Drama Review: Secret Love Affair (2014)

Grade: A++

Category

Romantic melodrama

What it’s about

On the surface, Oh Hye Won is an elegant professional who works at a ritzy arts organization, living a life filled with luxuries that anyone would envy. But in truth, she has more dark secrets than she knows what to do with: She has sacrificed her soul to a loveless marriage and a morally bankrupt workplace, giving up on her true love—music. When she meets Lee Sun Jae, a handsome young piano genius, his dazzling talent, idealism, and adoration of Hye Won leave her reeling. Will Hye Won sacrifice everything to have him, or will she keep fighting for status and success, even at the expense of his love?

Goodbye, my Love

Do you think they were trying to tell us something with this shot? Like maybe the ending?

For the past two months, I’ve lived in the world of Secret Love Affair. Now that I’m reawakening to real life, I feel a little woozy and hungover.

Part of my insane fixation on this show probably arises from how I watched it: devouring episodes as they aired in Korea, then suffering through a never-ending week for the next installments. There’s no doubt that I would have liked this series even if I marathoned it in one big gulp, but I definitely wouldn’t have taken the time to savor it in the same way. And this is a show that deserves—nay, requires—savoring. If you go into it thinking it’s just another zany Korean drama that will be a shallow diversion, you’ll be disappointed. It’s probably possible to watch SLA casually, but any viewer who is less than fully engaged will miss the best things it has to offer. From sly narrative foreshadowings and clever thematic connections to deliciously oblique dialogue, Secret Love Affair isn’t predigested for our enjoyment. Instead, it’s carefully crafted to stimulate our minds.

A lot of Kdramas remind of this weird little segment of book publishing in America. It’s called “high interest,” and it focuses on titles meant to motivate kids who are reluctant readers. These books are about exciting topics, and their language is intentionally simple and straightforward so shaky readers won’t feel challenged. The point is to draw readers in and make them realize that books are incredible, not to force them to fumble through big words and difficult grammar that they don’t understand. The drama equivalent of these books are shows that rely more on spectacle than insight. The Moon that Embraces the Sun is a prime example—it broadcast every motivation in voiceover lest anyone lose the plot thread or actually be required to think. I’d also put family dramas and shows like I Need Romance 3 in this category, as they’re designed for easy, non-demanding titillation, not thoughtful viewing.

But there are also plenty of Korean dramas that aren’t afraid to be intricate and complex, or to ask that we invest something into understanding them. They can be difficult and literary, and they don’t dumb-down their stories for superficial viewers. Shows like Nine, The End of the World, and even the rom-com Queen In-hyun’s Man fit this bill. And Secret Love Affair just might be their queen. It takes incredibly traditional Kdrama tropes—a noona romance, shocking traffic accidents, back hugs, and corporate intrigue—and grafts them into the world of a moody, thoughtful indie movie. Like most Korean dramas, its primary goal is eliciting emotion in its viewers. But instead of being driven by events, its plot is driven by its characters and the way they grow and change as they come together.

Refreshingly sophisticated and mature, Secret Love Affair isn’t for everyone. But then again, how could it be, when it was so clearly created just for me? Indulge me for one final post devoted to the things I loved about SLA, hopefully to be followed by a more balanced review on Thursday.

Drama Review: Majo no Jouken (1999)

Grade: A-

Category

Japanese melodrama

What it’s about

At twenty-six, Hirose Michi’s life seems perfect. She teaches high school math and has responsibility for her own homeroom class, and her longtime boyfriend has just proposed to her. But in truth, Michi feels trapped. She’s overwhelmed by her job and isn’t in love with her boyfriend. It isn’t until she forms an unexpected bond with a troubled student that Michi realizes that happiness is a possibility in her life. In spite of his bad behavior and even worse reputation, Kurosawa Hikaru is actually a sweet boy who’s eager to see what’s special in the world around him. The love that grows between Michi and Hikaru will destroy their lives—and save them.

Drama Review: Answer Me 1994 (2013)

Grade: A-

Category

Romantic comedy

What it’s about

A group of college students from the countryside move to Seoul, where they live in a homestay and share friendships, romances, and the pains and pleasures of growing up.

First impression

I’m a little torn going into this series. I loved its predecessor—the similar but largely unrelated drama Answer Me 1997—so much that I had to take a week off in the middle of watching it, and not just because sad things were happening on screen. I identified so completely with obsessed fangirl Shi Won that it was actually hard to watch. The scene at Tony oppa’s house nearly killed me because it so closely matched my own 1997-era fandom, which was probably the last thing I expected from a show about Kpop, a musical genre I wouldn’t know existed for more than a decade. But Kdrama sequels have a terrible reputation and I’ve heard lots of unhappy commentary about this show’s resolution. Plus, I hate all organized sports with a fiery passion. Can I possibly love a drama about a basketball fan, even if it’s the follow-up to one my favorite shows of all time?

Final verdict

This sweet, funny drama is full of nostalgic charm. Just don’t watch it expecting another Answer Me 1997—in spite of their many similarities, the two shows are fundamentally different in a lot of ways.

Drama Review: White Christmas (2011)

Grade: A

Category

High school thriller

What it’s about

Prompted by a mysterious letter, seven students spend winter break at their posh boarding school instead of returning home. As a huge snowstorm cuts the school off from the rest of the world, they attempt to decode the letter and uncover its sender. But a series of terrifying events makes them afraid they may not live long enough to do either.

First impression

Creepy and compelling.

Final verdict

This is a tricky drama to write about without totally spoiling your reader. In the course of its eight-episode running time, it morphs from a story about a schoolyard secret to an adult mystery, and then to a fight for the survival of body and soul. So here’s the key piece of information you need to know: You should watch it.

Most everything about White Christmas is beautifully, thoughtfully done. From its twisty, turny script and gorgeous cinematography to its surprisingly capable acting, this show is a striking break from the workaday norm. It uses its tiny cast and remote setting to grapple with serious issues we all confront every day, touching on isolation versus community, fear versus trust, nature versus nurture, and crime versus punishment.

The Breakfast Club with bullets, White Christmas takes as its starting point the typical high school stereotypes: there’s the brain, the freak, the bully, and the rebel. But instead of stopping with these skin-deep categories, it turns its characters into flesh and blood beings with their own idiosyncrasies and motivations. (Standouts include the drug-addled “Angel,” the dispassionate genius, and the rule-breaking bad boy.) The show then proceeds to push each of its creations to their spectacular breaking points, using their terrible circumstances to both draw them together and tear them apart.

White Christmas is not without some logic fails and loose ends, but most of them are fairly easily overlooked. As far as I’m concerned, it does have an Achilles’ heel: Its stakes. All these strapping young men would have been a real force to reckon with if they ever got their act together and used physical aggression against someone other than themselves. But that never happened, a fact that was made extra frustrating by the show’s relatively toothless big bad. This character felt sanitized for television, and he never seemed to deserve the panicked reactions he received. In spite of what happened off screen, he didn’t presented the visceral, mortal peril that would have ratcheted his scenes from unsettling to terrifying. This quibble receded as the show progressed, though, and it became clear that the big bad was just the beginning of the evils White Christmas had set out to explore.

By its shocking finale, some of the show’s questions may be answered, but you’ll still be thinking about them for a long time to come.

A note on sources

Although I swear it would be a boon to Korea as a nation for this show to be available on every streaming site out there, it’s actually incredibly hard to find. The illegal sites carry it, but you will loose out enormously if you watch it at anything less than HD quality. It’s theoretically carried by the pay website Mvibo, which has a ten-day free preview option. (Good luck with it, though—on the rare occasion I can get their website to work, I find their service lacking in pretty much every way.) The only other (scarily illegal) option for watching is downloading a torrent, either from d-addicts.com or Asia Torrents.

Random thoughts

Because this was a nontraditional watch, none. Check out my detailed thoughts on the first four episodes here and one tiny Tumblr post about the rest of the show.

 

You might also like

Cruel City, for its gritty, shadowed take on gangster life

Drama Review: Flowers for My Life (2007)

Grade: A-

Category

Black romantic comedy with hints of melodrama

What it’s about

Having grown up in a funeral home, Ha Na is immune to the range of human emotion. Money is the only thing she really loves, so she comes up with a scheme: She’ll find a terminally ill guy who also happens to be fabulously rich, marry him, and then inherit his fortune after he goes to the great beyond. But nothing goes according to plan from the start, and things only get worse when she meets Dae Bak, a man with ulterior motives of his own. Pennyless and on the run from gangsters, he’s taken on the identity of a wealthy dead man. When she discovers that Dae Bak has been diagnosed with incurable cancer, a deceived Ha Na adopts him as her lucky stiff. The problems? She doesn’t know that he’s even poorer than she is. And he doesn’t know that he has cancer.

First impression

A long string of romantic comedies has left me longing for something grittier. And what’s more gritty than a drama about a girl whose first love is money, followed closely thereafter by dead people? (And unlike today’s spate of supernatural dramas, they’re real dead people—the kind that mostly just lay there.) I’ve had my eye on this show for some time, thanks to a positive review on the Dramabeans rating page. Their recommendations have never let me down before, and based on the quirky, realistic vibe of this drama’s premiere, they’re not going to start now.

Final verdict

Part workplace comedy, part romance, and part tear-jerking melodrama, this show is a strange delight. It’s also one of the few examples of a drama that actually improved during its running time, growing from a silly farce to a thoughtful consideration of death, dying, and the people left behind.

Drama Review: Master’s Sun (2013)

Grade: A-

Category

Supernatural rom-com

What it’s about

After she begins seeing ghosts, Tae Gong Shil’s promising future self-destructs. She can’t hold down a job, have regular friendships, or even get a good night’s sleep, because the ghosts find her wherever she goes. But then she meets Joo Joong Won, the flamboyant president of one of Seoul’s ritziest shopping malls, who can make her spectral companions disappear with a single touch. Stealing skinship at every opportunity, Tae Gong Shil starts to feel in control of her life for the first time since her inexplicable powers appeared. Desperate to stay by Joong Won’s side, she swears to solve a mystery that has haunted him for more than a decade.

First impression

In spite of my enormous backlog of half-watched dramas, I finally broke down and decided to start this currently airing show written by the Hong sisters. I’ve been holding off because it’s already being covered to death on the dramaweb, but I’m being tortured by fabulous Tumblr gif sets of its ghosts every time I visit my dashboard. Two of my greatest loves are horror movies and romantic comedies, so it seems that Master’s Sun and I were made for each other. But after last summer’s debacle with the Hong sisters’ drama Big, I’m a little wary of this show being another flameout. Master’s Sun is starting off as a fun Kdrama take on the American movie Ghost—but then again, Big started off as a fun take on the American movie Big. And look where that got us.

Final verdict

I am incredibly happy to report that Master’s Sun is no Big.

Drama Review: Cruel City (2013)

Grade: A

Category
Crime thriller

What it’s about
Fate forces a young woman into undercover police work, leading her to spy on Seoul’s up-and-coming drug kingpin—a suit-wearing uber-gangster known only as the Doctor’s Son. She discovers a dark, dangerous world where nothing is what it seems.

First impression
After a long string of romantic comedies, I decided I was in the mood for something with teeth. I think I’ve chosen wisely—Cruel City is crisp, cinematic, and brutally effective as its follows cops and gangsters on their bloody travels through Seoul. Like many shows on Korea’s cable channels, it pushes far, far beyond what would be acceptable on a mainstream network: it’s graphic and unvarnished in its depiction of violence, and also in its exploration of moral ambiguity. Its characters aren’t necessarily nice—or even on the right side of the law. I do think, however, that jTBC might have been influenced too heavily by this spring’s (revolutionary) flop The End of the World. Cruel City is completely different from other Kdramas, it’s also a little bit the same—there are diarrhea jokes and plucky young women and hammy drug lords in showy outfits.

Final verdict
Stylish, thrilling, and filled with a cast of indelible characters, Cruel City is the most compulsively watchable drama I’ve come across in a long time. It may not be my usual kind of show, but whenever I sat down to watch a few minutes of it, I would stand up dazed and sweaty-palmed two hours later, trying to figure out how to shirk my real-world responsibilities in favor of another episode.

Drama Review: I Hear Your Voice (2013)

Grade: A-

Category
Courtroom romance

What it’s about
As a young boy, Park Soo Ha watches the murder of his father and is only saved from the same fate by Jang Hye Sung, a reluctant hero in the form of an uncertain teenaged girl. When she stands up for him in court against her better judgment, Soo Ha vows to spend the rest of his life protecting her. The two meet again ten years later, after she has become a public defender and he has started his senior year in high school. They work together to solve cases and bring his father’s killer to justice. (And did I mention Park Soo Ha can hear people’s thoughts?)

First impression
This breezy and bright drama finds a perfect middle ground between melodramatic romance and light comedy. Although not without failings, the first few episodes are enjoyable and set the stage for an epic lead couple (or OTP, in Internet parlance).

Final verdict
Despite being about two episodes too long and a little shaky in the logic department, I Can Hear Your Voice is a charming distraction with a cast of likeable characters and an impossibly compelling central romance. It gives viewers a mouthwatering taste of many of Kdrama’s biggest tropes—noona romance, cohabitation farce, revenge quest, supernatural drama, and birth secret mystery.

Drama Review: Queen of Reversals (2010)

Grade: A-

Category

Workplace rom-com

What it’s about

Hwang Tae Hee—a successful, take-no-prisoners businesswoman—ignores her mentor’s advice and gets married. But when that mentor turns against Tae Hee and decides to ruin her life, her hard-won happy ending disappears. With her job and marriage crumbling around her, Tae Hee meets an anchorless chaebol son who might feel even more lost and alone than she does.

First impression

I wan’t sure what to watch next, but I’m glad I picked this refreshing, breezy show. It has been a long time since I’ve watched a light romance with a strong workplace storyline, and this one is known for making Kdrama history: It presents a rare example of a second male lead who actually gets the girl in the end. I can already see why—the original lead seems smarmy and money-grubbing, not worthy of the fabulously capable, can-do Hwang Tae Hee.

Final verdict

Queen of Reversals feels completely different from the more recent Kdramas I’ve been watching lately, even though it’s only three years old. It’s blissfully traditional, with no time travel, no body swaps, and no heavy melodrama. It instead finds the perfect balance between compelling workplace challenges and romantic sparring. It’s also funny, with lots of character-based humor and delightfully absurd (but utterly plausible) slice-of-life moments.

Drama Review: Nine (2013)

Grade: A

Category

Mind-bending time travel

What it’s about

After the death of his troubled brother, Sun Woo decides to make the person who destroyed his family pay. But his quest for vengeance is complicated by the nine magical incense sticks his brother died trying to find—each one offers a chance to travel twenty years back in time. Sun Woo eventually gives in to the temptation to use them in an attempt to avert his family’s tragedy in the first place. As anyone who’s ever seen a drama or movie about time traveling can predict, all hell immediately breaks loose.

First impression

I can just hear the pitch for this show now: the nostalgic charm of Answer Me, 1997 meets the mind-bending time travel of...well...every other show on Korean television in 2012. Nine has excellent an pedigree, at least—it was made by the creative team behind last year’s wonderful Queen In-hyun’s Man. Like QIHM, Nine’s first few episodes suffer from overwrought editing that feels desperate to make an impression. But as of episode 2, the series has evolved into an intriguing, fast-paced mystery.

Drama Review: The End of the World (2013)

Grade: A

Category

Medical thriller

What it’s about

Korea’s medical professionals and scientists struggle to cure—and contain—M, a deadly virus that has the potential to destroy humanity as we know it.

First impression

This tense procedural thriller is exactly the Kdrama that the American network AMC would make if it were in the business of making Kdramas. It’s a cross between CSI, The Walking Dead, and The Killing, and doesn’t suffer from any of the exaggeration or broadness that are a key part of the DNA of most dramas. It’s a real pity that JTBC isn’t doing a better job reaching American markets, because I could really see this show being accepted by people who would normally be turned off by the quirks of Kdrama.

Drama Review: A Love to Kill (2005)

Grade: A

Category

Revenge melodrama

What it’s about

Bok Gu is a rough-and-tumble fighter who’s spent his entire life at war with the world. When a failed romance with a celebrity drives his brother to attempt suicide, Bok Gu vows to avenge him. But even as he plots to destroy his brother’s former lover, he can’t fight his own burgeoning attraction to her.

First impression

This drama by Lee Kyung Hee, the screenwriter of Nice Guy and I’m Sorry, I Love You, seems to be following in the footsteps her earlier shows. Taking Rain as its grimy anti-hero, it brings together a cast of unlikely characters—some members of Seoul’s criminal underclass, others privileged cogs in the celebrity machine—and explores the unexpected ways their lives intersect. So far it’s bombastic fun, but feels more like a cheesy throwaway than an example of Lee’s best work.

Drama Review: Wife’s Credentials (2012)

Grade: A+

Category

Grown-up romance

What it’s about

A middle-aged housewife finds a kindred soul in her son’s dentist as she struggles with the unforgiving expectations of her husband and his status-obsessed family.

First impression

What to say about this lovely, naturalistic show? It feels more like an indie film set in upper-middle-class New York than a Kdrama, for one. Its characters are real human beings, not drama bots. And it reflects life as people actually live it—full of disappointment, envy, and failed connections, but also moments of companionship, contentment, and even happiness. Set in a midwinter Seoul that’s as drab and dormant as its heroine’s life, this episode explores the fragile marriage between a driven reporter and his free-spirited wife, the combatants in an ongoing battle over their son’s education. In a world where a child attending the right middle school confers esteem and bragging rights, he wants professional tutors and round-the-clock studying, while she wants learning for the sake of meaning and insight, not showmanship. And caught in the middle is their poor, sweet-tempered son, a boy who spent most of his childhood too sickly for anyone to worry about his academic achievements. A Wife’s Credentials thinks so outside the box that I can’t even begin to anticipate where it goes from here, but I can’t wait to find out.

Drama Review: Joseon X-files (2010)

Grade: A

Category

Fusion sageuk/supernatural thriller

What it’s about

Working on behalf of a shady government agency that collects evidence of otherworldly doings, a young official is drawn into the investigation of supernatural occurrences. This mind-bending drama was inspired by the American show The X-files and covers some of the same ground—Vampires! Aliens! Ghosts! Mysterious smoking men!—but has a plot and characters of its own.

First impressions

Audacious and fun, this is an intriguing chimera of sageuk trappings and sci-fi soul, focusing on the appearance of a mysterious “flying ship” that happens to be an exact match for modern-day depictions of alien spacecraft.

Drama Review: Flower Boy Next Door (2013)

Grade: A

Category

Youthful rom-com

What it’s about

Flower Boy Next Door is the deceptively thoughtful story of a lonely, damaged girl who re-enters the world with the help of a quirky new acquaintance, panda-suit wearing, scene stealing, heart-exploding Enrique Geum. 

First impression posts

Oh (flower) Boy: The Dramas

Those Blooming Boys Next Door 

Dok Mis and Me 

Final verdict

Here’s a quick pop quiz for you before we begin this review in earnest. Are you a drama watcher who:

1) enjoys goofy character studies that present wonderfully detailed universes but don’t necessary have much of an overarching plot, or

2) prefers shows that feature strong narrative throughlines and beginning-to-end, series-wide plots?

If you answered 1, you just might love Flower Boy Next Door. If you answered 2, you just might not.

Drama Review: Thank You (2007)

Grade: A+

Category

Romantic melodrama

What it’s about

After his girlfriend dies, a hotshot surgeon gives up his career and relocates to the countryside, where he meets a hardworking single mom who’s weighed down by the responsibility of supporting both her senile grandfather and her young daughter. He rents a room in her house and slowly becomes part of the family, bickering all the while, but their burgeoning love story is complicated by an unexpected bit of shared history—his girlfriend accidentally infected the little girl with HIV while giving her a blood transfusion.

First impression

After the cotton-candy insubstantialness of Cheongdamdong Alice, I’m in the mood for something meaty and melodramatic. This show ought to be just thing: it’s written by Lee Kyung Hee, screenwriter of both Nice Guy and I’m Sorry, I Love You. She specializes in gritty tragedies with horrible male leads who end up spectacularly redeemed (and dead) by the closing scene. Based on this show’s summary, it will be more of the same. I’m clearly in for a world of hurt. (Yipee!)

Drama Review: Ma Boy (2012)

Grade: A-

Category

Gender-bending school dramedy

What it’s about

The new girl at school is assigned a mysterious roommate, who happens to be a famous star of television commercials. (And a boy pretending to be a girl.)

Drama Review: In Time with You (2011)

Grade: A+

Category

Taiwanese romance

What it’s about

As they enter their thirties, mismatched best friends—he’s an easygoing charmer, she’s an uptight perfectionist—deal with their mutual attraction and struggle with life and love.

First impression

Whimsical and wonderful, this grown-up Taiwanese rom-com seems likely to be a hit with me. I’m even willing to forgive the female lead for being involved in fashion design, because she enjoys raining on people’s parades and demanding that shoes for teenagers be practical. Huzzah!

Drama Review: Delightful Girl Choon Hyang (2005)

Grade: A-

Category

Romantic comedy

What it’s about

A traditional Korean folktale updated and reimagined for the modern world, Delightful Girl Choon Hyang starts out with a high-school contract marriage and follows its leads from friends to lovers as they mature into adulthood, fighting to stay together in spite of the manipulations of jealous outsiders.