When Ratings Trump Narrative: Answer Me 1988/Reply 1988 Korean Drama Review

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I have composed this review in my head approximately 11,454,697,239 times, and it still feels like a mammoth undertaking. Maybe it's because Answer Me 1988 was 20 episodes that each ranged from an hour and a half to two hours each. There's so much content to cover that I don't really feel like I can talk about all of it This is why I don't watch long dramas, people!

So, instead of being a responsible blogger and talking about each and every aspect of this show, I'm going to do what I want, which is to rush through the majority of the show so that I can get on my soapbox and vent my very intense feelings about how this series ended. At least I'm giving fair warning, right?


On the whole, Answer Me 1988 was a beautiful, nostalgic, slice-of-life show. While I admit that the production team could have edited some of the scenes more efficiently (less isn't always more), I mostly didn't mind the narrative's leisurely pace or the focus on the mundane.

Instead of the absurd amnesia plot devices, what really drove this series was its heart. Yes, there was a love triangle (and oh boy, I'll get to that in a minute), but really, this series was more about the individual trials of every member of the neighborhood than it was about the puppy love blossoming with the three "main" leads.

I love how, more than any other Answer Me installment, this series was about community, and the adults all had their own lives and trajectories. I often had a hard time choosing a favorite character or storyline. (Cheetah Ahjumma vs. the Bear falling in love? Don't make me choose!) The neighborhood came to life, and the way I resonated with the various narrative threads really made me feel invested in the series.

Before the drama began, the writer said that there would be no "husband hunt" this time around, and, if that had been the case, this series would have been practically perfect in every way.

That initial promise ended up being a dirty, dirty lie, and I feel far more trolled than I ever did in the previous Answer Me shows. While the love triangle certainly wasn't front and center for most of the series, the way it was woven into the last few episodes of the drama really made it impossible to ignore and—for me, at least—ended the drama on a bit of a sour note.

SPOILER ALERT—HERE BEGINS VIVI'S ANGRY SOAPBOX, IN WHICH I DISCUSS THE OUTCOME OF THE SERIES. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.

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Is it safe to begin?

To be perfectly candid before my rant, I was pretty solidly Team Jung Hwan from episode 1, so I was obviously going to be a little disappointed if Taek was the husband. However, I said from the very early episodes that all of the guys had their pros and cons as potential spouse material, so I could have been okay with any outcome.

I'm still not entirely convinced that Dong Ryong isn't Deok Sun's true soulmate, but that's a discussion for another day....

When I saw the last few episodes of the series, I liked the sweet moments between Deok Sun and Taek, and I loved seeing how tender their relationship is as adults (or the episodes 18-20 version of them, at least). I was completely convinced that they ended up as a perfectly content couple, and I could even see why Deok Sun would choose Taek (something that doesn't always happen when I'm rooting for the guy the female lead doesn't choose). It's also refreshing to see the second male lead type win out every once in a while, and I've seen several dramas where a twist in the endgame romance worked immensely well.

So far, all of these are good things — why, then, was this one of the least-satisfying drama endings I've seen? Frankly, my complaints aren't about the outcome of the romance so much as the handling of the romance. To be honest, it felt as though the writer sold out her narrative for the sake of ratings.

I'm sorry—somehow I missed the part where I signed up to watch Sherlock Holmes: '80s Romance Edition

I guess whether or not the last few episodes are satisfying depends on what you enjoy out of a romance. If you're only in it for the surprise, then this drama is probably fantastic, but I, at least, watch romances not to see who gets together, but rather to enjoy seeing how they fall in love. In this series, the writer kept Deok Sun's feelings hidden for so long in order to preserve the mystery that we really didn't get to see much romantic development on her side until the very end of the show.

Similarly, while I get that "future husband" dropped equal clues for Taek and Jung Hwan (though it seems odd that she married Taek only for him to grow up and act like Jung Hwan), the narrative structure itself favored Jung Hwan because it showed us so much romantic development from his perspective.

The perfect example here is the concert in episode 18. This was a pivotal moment not only in Jung Hwan's feelings, but also in Deok Sun and Taek's relationship. But whose perspective do we see? The emotional focus of the scene is on Jung Hwan and his race to declare his feelings.

If Deok Sun/Taek is the romance we should be watching, the scene would have felt much more satisfying if we saw it from Taek's perspective as he leaves the match and races to her (and then we could see Jung Hwan's perspective in a flashback or something). Alternately, we could have seen everything from Deok Sun's view, where we feel her rising disappointment building up until we see her relief at seeing Taek.

What kind of monster wouldn't be happy to see this face?
The kind of monster that just watched Jung Hwan stuck at every freaking red light in Seoul, that's who.
(Sidenote: Park Bo Gum's gigantic smile makes me feel like I'm playing with unicorns in a field full of flowers.)

When scene after scene focuses on the love triangle from Jung Hwan's lens, of course it's going to feel like a massive letdown when his romance putters out with one of the most beautiful confessions in K-drama history, only to have it turn into a joke that never gets mentioned again. We also distance the audience from Deok Sun and Taek's relationship in order to preserve the mystery, thereby doing all three characters a disservice.

I don't even cry when people die in K-dramas, but I swear Jung Hwan's earnest face makes me feel like a tractor is driving over my heart.
I'm not crying—I just have very dirty eyeballs that need to get clean!

While I would have preferred that Jung Hwan and Taek just talk it out back in 1989, I could have settled for more clear resolution after Jung Hwan's confession. Did you notice that after the confession, Deok Sun and Jung Hwan never make eye contact again for the remaining two episodes (four hours) of the series? Would it have killed them to have a little more closure after six years of one-sided love?

All I wanted was a clear indication that Deok Sun was choosing Taek over Jung Hwan. Some sort of recognition that she knew his confession was sincere would have sufficed. Instead, we get that scene between Jung Hwan and Taek where he's basically saying, "No, no no, good sir, you take her," which makes all this waiting for Deok Sun's feelings seem like a moot point. Sure, she chose Taek, but she also didn't have any other options.

I wanted to see Deok Sun falling for Taek, understand how she felt during their years of separation, watch them announce their relationship to their friends and family, etc., but hanging on to the husband mystery undermined all of that.

I read some fan comments basically arguing that it's Jung Hwan's own fault for being too passive and letting Deok Sun get away, but that makes Deok Sun way too passive for me. So she's only there to be passed around by the male characters? If she's really an active agent in all of this, why not let her know everyone's feelings out in the open so that she can make her own choice? If the only thing keeping Deok Sun and Taek apart was Jung Hwan's passiveness, you clearly didn't have a convincing romance in the first place.

Then, to add salt to the wound, we completely drop Jung Hwan off the face of the planet for the end of the series. Not only does he have zero one-on-one interaction with Deok Sun, but he has a grand total of maybe three minutes of screentime in the entire last episode. Every other Answer Me series gave us glimpses into the future for the entire friend group, but both Jung Hwan and Dong Ryong get ditched in the end. I didn't need to see them getting married, but it's like they didn't even exist.

Again, I read some fan explanations saying that it's natural that Deok Sun and Taek would lose contact with their old friends over time. I've also read people arguing that the romance wasn't the point of the show, so we shouldn't get hung up on the romantic outcome.

Unfortunately, neither gives a satisfactory explanation for the omission. If the series wasn't focused on the romance, then why are the romantic couples suddenly the only ones who matter at the end of the show? It shouldn't make a difference if Deok Sun hangs out with Jung Hwan or not because she wasn't the only main character to begin with. Remember how we totally ignored her POV for five episodes so that you could string our emotions along? Yeah, you can't take that back now. Give me my Dong Ryong! Give me My Jung Hwan! GIVE ME JIN JOO OR GIVE ME DEATH! (Too much? Fiiiine, I'll tone it down.)

How DARE you ignore this face?

Part of me suspects that the writer was worried that keeping Ryu Joon Yeol and his insane on-screen charisma around would be a distraction from the Deok Sun/Taek story, but maybe not. Maybe the writer genuinely believed that the romance was all that mattered all along, and it was the rest of us who were fooled into thinking we were watching a community narrative instead of Deok Sun's Husband Hunt.

Ultimately, I can't help but feel that the writing hurt both the characters and the plot development. The only benefit to some of the narrative choices was keeping people glued to their screens, and that's exactly what happened. With the record-busting ratings for this show, the writer got her reward—at the expense of the ending.

Conclusions

Does a bad ending ruin the show? For this series, I would argue no. The conclusion certainly left me feeling upset and cheated, but there were also so many beautiful community moments woven throughout the drama, including in the last few episodes, that I don't think you can write off the series for the romance.

Where to watch:

DramaFever

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Problem with Makeover K-dramas

When I heard the premise for Oh My Venus, I just about reached through my computer and strangled everyone involved with the production. On the one hand, it's Shin Min Ah and So Ji Sub! On the other hand, it's a makeover drama, which may just be my absolute least favorite type of K-drama on the entire planet.

Coming on the heels of another makeover K-drama  (She Was Pretty) and following a similar "sad-fat-girl-turns-skinny" formula of last year's Birth of a Beauty (and casting poor Jung Gyu Woon to play basically the exact same role he played in the earlier drama), Oh My Venus made me especially wary.

In the end, though, Shin Min Ah and So Ji Sub won out, and I found myself watching the series. It's been an interesting experience thus far, with alternating scenes of things I hate and things I really appreciate.

Since K-dramaland seems so intent on making these types of shows over and over again, I want to have a conversation about why they're so troubling to begin with and what (if anything) makes them work.

"I Love Myself — But I Also Look Nothing like Myself"

Makeover K-dramas are inherently problematic for me. Often, the plot descriptions will include feel-good phrases like "she learns to love herself" or "They come to value personality over looks." Those things are awesome and all, but it's hard to cheer fully for a message about positive self-esteem and body image when the only way the heroine learns to love herself is by changing absolutely everything about her outside and conforming to Korea's strict beauty standards.

Take Birth of a Beauty as a prime example. To give the writers credit, the last few episodes were full of Geum Ran talking about how she learned to love her true self, and they even made some (horribly clumsy) attempts to "prove" that Tae Hee also loved her for who she was instead of the "Sara" exterior.

That's great! But wait — how, exactly, did she learn to love herself? Oh yeah, she got full-body surgery to look like Han Ye Seul. And sure, they included images of the heavier actress to remind us that she was still the same person on the inside — but right now, she still looks like Han Ye Seul. And she will always look like Han Ye Seul. 

Similarly, even if Tae Hee used a crazy contraption to see Geum Ran as her former self and was like "nope, I'm not disgusted by her fatness," at the end of the day, he's still going to bed with Han Ye Seul, and there's simply no getting around it.

Buying into the Stereotype

The other central problem with makeover dramas is that even the okay ones buy into the very same beauty standards they claim to undermine. It's enough to give you emotional whiplash to cheer in one scene and cringe in the very next.

So far, that's exactly what's happening with Oh My Venus. On the one hand, the writer seems to be handling the premise with more care than I expected. I love how Joo Eun believes in and stands up for herself even when other people mock her appearance. I also appreciate that if they had to put Shin Min Ah into a fat suit, it's one that makes her face look realistically chubby instead of saying she weighs 170 lbs and making her look like she weighs 400 lbs. (The face is good, but can we all just ignore the full-body fat suit, please? Random lumps everywhere, but nowhere they belong!)

And yet, even as the show seems to be making strides on one side, it backpedals on the other. It's one thing to have characters constantly commenting on her weight and making fun of her, but it's another when the show does the exact same thing. If she supposedly weighs 170 lbs, why do a UFC fighter and a top-tier trainer have so much difficulty carrying her on an airplane? Why does she make the sound of a freight train crashing when running into a glass door? Why, above all else, IS THERE JOKEY CIRCUS MUSIC PLAYING EVERY TIME SOMETHING EMBARRASSING HAPPENS TO HER?!?! 

What were your seven shirtless workout scenes for if not for this moment?

If the show was going to act like overweight people are sooooooo clumsy and it's soooooooo funny, then I almost wish they had made her fat suit bigger. Otherwise, it just seems like anyone who weighs more than real-life Shin Min Ah or Yoo In Young is a walking joke waiting to happen. 

The same goes for So Ji Sub's character. The charisma of the So Ji Sub-Shin Min Ah pairing is already impossible to resist, and I love how his character sees the good in her and wants to be around her even before she loses any weight. But please, please, can he never utter the words "Your body is mine" ever again? Please? Thanks.

Supporting one Beauty Standard

Of course, there's also the problem of Korean beauty standards in the first place. When K-dramas say a character is "ugly," half of the time that means frizzy hair and bad clothes, and then the "makeover" involves making her look exactly like every other Korean actress out there.

She Was Pretty fell into this trap. Why was everyone so horrified by her looks in the first place? I actually liked her curly hair and rosy cheeks, and I was annoyed that her makeover tamed everything interesting about her and made her look like a clone of everyone else. 

I get that she worked at a fashion magazine and needed to be taken seriously, but she could have done so by using some hair product and thinking about her clothes more carefully instead of changing her entire look. Once the makeover happened, Hye Jin's personality also kind of disappeared. It's like the second they tamed her hair, they also drained her character's life force. 

Because "ugly" = curly hair and "pretty" = stick-straight hair. It's like Princess Diaries all over again.
Also, I may just hate this look because that shirt ruffle looks suspiciously like my childhood nemesis dress.

Fortunately, the show's writer seemed to recognize the problem and actually allowed Hye Jin to go back to her original style at the end. Without that backwards transformation, the makeover would have been a total miss for me.

Can a K-drama Makeover Work?

Although I'm not 100% sold on the idea that focusing an entire show around physical appearance is ever a good idea (unless you're Miss Korea, in which case I love you and you can continue about your feminist business), there are some approaches that are better than others. Here's what works for me, personally:

1. Give us a reason for the makeover: If makeovers are to work, there needs to be a reason other than "I want my ex to love me again!" or "This rich man is suddenly interested in me, and I need to look 'worthy' to hang out with him!" This is a point in favor of Oh My Venus. By putting the emphasis on her health from the start, the series becomes less about looking good and more about overall well-being. Healthy lifestyles I can support. Getting skinny to win a man I cannot.

   

   I love her for this line. Even if her boyfriend doesn't take her back, it's still worth it to her.

2. Let the female lead take the lead: In a similar vein, the character receiving the makeover should be the driving force behind it. I know there's the whole Pretty Woman cliche of having a wealthy man pay to dress you up, but the whole idea of a guy forcing a woman to change her appearance to suit his tastes makes me vomit in my mouth a little. Boys over Flowers, I'm looking at you.
3. Stay true to character: I already talked about this with She Was Pretty, but instead of changing absolutely everything about a character, why not embrace that quirkiness as part of the character? So often, the makeover turns into a symbolic turning point where the quirky female lead suddenly turns into a domesticated doll, like in Prime Minister and I. In contrast, a fantastic K-drama makeover that bucked this trend was Oh! My Lady. She was an ahjumma through and through, so when she got her "makeover," it wasn't necessarily a look I would have chosen, but it suited her personality perfectly.

   

   To be fair, I wouldn't have picked Jan Di's "makeover" getup either, so....

4. Skip the makeover: I can't think of a good example where this happened, but wouldn't it be refreshing if a drama just skipped the makeover entirely? Let the "fat" or "ugly" woman find love without changing anything. I guess you could count My Lovely Samsoon, though I didn't know Kim Sun Ah was supposed to be fat until the characters pointed it out, so that doesn't really count for me. If that's too radical for K-drama writers, you can always go the She Was Pretty or Dream High route, where the character gets a makeover, but decides that she really was happier before. Did I love IU's fat suit? No. But I liked the sentiment that her character settled to a weight were she was healthier than where she started, but not killing herself over every calorie.

How do you feel about makeover dramas? Do you hate them? Do you tolerate them? Am I overthinking this entire thing? How do you feel about the Oh My Venus approach so far? Share all your thoughts!

New Drama Alert: Answer Me 1988/ Reply 1988

There's a new installation in the nostalgia-filled Answer Me series on the block! In spite of my hesitations about yet another trip back in time to guess the husband, it's shaping up to be a comfortable little drama that stands on its own merits.

What it's about: The year is 1988, and five childhood friends from the same neighborhood learn to navigate all the emotional ups and downs of transitioning from childhood to adulthood, including first loves, family strife, and undying friendship.

Number of episodes watched: 4


Thoughts so far: Having watched both Answer Me 1997 (which Coco reviewed) and Answer Me 1994 (which I reviewed), I honestly wasn't sure if the third time around could maintain the charm of the first two. I also wasn't totally sold on the idea of Hyeri carrying a show, which made me hesitant to even start it at all. With 20 episodes that are each at least 90 minutes long, it's a big commitment!

As it turns out, I shouldn't have been worried about Hyeri. If there's one thing the Answer Me series consistently does right, it's choosing the cast. While I can't always say that they choose the best actors or actresses to fill the roles, they always, without fail, choose the right ones. Hyeri makes Deok Sun come alive, and it's impressive that the director saw that potential and insisted on casting her in the face of criticism.

In terms of the plot, I'm also pleasantly surprised. While I really loved a lot of things about Answer Me 1994, the long episode length and the determined focus on the husband question did the series a disservice. When I found out that the writer/director team went back on their word about not having a husband guessing game this time around, I was somewhat annoyed, but at this point in the show, I'm okay with the direction the series is headed.

Even if the flashback framework places a huge emphasis on guessing the husband, that element was never really what drove either previous series for me. What keeps me watching series after series is the cozy, relatable feeling they give. Answer Me 1994 spoke to me because my own love story was so similar to the one in the drama. Similarly, Answer Me 1997 reminded me of all the fangirl wars my friends had over N'Sync vs. Backstreet Boys in the '90s. The central friendships and the throwback nostalgia suck me in every single time, regardless of who the husband is.

So far, Answer Me 1988 is, if anything, even more relatable than the other two were, at least for me. I love that this time around, we're seeing stories from the entire neighborhood, so there's a character who speaks to everyone. From the first few minutes of the first episode when all of the kids were running back and forth with their various side dishes, I realized that this series was on to something special. It's a full community packed with characters who live and breathe, and within minutes, I was already laughing and crying with all of them.

Is there a love triangle (or square or pentagon) on the way? Yes, obviously. But the inevitable shipping wars don't bother me right now because there are so many other threads to enjoy. Hopefully the series can focus on those human stories instead of narrowly focusing in on the one thread of Deok Sun's husband.

As long as I continue to feel like I'm part of the neighborhood, this drama will be a success in my book. What about you?

Ok, ok, but I'l admit finding the husband is a little bit fun too.

Where to watch:
DramaFever

She Was Pretty Korean Drama Review, Or, A Tribute to Siwon's Face

From what I can tell, a lot of people really, really loved She Was Pretty, making it one of the most popular dramas of the entire year.

Fair warning: I was not one of those people. If you adored the drama and would rather not hear negative things about it, stop reading now.

You have been warned. Now let us proceed.

If I had my way, this is the review I would give, as told by Siwon faces:

No? I can't get away with a million pictures of Siwon? Very well, then. Allow me to elaborate.

First of all, let me make this very clear: I started the drama for Park Seo Joon. I finished it for Siwon. Siwon stole the show, and I say that as someone who didn't go into the series as a blind Siwon superfan.

I never really had strong feelings for Siwon one way or the other, but this character was perfect for him. He's definitely become more natural as an actor since his Oh! My Lady days, and, although his character was mainly comedic, he was able to drive home a full range of emotions over the course of the series. I may have clutched my heart once or twice. (Dear drama writers: WHY did he tell her to answer the phone???? That was just cruel.)

Seriously. My heart!

Siwon's scenes were easily the highlight of the series, but there were some other things that I generally enjoyed, like the friendship between Ha Ri and Hye Jin or the members of the Most team. Overall, though, aside from the revelation that was Siwon, the series felt pretty bleh overall.

Considering how overwhelmingly positive most of the feedback on this series was, I tried to pinpoint exactly what it was that didn't gel with me as a viewer. Here are some of the biggest issues as I saw them:

Issue 1: The lead characterizations: I love love love love loooooove Park Seo Joon, but his character might as well have been a cardboard box for the interest he generated. I don't mind cliches when they're used in interesting ways or if the actors inject the characters with some extra spark (lie in Marriage, Not Dating, for example), but his character did none of those things. He was a typical terrible rich guy lead who magically changed overnight through the power of love into a completely bland, smiling paper cutout. 

There were glimpses of delving into his background and giving us a better look at how the sweet, chubby boy became this angry, wounded man, but we never really got there. Instead, the drama focused so narrowly on his love with Hye Jin that he turned into a dull boyfriend-bot without anything really compelling to keep me watching.

Hye Jin had glimpses of better moments, especially at first, but after her makeover, she also became the ideal, tamed Candy girl we've seen a billion times before. I honestly feel like the writer was following the K-drama playbook so closely with these two that we could easily copy and past 80% of their dialogue into an entirely different drama without anyone noticing a difference.

Siwon and I feel the same way about lame characters.

Issue 2: Why is she with him? No, seriously. I think we were all so worried about whether Sung Joon loved Hye Jin as her present self that we forgot to ask ourselves the same question in reverse. Aside from the fact that he was her childhood friend, what reason does Hye Jin really have to fall for him in the first place?

I know this is going to make some people upset, but for the vast majority of the series, I honestly got a more motherly vibe from Hye Jin towards Sung Joon than a romantic one. Yes, she mothers everyone and that's just her personality, but if Sung Joon is supposedly her true love, shouldn't he be different? Even consider the romantic gesture of cutting his nails for him. Why does he like it? Because that's what his mom did. Cute gesture, but no. Just no.

Gross and weird. Cut your own nails.

Issue 3: Wasted potential: At the beginning of the series, there were quit a few things that grabbed my interest, and I saw them as a chance for the writers to try something new. Unfortunately, the writer completely dropped the ball on most of these interesting threads and forgot they existed. For example, Ha Ri was a really interesting character at first. Even when she was dating her best friend's first love, I thought she could be a well-rounded, intriguing character. Instead, she just got pushed off to the side after Sung Joon discovered her secret. I mean, I'm happy that she found herself and all, but it kind of felt like the script ignored her as much as possible after episode 10.

Okay, okay, I think that's enough bagging on the show for now. It wasn't actively bad. It just didn't really give me any reason to keep watching.

In case you wondered what the other people in the show look like, this is them.

Conclusions

On a narrative front, She Was Pretty didn't really work for me. The characters weren't unique or interesting enough for a character-driven drama, and, for the first time ever, I was so uninterested in the central pairing that I found myself tempted to fast forward through their cute scenes together. That's really saying something.

That being said, I'm glad I watched in order to discover Siwon. This was his perfect army sendoff, and he has at least one new fan looking forward to seeing what he does upon his return from enlistment.

Surely you won't begrudge me just one more Siwon for the road, right?

Where to watch:

Viki

DramaFever (concluding next week after a 2-week delay)

Cheer Up/ Sassy Go Go Korean Drama Review

Image via

When Cheer Up! (aka Sassy Go Go) began, I was already prepared to give my heart to it, as long as it was the sweet, lighthearted school series it promised to be.

Well, it wasn't exactly what I expected from the trailers, but what I can say is that this series was an incredibly pleasant surprise, and it completely won over my heart even more than I anticipated.

Just how much do I love it? Enough to overcome my recent blogging laziness to gush over it the same day it ended. Now that's true love.


What it's about: Kang Yeon Doo (Jung Eun Ji) is the leader of her school's dance team, a ragtag group of outcasts who rank at the bottom of the academic barrel. Kim Yeol (Lee Won Geun) is the number one student at school, and he leads the "cheerleading club," which is really a study group for the top 5%, both academically and financially. The two eventually find themselves forced to mesh their two teams into one. Can they make it work?

Why I'm so in love

Well-written high school dramas manage to capture that feeling of being 16 or 17. That's what Cheer Up! did for me. It's been a long time since I was in high school, and my high school was pretty much nothing like Sevit High (thank heavens!), but as I watched, the characters transported me back to my own experiences in a sweetly nostalgic way.

The most obvious example is the handling of the romance. I will admit that it took me a few episodes to get a handle on Yeol's character because the idea that a K-drama character would actually flirt instead of being a rude and coldhearted was so incredibly foreign to me.

Gah this face! I can't.

But that's exactly how teenagers fall in love in real life. This drama showcased one of the most natural and comfortable K-drama romances I've seen in a long time. In dramas of all genres, I often find myself wondering how these people went from accidentally falling onto each other's lips to being willing to die for each other. I also wonder if they'll actually enjoy being around each other once they no longer have to defend their love.

Cheer Up was completely different. Sure, the leads accidentally fell onto each other a couple of times, but overall, their relationship progressed the way real relationships do. They became friends, flirted, and gradually developed feelings for each other. There was no pretending to hate each other. There was no noble idiocy. When they liked each other, they said it. When they wanted to hold hands, they did. And when they thought about each other, they burst into the giddiest eye smiles I've ever seen.

You just snuggle away, you two little lovebirds!

I saw some commentary from people saying they didn't know how much Yeon Doo liked Yeol because she hadn't expressed her feelings out loud, but I actually appreciated that their feelings were so obvious through the little details that we didn't need the screenwriter to tell us how they felt in the overt ways they do in other dramas.

 Instead of having Yeon Doo clutching her chest and asking the camera "Why is my heart beating so fast? Do I like him?" we saw her feelings in other ways. When I saw her grinning from ear to ear on the phone with Yeol, I didn't need to hear her feelings out loud because it was spelled all over her face.

This is what swooning at 16 looks like, folks.

I guess that's what made the drama fun for me — not only did the characters act in line with their personalities, but they also acted true to their age. Whenever they did something that I remember doing, it created the kind of connection that I don't generally feel with your typical chaebol/Candy stories.

 I don't know what it feels like to end up in a fake marriage while running away from loan sharks (shocking, I know), but I do remember when the boy I liked put a Valentine's note in my locker and I walked around the rest of the day with a dopey smile on my face. I'm a little suspicious that a Post-It company was sponsoring the whole show, but I don't even care because asking Yeon Doo to the movies with a sticky note was exactly what Yeol would do.

The romance was so cute that there was at least one squee-dorable scene in every episode, but there were a lot of other things going for this series, as well. The show was populated with a full cast of characters, all of whom had their own stories. Ultimately, it's a series just as much about friendship as it is about love, and it didn't disappoint on the friendship front.

Nearly every episode spotlighted a different set of characters, helping us see their joys and struggle. I admit that it might have been overly ambitious to tackle so many serious character arcs in a 12-episode series, but they still managed to make me care about an awful lot of people for so few episodes. It's impressive that I was so invested in Teacher Yang when he only really took center stage for one episode. But they managed it somehow, and I might have shed a tear or two over the empathetic educator. Or three. 

If there was ever a series that could have filled 16 episodes, this was it. Still, considering how many balls the show tried to juggle in such a short time, it was pretty smart with the pacing. I certainly never felt bored, and I found myself wishing that more shows would try the shorter format to cut all of the filler scenes that I didn't really miss.

Of course, there's also a downside to fewer episodes. For a straightforward romance (like Ex-Girlfriend's Club, for example), it's easy to wrap everything up in a shorter time. Cheer Up tried to do so much that they definitely had to rush some of the resolutions a bit. For how much time Soo Ah spent being a villain, her turnaround was pretty fast, and I almost wish they had left Dong Jae out of the series entirely since they barely skimmed the surface of his character.

I know that Soo Ah's handling upset a lot of people, but even though I thought it was resolved really fast, I don't mind how it all fell out in the end. Yes, Soo Ah was terrible, but she was never an outright villain. Instead, she always seemed to be lashing out in desperation. Does that excuse her actions? No. But I think there's a difference between being forgiving and justifying bad behavior, and I always felt like the show recognized when Soo Ah crossed the line, even when her friends graciously extended the hand of friendship. 

In the end, I felt like the series took Teacher Yang's approach to Soo Ah: He told her straight out that having a hard time didn't make her behavior okay, and yet he was always there to offer a helping hand when she wanted to turn around.

In spite of some quick fixes and underdeveloped characters, I was genuinely surprised that the series managed to give us so much resolution at the end, even if it was a bit rushed. With every passing episode, I grew increasingly convinced that the finale would be a hodgepodge, unsatisfying, open-ended mess, and yet I finished the show feeling pleased overall. I would rather have a series that moves fast and quickly checks off a bunch of boxes in the last episode than one that drags on episode after episode and still doesn't manage to wrap up its story.

Even baby Ji Soo turned out okay! But next time can he not rip out my heart so much? Okay? Okay.

Conclusions

Driven by winning performances from Eunji and Lee Won Geun, Cheer Up is a surprisingly well written, heartfelt series that captures both the enthusiasm and the heartache of youth. If the fluffy teasers didn't seem up your alley, it's still worth giving a try — it very well may surprise you.

Where to watch:

DramaFever

Viki

Twenty Again Korean drama review

Long ago, I blogged about why I love K-drama beginnings and get bored when most shows reach the halfway point. Back then, I started developing the terrible habit of watching until the last 2-3 episodes and then never finishing a drama. 

Over time, that habit has gotten increasingly worse. I used to agonize over dropping anything after the first 2-4 episodes, but now I have a massive pile of shows I dropped by episodes 8-10, and I really have no intention of going back. Life's too short to waste watching boring dramas (sorry, Yongpal).

My mid-drama boredom is such a regular part of my drama-watching experience at this point that I sometimes catch myself bracing for the slump episodes. Every once in a while, though, there's a show that somehow manages to avoid the mid-series slump, and, even more rarely, there are shows that just get better and better as the series progresses.

Twenty Again is one of the latter shows. It started with promise, but there were a lot of things about the first few episodes that could have gone horribly, horribly awry. Fortunately, they didn't, and we ended up with a (mostly) satisfying series.

Premise: Ha No Ra (Choi Ji Woo) was a promising dancer in her youth, but when she had a child and married at the age of twenty, she gave up on her dreams and became a devoted wife and mother. Now, twenty years later, her jerk husband (Choi Won Young) wants a divorce and her jerk son (Kim Min Jae) is headed off to college, so No Ra decides to live out her dreams and head back to school. Little does she know that one of her professors is Cha Hyun Suk (Lee Sang Yoon), who loved her in their teenage years.

The Good

What made Twenty Again such a satisfying watch is that, from start to finish, it's all about No Ra's progression. She starts off as a sad housewife with no real sense of self, and we gradually see her blossom into a confident individual over the course of the series. Nearly all of the side characters and plot developments work together to highlight No Ra's story.

I appreciated that the drama skipped opportunities to give us the typical massive Dramaland obstacles, opting instead to give us a fairly quiet story. No Ra's growth felt real, and I was far more invested in her progress than I would have if her husband had her framed for murder or she suddenly ended up with amnesia or something.

While I love a dastardly drama villain as much as the next person, I found the depictions of Woo Chul and Yi Jin particularly refreshing. Yes, they do selfish and petty things over the course of the series, but they do selfish and petty things that are completely in the realm of what normal people might do. Even if you dislike them, you rarely hate them (except in some of those Woo Chul flashbacks).

When No Ra first entered Yi Jin's classroom, I was convinced that Yi Jin, as the antagonist, would make No Ra's life a living hell and try to get her kicked out of school. Instead, after giving her a hard time on the first day of class, Yi Jin actually grows to like and respect No Ra, something I never would have imagined. It was a small detail in the writing, but those kinds of details made the drama world come to life for me.

I also really enjoyed how, instead of overshadowing No Ra's personal journey, the romance between her and Hyun Suk always supported that journey first and foremost. Okay, sure, I thought Hyun Suk was way too petty for way too long and sometimes I had my reservations about where the romance was headed, regardless of how handsome Lee Sang Yoon and his dimples are, but overall, I thought the romance was handled in a realistic and thoughtful way.

Of course, the dimples don't hurt.

What bothers me about many dramas is that the romance often revolves around what the male lead wants. He takes a liking to the female lead, and then suddenly we have to watch as he makes her the object of his affection. Even romantic gestures become the fulfillment of his fantasy rather than hers. He gives her a makeover so that she can look "worthy" to stand by his side. He drags her around by the wrist so that she will listen to his feelings. The list goes on and on.

Twenty Again reverses the trope. Every gesture Cha Hyun Suk makes isn't for his own sake, but for No Ra's. His focus is never on gratifying his own desire to be with No Ra or make her "his woman," but rather on helping No Ra accomplish what she wants. Even his jealousy towards Woo Chul isn't so much about another man "possessing" the woman he loves as it is frustration at seeing the man No Ra chose treating her like she has no value. Sure, he misunderstands No Ra every once in a while, but even then, he's trying to put her needs ahead of his own.

At the end of the series, I felt like Hyun Suk: I loved everyone and everything that made No Ra happy, and I was annoyed with everyone and everything that got in the way of her dreams.

The Not-So-Good

As I said, this series gained momentum as the series progressed, and there were a few episodes in the middle (episode 6 comes to mind) that were some of the most enjoyable drama episodes I've ever watched.

Then we got the last two episodes.

Now, I know a lot of people were angry with the conclusion of episode 15, but I actually appreciated the move in some ways, even if it wasn't the direction I would have preferred. 

If Hyun Suk had a major flaw, it was that he couldn't let No Ra do things for herself. He was so eager to help her that, even after she repeatedly expressed her desire to do things on her own, he still tried to step in behind the scenes. We also have to remember that No Ra just got out of a 20-year relationship where she was completely dependent on her spouse, so it's natural that she is particularly sensitive to other people trying to coddle her. From that perspective, it makes sense that No Ra would cut ties until she felt confident in her ability to take care of herself and Hyun Suk could understand the boundaries of when to help and when to step back a little bit better.

Even though I understand that move, the execution of the last two episodes left me a little dissatisfied. 

You can't just backhug your way out of this!

First of all, No Ra was terrible at communicating why she needed space. Second, episode 16 didn't actually convince me that either one of them really learned anything. Instead of showing Hyun Suk understanding No Ra's position and No Ra understanding that she could still be her own person even with someone by her side, the writer opted for a traditional time jump. Yes, No Ra got a job and supported herself financially, but otherwise, it sounds like it was just three months of them pining away for each other pointlessly. When they decided to get back together, it kind of felt like "Welp, we're almost to the end of this episode, so let's get things moving!" instead of a natural step as the result of mutual growth, making episode 15 seem entirely useless.

If they were just going to get together with an awkward kiss at a random time anyway, why bother separating them at all? I'm sure the viewers would have preferred a finale full of happy No Ra/ Hyun Suk scenes instead of apparently purposeless angst.

I loved loved loved loved the final scene and its callback to No Ra's earlier experience in the park, but otherwise, the post-confession relationship in the finale was kind of a letdown as well. I can't quite put my finger on what was missing, but the chemistry of the earlier episodes wasn't really there. 

I don't need to see them tearing each others' clothes off, but these are two people in their late thirties who are supposedly madly in love! I mean, Min Soo didn't exactly come from the stork, so we know No Ra knows something about physical intimacy, even if it's been years. I don't think they needed some super sexy scene or anything, but there was so little physical interaction in the last episode that their relationship almost came off as platonic rather than romantic.

At least you can admit it?

My only other enormous beef with the series was the whole Min Soo/ Hye Mi loveline. I guess Min Soo kind of grew on me as a character, but the two of them together felt like a giant waste of time. Maaaaaaaaybe if they had been better actors, their scenes wouldn't have been so incredibly irritating, but the writing didn't really do them any favors either. I found myself chanting "Truck of Doom! Truck of Doom!" every time the two of them popped up on the screen.

Conclusions

Yes, Twenty Again had some rough patches in the beginning and the end, but the middle sections more than make up for it. I was surprised at how much this show moved me, and at the end of the day, that's enough reason to watch.

Where to watch Twenty Again:

DramaFever

New Drama Alert: Oh My Ghostess and The Time I Loved You

I am a solar-powered person, which means that anything and everything related to summer is automatically my favorite. As a result, I also love the light, breezy dramas that generally come out during the summer months.

Coco and I have a slight Mask obsession right now (so ridiculous, but so, so cracktastic), so I only have so many other dramas I can watch in between trying to enjoy as much sunlight as I possibly can before winter sneaks up on me again. Right now, the two options are Oh My Ghostess and The Time I Loved You, but I only have time to watch one. Which will it be?

Oh My Ghostess

Premise: A shy, painfully timid kitchen assistant (Park Bo Young) has a crush on her boss, a star chef (Jo Jung Suk). She can't bring herself to act on her feelings, but one day, she is possessed by the ghost of a virgin spirit (Kim Seul Gi) who is determined to get laid so she can peacefully pass on to the afterlife. 

Episodes watched: 4

Thoughts so far: If I believed in inserting emoji into blog posts, I would insert a face with hearts for eyes right now because that's how I feel about this drama. It's not exactly what I expected, but it's the drama I didn't even know I wanted until I saw it.

First of all, I already loved Park Bo Young and Kim Seul Gi on their own, but watching Park Bo Young pretend to be possessed by Kim Seul Gi is just another level entirely. She's putting in a jaw-dropping performance so far, and I love how easily she switches from one character to the next. 

Park Bo Young is the obvious standout, but the rest of the cast is equally talented. I've had a soft spot for Jo Jung Suk since he made me cry my face off in King 2 Hearts, and he suits this character well. Im Ju Hwan is pure perfection as the sweet guy with a potentially chilling side.

As I said, this drama hasn't been exactly what I expected so far. It took a while to establish the characters, and while I expected the outrageously funny scenes (of which there are many), I didn't expect the poignantly emotional side to the drama. In many ways, this is a drama about longing, and nearly all of the characters, even the minor ones, are fighting their own battles against loneliness and loss. There's a beauty in that thread of longing that connects all of the characters, and I look forward to seeing how (or if) they can fill that emotional gap for each other.

My biggest concern at first was that Soo Ae would continue to possess Bong Sun and that the ghost's growth would come at the expense of her host (also—it's not okay to use someone else's body to have sex against her will, right?!?!?), which is why I waited for a few episodes to post my initial thoughts. Now that we know Bong Sun is back, I'm excited to see both female leads progressing together. Now if only Friday would get here faster so I could see the next episode....

Where to watch:

DramaFever

The Time I Loved You

Premise: This is a Korean remake of the Taiwanese drama In Time with You, which just so happens to be the only Taiwanese drama I've actually seen. The series follows two best friends (played by Ha Ji Won and Lee Jin Wook) who gradually begin to recognize their romantic feelings for each other after being friends for 17 years.

Episodes watched: 4

Thoughts so far: It's difficult to talk about this version without comparing it to the Taiwanese version, so I'm not even going to try.  

I enjoyed the first four episodes just fine, and and yet...I just don't feel that excitement to watch new episodes.

I'm having a hard time pinning down why this series just isn't doing anything for me. I'm very much a fan of both slice-of-life dramas and best-friends-fall-in-love dramas, so the fact that isn't exactly action packed doesn't bother me in the least. I also like Ha Ji Won just fine and really like Lee Jin Wook (especially when he has so many chances to give longing glances), so it's not necessarily an acting problem. As far as comparisons to In Time with You go, I'm not someone who insists that remakes should be identical, and while I enjoyed the callbacks to scenes from the original, I also appreciate that they're trying to do their own thing. 

I guess the thing I'm missing between the Taiwanese version and the Korean version is a feeling of authenticity. As I said, I love slice-of-life dramas, but somehow The Time I Loved You feels too slick to give that comfortable feeling required to make a slice-of-life drama work. I constantly have the underlying feeling that somehow the writer (who apparently just got swapped out for a new team) was trying to take the Taiwanese story and mold it into our K-drama comfort zone. The result is that things that worked and felt natural in the Taiwanese version feel forced or ridiculous here. Sure, I wanted Da Ren to just confess his feelings way earlier than he did, but I understood why, given his personality, he couldn't bring himself to be honest, whereas I constantly find myself thinking, "That's it? Isn't there a birth secret or a dead best friend keeping them apart?" in response to Choi Won. 

The perfect example of the slickness in The Time I Loved You is the treatment of L's character, Ha Na's young, flirtatious coworker.  (Spoiler alert) In the Taiwanese version, Nic was a gay young man using his female coworkers to help him move up the corporate ladder. L, on the other hand, was only using Ha Na because his family desperately needed money, and his final scene hints that he had real, true feelings for Ha Na. Of course he did. Because adorable little L couldn't do something hurtful and selfish without a big, tragic backstory to go with it.

Even as I give these critiques, I want to reiterate that I enjoyed the drama just fine, I love the beautiful look of the drama (and its fantastic wardrobe choices), and I can see how it would be a light series to watch. I'm just bowing out. If I don't feel compelled to keep watching now, what are the odds that I'll ever get past episode 13, when everything inevitably gets extra angsty and ridiculous?

Where to watch:

DramaFever

Viki

Are you watching these two? What do you think so far?