 10 Things I Hate About You, my favorite teen movie of all time, one character looks at another with a perplexed expression on her face and asks: “I know you can be overwhelmed and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever be just whelmed?”

After watching many of the 2012 Kdramas I was looking forward to, I can report that it is indeed possible to be whelmed. None of them have been nightmarishly bad, but they also haven’t been daydreamily good—mostly they’re just whelmingly meh. I’m hopeful that things will turn around as we gear up for the fall season, though, and am already looking forward to the new crop of shows due to start airing after the Olympics.

Without further ado, here are brief notes about four upcoming dramas that I’m eager to watch. (And mentions of two that I’m not really excited about, but may eventually get around to if the reports are good.)

Faith (24 episodes; begins airing 8/13). After reading Dramabeans’ deeply amusing recaps of this summer’s god-awful Timeslip Dr. Jin, I decided to scratch it off my list of things to watch altogether and instead pin my hopes on this similarly themed fusion sageuk starring the lovely Lee Min Ho. The recent rash of time-travel dramas have mostly focused on people moving forward in time from the Joseon era, but this one takes the opposite approach: a modern-day plastic surgeon is kidnapped by a warrior from the Goryeo Dynasty and brought back in time to save a injured princess. (Or so says DramaWiki).

This spring’s rom-com time-travel capers Rooftop Prince and Queen In-hyun’s Man were fun to watch, but I’m hoping that Faith’s take on the subject matter will be grittier and more concerned with the realities of adapting to life in the past. I want it to be from the Outlander school of warts-and-all, OMG-is-that-a-bedbug? time travel, not the we-wear-Nikes-in-the-Old-West of Back to the Future III. It’s probably too much to hope for social commentary—I imagine the full extent of the female lead’s adjustment to the past will be getting used to wearing flats—but inherent in the plot is the potential for fascinating discussion about how Korean society has changed in the modern world, especially because it’s an independent woman doing the time travel. Will she be expected to show deference to men in a way she wouldn’t today? Will her talents be ignored by everyone but her kidnapper, because she’s just a girl? Will she have to get used to being carried around in one of those claustrophobic little boxes sageuk women are always seen in?

I’ll also be interested to see what the script does with the dichotomy between its romantic leads—based on their early descriptions, he’s a laid-back warrior prone to taking naps while she’s a type-A overachiever who decided to specialize in plastic surgery after realizing the life-or-death stakes of being a doctor weren’t for her. (Where have I met that character before? Oh, right 2004’s dreadful Lovers.) It could be fun if the two just had contrasting outlooks on life, but I suspect that the show’s primary journey will be finding a way for them to live up to they potential they’ve been denying by overcoming their fears of failure.

For more, visit:

Couch Kimchi

Dramabeans

Watch it on:

Dramafever

Arang and the Magistrate (20 episodes, beings airing 8/15). Another fusion sageuk with supernatural elements, this drama tells the story of a ghost’s attempt to solve her own murder with the help of the handsome local magistrate. Naturally, forbidden love is the result (yay!), but depending on the show’s approach it’s hard to imagine a happy ending for a couple separated by death (boo!). The lead actors are about as charming as they come—Shin Min A from My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho and Time between Dog and Wolf’s Lee Joon Ki, fresh out of the army—and I look forward to seeing how Kdrama handles this ghostly plotline. In the West, ghosts are just as likely to be friendly as evil, but from what I’ve seen the Asian understanding of them leans more toward the terrifying. (Or maybe I’ve been watching too many Japanese horror movies?) I can’t imagine this show actually being scary, but the promotional materials do give it a Sixth Sense vibe, with the male lead having seen ghosts throughout his life. 

Judging by blogger buzz, Arang and the Magistrate is in a dead (ahem) heat with Faith for the title of drama of the season. As long as Dramafever cooperates, I’ve already decided to watch it as it airs, rather than waiting for the whole show to be subbed before starting it.

For more, visit:

Couch Kimchi

Koala’s Playground

Dramabeans

DramaTic 

Watch it on:

Dramafever

To the Beautiful You (16 episodes, beings airing 8/15). Based on the Japanese maga/drama Hana Kimi, this might just be the perfect show for me: A girl pretends to be a boy to attend her hero’s school, all in hopes of getting close to him. Unfortunately, though, the plot is rife with things that might make me loathe it: By all accounts, it’s more of a comedy than a drama, and I love angst more than yucks when it comes to Korean television. And then there’s the sports angle—the male lead is a track and field athlete who specializes in the high jump; the story apparently revolves around an injury that prevents him from participating. It should go without saying that I have yet to see a sports drama that didn’t make me want to scratch my own eyes out with a golf tee rather than watching past episode 2. Another red flag? The Wikipedia entry about Hana Kimi calls the female lead a “ditz.” This sounds like cross-dressing in the style of You’re Beautiful’s idiot Go Mi Nyeo, rather than the smart, capable girls in Coffee Prince and Sungkyunkwan Scandal. Why is it, then, that I can still barely wait to watch this show? Must be the cute dog that keeps popping up in early stills. (Right? Because it would be wrong of me to perv over boys who are half my age.)

For more, visit:

Dramabeans

Couch Kimchi

Watch it on:

Dramafever

Answer Me, 1997 (16 half-hour episodes, airing now). Although I was in college in 1997, I’m not entirely sure I could have found South Korea on a map. But even if the pop-culture nostalgia of this sitcom set in 1997 will be lost on me, coming-of-age school shows are pretty much my catnip. Tragically, I don’t know that anyone is subbing this in English, let alone posting it steaming, so it’s shaping up to be another Wife’s Credentials—a Kdrama Holy Grail universally acknowledged as good, but inaccessible to suckers like me who don’t speak Korean. Dramabeans is recapping, though, so here’s hoping that will inspire someone to translate it.

For more, visit:

Dramabeans

DramaTic

Watch it on:

Nowhere. (Sigh.)

[Update: Answer Me, 1997 has been added to Dramafever's coming-soon list, which is about a mile long and full of awesomeness. Hooray!]

In spite of a name that sounds like a sexual position highlighted in last month’s Cosmo, Panda and the Hedgehog is a romantic comedy that seems to be a younger version of Pasta. Not a bad thing, but I’m not holding my breath. Begins airing August 18.

Haeundae Lovers deals with a prosecutor who loses his memory and ends up working with the gangsters he’s been trying to convict. Inevitably, he falls in love with the head gangster’s daughter. This plot was great—when it was used in 2007’s Time between Dog and Wolf. I guess this romance-centric version of the story might be interesting. Maybe? Begins airing August 13. (Side note: For an amusing take on the inevitability of some traditional plotlines, I highly recommend Mercedes Lackey’s Five Hundred Kingdoms books.)