New Kdrama Alert: Marriage without Love (Marriage, Not Dating)

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I don't know what it is about summer, but it makes me want to start a billion romantic comedies. I can't stop! I no sooner finished You Are All Surrounded than I randomly picked up Marriage without Love/Marriage, Not Dating. This is where I draw the line, though! I'm not allowed to start any new dramas until something else ends. I'm falling behind as it is!

I had heard very little about this drama, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because Dramabeans didn't start recapping it until after I started watching. Whatever the case, here's an overview for those of you who, like me, might have missed the memo on this one:

Overview: Marriage without Love stars Yeon Woo Jin (aka the sad murderous guy in Arang and the Magistrate) as Gong Gi Tae, a successful, grumpy plastic surgeon who doesn't want to get married. Han Groo (who it took me a solid three episodes to recognize as the girl from Killer Girl K--maybe because she wasn't dripping with blood?) is Joo Jang Mi, a girl who wants revenge on the guy who broke her heart. Because of some utterly nonsensical reasons, they decide to fake a relationship. Toss in a love hexagon, and you've got the show.

Thoughts so far: Okay, so the plot isn't exactly groundbreaking. In fact, the reasoning for the fake relationship is worse than usual in this one. I get that he wants to keep his house, but seriously. You're a freaking adult. Put on your big boy pants and just say you don't want to get married. 

Even though the entire show is one enormous cliche, I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far. The leads have nice, believable chemistry that makes this the perfect throwaway summer show. Han Groo's character could be my worst nightmare, but the actress is pulling it off with just enough attitude to make me like her. I will say, though, that she needs to grow a backbone and start saying no to people pretty soon here. Otherwise, we may end up with a Personal Taste situation on our hands.

The love hexagon is fun for a light comedy. I mean, the less said about Jung Jin Woon's acting, the better (Let's just say that his face is very pretty and leave it at that), but overall, it's a fluffy show that--so far--seems to understand what people want from a fluffy show. I can appreciate that.

P.S. The cold open on episode 6: Clever undermining of audience expectations, or mean writers playing tricks on the audience?

Where to watch Marriage without Love:

Kdrama.com 

Viki

You Are All Surrounded Korean Drama Review

Everyone has that one drama that really sings the song of their people. For many drama watchers, it's a nuanced, deep, heartfelt show that really speaks to their soul.

For me? It's You Are All Surrounded, where people run around chasing cars and punching bad guys. I am what I am, okay?

Even though I said from the very beginning that I couldn't possibly offer an objective view of this series, now that it's over, I do have a few bones to pick. But first, let's talk about the things that I love:

Things I Loved

The cast. Historically, I haven't been a huge fangirl for any of the actors in this series, but the combination of cast members here was pure magic. Bro time between Lee Seung Gi and Cha Seung Won was predictably fantastic, but even the side characters gave me warm fuzzies inside my heart. The chemistry of the central cast gave this show a lot of leeway to overcome downsides (which I will address in a moment).

Hug it out, you two.

As part of the cast interactions, I also enjoyed the relationship between Seung Gi's Dae Gu and Go Ara's Soo Sun. The couple was allowed to develop in a natural way, and, in spite of Dae Gu's early complaints that Soo Sun was a bird brain, they had mutual respect and friendship. Not to spoil anything, but I also loved how the writers handled Dae Gu's love confession. They had a million opportunities to make him run away out of noble idiocy, but they opted to take the less obvious route, and the relationship worked better as a result of that choice.

One of the most pleasant surprises was the character of Chief Kang. She wasn't the lead of the show, but she was probably the most interesting female character I have seen in a K-drama this year. K-drama characters (especially women) tend to fit into cookie cutter roles of first lead, mean second lead, or terrible mother-in-law, but Chief Kang defied categorization. As a viewer, I felt like I was learning about her from episode 1 to episode 20.

Things I . . . Didn't Love

Frankly, the cast was great, but the writing was sloppy. The first half of the series balanced romance, mystery, comedy, and character development really well, but the second half of the series lost momentum. Maybe I was hyper-aware of this because I watched the series as it aired, but there were far too many episodes where I felt like there was no payoff. Every once in a while, there would be a superb scene or series of scenes that sucked me in, but those scenes were a bit too few and far between.

When I say that the writing was sloppy, I mean that the writers tried to make interesting things happen, but they did so in the most obvious way possible. The central mystery that completely took over the second half of the series wasn't nearly as mysterious as the writers would have us believe, and, for how great the good guys were, the villains were basically cardboard cutouts. I think I speak for quite a few viewers when I say that I would have been happy with much more Pan Seok/Sa Kyung romance in the second half and much less of the evil chaebol woman laughing smugly at the camera.

We aren't happy that you're here, either.

Similarly, while the case-of-the-day format was great for some laughs and team-building moments at the start of the series, most of the cases weren't all that compelling. The sheer number of random coincidences that allowed them to progress on any case was a sign that the writing was a bit weak.

Conclusions

Saying that the villains were terrible and the writing was lacking might sound like major negatives. If this were any other show, that might be an accurate assessment, but this one is an exception for me. It's absolutely worth it for the characters. Regardless of what kinds of shenanigans they were trying to pull, I cared about them, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching their interactions.

P.S. (SPOILERS--BEWARE)

I was pleased that bag lady's husband wasn't really Dae Gu's daddy, but the fact remains that he legitimately thought he might be the father. I know babies have some leeway in conception dates, but that means that Dae Gu's mom was doing some hanky panky with that guy and Dae Gu's real dad in a very short span of time. Was I the only one who thought of that?

P.P.S. Best kiss reaction ever:

Where to watch You Are All Surrounded

DramaFever

Viki

Kdrama.com

Ahhh, Young Love: Answer Me 1994 (Reply 1994) Korean Drama Review

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Big news, big news! Coco and I are going to KCON! Not only are we going to KCON, but we're presenting at KCON! Now that we're all official on the KCON website and stuff, we'll make a more formal announcement about our participation soon. The moral of the story is that if you'll be at KCON, we should meet.

What does KCON have to do with Answer Me 1994, you may ask? Well, one of our panels is about second male leads, so I finally decided to watch this show. You know, for "research."

Overview

Much like its predecessor Answer Me 1997, Answer Me 1994 presents a group of longtime friends in the present and then gives us the story of how their friendship progressed from their first year of college to the present day. It also features the same type of husband mystery, where the audience tries to figure out which of two (or three or four) men the female lead (Na Jung, played by Go Ara) will choose in the end. Basically, it's a billion (or 20, whatever) episodes of the writers jerking the audience around between two love options. 

This is the whole show. Allllllllll 21 episodes.

Because it's set in the '90s, the show is filled with nostalgic references to Korean pop culture. Some of the references will go over the heads of anyone unfamiliar with 1990s Korea, but some of them, like the millennium hubbub and the switch from pagers to cell phones, are memorable globally.

I know that a lot of people watched this show in comparison to Answer Me 1997, but I think it stands alone as its own show that should be reviewed as such.

Review

I watched this show because I heard that it featured the love triangle to end all love triangles. When this show aired, flame wars between Team Oppa and Team Chilbongie erupted all over the internet. I'm going to make this review as spoiler-free as possible, but I will tell you that I went into the series knowing who Na Jung was going to choose, and I'm pretty sure that it improved the viewing experience for me. I'm not saying you have to know the end in advance, but if you prefer not to rip all of your hair out in frustration, it's something to consider. Just sayin'. 

As I watched Answer Me 1994, it hit a really personal chord with me. When I was 19, I found myself falling for a good friend who had always been off-limits. Years later (after I ran away to another country for a while), that man became my husband. When I saw Na Jung and Oppa trying to navigate those awkward moments of transitioning from friendship into romance and from youth into adulthood, it brought me a sweet sense of nostalgia. And yes, that means that I'm a Team Oppa sympathizer. I married the Oppa in my story. I can't help it.

Even though I'm in Oppa's camp, both the best thing and the worst thing about this show is that both men are good choices. Sure, I'm Team Oppa, but I also feel like I'm Team Chilbongie (How's that for being wishy-washy?). They're very different characters, but, unlike other love triangles, it's abundantly clear from he very first episodes that both men care about Na Jung and want to support her. Either one could have a balanced relationship with her that is rooted in friendship.

I say that it's both the best and the worst thing about the show because the structure of the husband mystery does the show an enormous disservice. By creating a frame narrative that constantly forces focus onto the question of who Na Jung will marry, Answer Me 1994 encourages viewers to invest most of their emotional energy into the love triangle. If left alone, I think viewers could have appreciated the natural progression towards the eventual romantic outcome without constantly second-guessing themselves and feeling bad for whichever guy was being left behind at the moment. It also would have spared us the agony of watching the world's most boring housewarming party. Seriously, how freaking long was that wedding video?

Why do they both make such convincing "I'm sad that I'm being left out" faces?

Without the framing device, viewers could also enjoy the show as a slice-of-life representation of youth and friendship. In a show where the side characters all have their own stories that endear them to us, it makes little sense to constantly insist that the only outcome that really matters is Na Jung's choice. Even the parents were well-rounded humans with concerns and hopes of their own. Personally, I probably enjoyed watching Haetae more than anyone else, and his progression as a character meant more to me than the romantic tug-of-war.

I do have to complain about Bingrae's treatment at the end, though. It's like they were in a gigantic rush to tie everything together with a neat bow, and in so doing, they undermined the emotional weight of his personal story.

In addition to drawing constant attention to the husband mystery, the show also dragged the love triangle out way too long. If we're talking about expectation and fulfillment, you can't stretch the love triangle for 20 episodes and then expect us to feel okay for the guy she didn't choose. You made us love him, so you give us some closure beyond five minutes in the finale, you monsters!

I know that a lot of people hated the extended episode length (as long as 1 hour 45 minutes for some episodes). While I agree that some scenes were overly bloated, especially towards the end, I think that the length worked in some ways. It allowed the writers to maintain the lifelike feel of the show by placing big moments in the middle of episodes instead of the end. In real life, you don't kiss someone, freeze frame it, and then roll the credits. You have big moments, and then you go back to normal life the next day.

This has little to do with my feelings on the show itself, but every time the love theme came on, I felt like I was listening to a mix of "Lady in Red" and something by Marvin Gaye.

I may not have lived in Korea in the 1990s, but this might just be the most '90s thing about the entire show.

Conclusions

Answer Me 1994 may be too long with a love triangle that drags on until the end of time, but it is also filled with realistic characters who represent youth in love really well. I would recommend spoiling the love triangle before you start so that you can just sit back and enjoy the leisurely, well-acted ride.

Where to Watch Answer Me 1994

DramaFever

Viki

New Dramas: King of High School, Joseon Gunman, and Trot Lovers

I had a chance to spend last Saturday hanging out with a bunch of other K-drama lovers/bloggers who happen to live in my area! Eating delicious Korean food and chatting about K-dramas was delightful. I had no idea that the people I read on the internet actually live near me in real life. Dewaanifordrama did a little write-up about our meeting here. I just have to say how much I enjoy the K-drama community. Whether it's the K-drama lovers I meet in real life or those of you who chat about dramas on the internet, you all make watching dramas worthwhile. Thank you. You're the best drama friends a girl could have.

Now that I've gotten my sentimentality out of the way for the day, it's new drama time! Last drama cycle was kind of a bust for us. Out of all of the options, I was only interested in You Are All Surrounded, and then I picked up Witch's Romance towards the end of its run. Coco and I are more interested in the shows this time around. Here's what we're watching:

King of High School/ High School King of Savvy

This poster. I hate it. But I love the show.
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What it's about: Lee Min Suk (Seo In Guk) is a hotshot high school hockey player. When his hotshot businessman brother disappears the day he's supposed to start a new job, he asks Min Suk to act as his double. Min Suk juggles the stresses of high school and business as hijinks (and, I assume, a noona romance with Lee Ha Na) ensue.

First impressions (episodes 1-4): First of all, can we just agree that High School King of Savvy has got to be one of the least appealing show titles of all time? It sounds simultaneously smarmy and childish. I'm glad that I didn't let the title deter me because I went into episode 1 with reeeeeeeeally low expectations, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Seo In Guk is carrying this whole show, no doubt about it. He's amazingly good at playing up the mannerisms of an 18-year-old boy, and I love that his character, while playful and immature, isn't your typical jerkface male lead. He's caring and friendly from the very beginning, which always scores points in my book. I have to admit, though, that I'm just pretending that he's a college student instead of a high school student. I enjoy a good noona romance, but rooting for an older woman to pick up on a high school kid crosses my pervy boundaries. Can we all just agree to pretend he's closer to Seo In Guk's actual age?

I'm a little split on the female lead. She's endearing, but her awkwardness is so over-the-top that it's kind of a cliche at this point. I also can't look at her without seeing this:

I have faith that she will grow on me over the course of the show.

If you're okay with suspending your disbelief of the absurd premise, I would say this is worth a watch for Seo In Guk's performance. And his grandpa.

Where to watch King of High School:

Kdrama.com

Joseon Gunman

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What it's about: At the end of the Joseon era, a sword fighter's son (Lee Joon Ki) must learn to take up the gun in order to get revenge. (Or so I hear. We aren't at the revenge part yet.) He is joined by a young woman (Nam Sang Mi) who fights for enlightenment ideals.

First impressions (episodes 1-2): I'm a sucker for pretty dramas, and this drama is insanely pretty. I'm also a sucker for Lee Jun Ki, so this started out with a stacked deck in my book. Although it might be odd to compare this to King of High School, they're both similar in that they have male leads who start out as immature, but kind and caring. I think the pacing on this drama is pretty smart, as well. We know that the heavy stuff is coming, but they started with some absurdly cute and romantic scenes to carry us through the inevitable melo. I already feel invested in this couple, and it has only been two episodes. As a bonus we already have a cross-dressing drama and forced cohabitation, which happen to be two of my favorite things!

The female lead is interesting. I don't know if the writers did this on purpose, but she's an interesting mix of traditional and assertive. She wants to be a scholar and she sasses anyone who disagrees with her, but she's also kind of damsel-in-distress-ish. Squealing and crying aren't usually my favorite character traits in female leads, but I'm willing to let it slide here because she encapsulates that interesting era of history so well. She's an embodiment of both traditional Korean women and enlightenment ideals. 

Where to watch Joseon Gunman:

DramaFever

Trot Lovers

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What it's about: A superstar (Ji Hyun Woo) falls on hard luck, and, in order to save his career, he must help a young woman who loves traditional trot music (Jung Eunji) become a singer.

First impressions (episodes 1-4): I love both of the leads (and I also like our second male lead, Shin Sung Rok, now that he isn't murdering people), but I'm a little bit worried about the writing after four episodes. The first two episodes were light and fluffy, episode 3 got pretty dark pretty fast, and then episode 4 went back to light and fluffy. I'm happy that they didn't play sexual harassment or suicidality for laughs, but consistency is also important. The tone has been swinging so wildly from one end of the spectrum to the other that I get the sense that these writers aren't quite sure where this train is headed. Let's just hope they don't steer it off of a cliff! 

Where to watch Trot Lovers:

DramaFever

Viki

What are you guys watching? Thoughts so far?

Mini Reviews: Sly And Single Again, I Need Romance 3, and Nine: Nine Times Time Travel

I'm all backed up on reviews, so here go some mini reviews on a few of the shows we've finished in these lazy days of summer. It's kind of an odd mix of shows, but I gotta shake things up sometimes!

Mini Review #1: Sly And Single Again/Cunning Single Lady

A mini review in text messages:

...And that pretty much sums it up. Even from the first episodes, Coco was way more complimentary than I was, but the show did grow on me. It was a light, fluffy romance, but I wasn't on the edge of my seat for new episodes. 

The leads had some cute moments together, but I never felt fully connected to either one of them, and the two second leads mostly drove me crazy by the end of the show. I will say that the title Cunning Single Lady is pretty misleading because it sets up the female as some scheming gold digger, which she isn't. If anything, she becomes a more reasonable and well-rounded person far earlier than her male counterpart did. Even when he liked her, he was so mean to her for so long that I got a little irritated. That being said, the last couple of episodes were excellent. They tied everything together with a giant, fluffy bow.

Conclusions: It's fun enough and cute enough, but it doesn't have much new to offer to the K-drama romcom table.

Where to watch Sly and Single Again/Cunning Single Lady:

DramaFever

Viki

Kdrama.com

Mini Review 2: I Need Romance 3

Good things: Sung Joon playing a first male lead who apparently stole all of his moves from second male leads. The office friendship. Side romances.

Not-so-good-things: The female lead had the emotional sense of a used bad-aid. Are those lacking in emotion? Because that's what came to mind first. I love Sung Joon, but watching him tell his love what to do and how to feel for a billion episodes got tiring. It's pretty telling that I enjoyed the scenes where he was doing nice things by himself far more than the scenes where he was actually interacting with the female lead. That's not Kim So Yeon's fault. That's the writer's fault.

Conclusions:   A warm, lightweight romance that works for girls who love second lead types or Sung Joon. For people who watch a lot of dramas, though, the outcome of the entire show might feel so inevitable that it's hard to care about anything that happens in the middle. One look at the poster, and you know where the whole thing is headed.  The central love square just goes through the required motions until they kill enough time to film the finale, which is sad because I might be the only person on the planet who actually liked Tae Yoon until they turned him into a romantic obstacle. 

Where to watch I Need Romance 3:

DramaFever

Viki

Mini Review 3: Nine: Nine Times Time Travel

This drama might win for worst title ever (and it's a strong contender for worst female bowl cut ever). It's redundant and weird and didn't make me want to watch the show at all, but I'm happy that Rosie's incessant gushing about this series convinced me to give it a try. 

Good things: I'm very, very picky about time travel logic. I don't care about shows where people travel to the future, but any time people travel into the past, I immediately start to ask questions. Most time travel movies just make stuff up and do what they want, and it drives me crazy. (If you want to see a movie that actually treats time travel with respect, see Twelve Monkeys). The good news is that Nine sets many of its own rules, and it actually keeps those rules pretty faithfully. There are a few minor exceptions, but it's the smartest entry into the K-drama time travel genre that I have seen to date. 

I also liked how the series set the stakes right away. I'm not saying that the lead couple should be making out onscreen in episode 1 of every series, but it was interesting to see a show start with the relationship and then explore what happens when it is taken away. Sure, the romantic tension wasn't always there, but it was a fresh approach to K-drama romance.

A lot of people hated the conclusion. I didn't. But I will say that "I am the incense!" is one of the most idiotic things I have ever heard. What does that even mean?

Not-so-good things: This guy:

Everyone else was acting their butts off and trying to give us a drama with real emotional weight, and he was doing cartoon surprised faces in the corner. And not multiple different cartoon faces. The same. Freaking. Face. This is why I was't happy to see him reprising a villain role in You Are All Surrounded. 

People warned me that it would take about four episodes to get into this show. People were right. I'm so glad I stuck it out because I was bored out of my mind at first, but then I got to enjoy a smart, interesting series.

Conclusions: I watched bits and pieces of this show with five different people who never watch dramas, and they were all intrigued. With good reason. It's some of the best drama writing I have seen.

Where to watch Nine:

DramaFever

Viki

P.S. I dropped Bride of the Century around episode 8. I just couldn't do it. Sorry, not sorry.

Is It Snowing in Hell?

The second male lead in Emergency Couple is sporting real facial hair, which he appears to have grown all by himself. Those of you who were around for our Fashion Face-off battle of facial hair know just how impressive this is. Kudos to you, good sir.

Also, his character might just be my favorite thing about this show right now. Lee Pil Mo, I will love you forever.

In other Emergency Couple-related news, Coco and I are in a fight over Oh Jin Hee. Coco says she can't like her until she grows more of a backbone. I kind of like that she stands up for herself and demonstrates competence at surprising times, like when the mother-in-law tries to belittle her. I can think of a few other Kdrama leads who would have trembled and cried in that situation (*cough*Eun Sang*cough*). I guess only time will tell if it's a character worth supporting.

P.S. We have feelings about the ending of Prime Minister and I. A review will be up soon.

Cheongdamdong Alice Kdrama Review

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Confession:  I stopped watching Cheongdamdong Alice around episode 11, so maybe my opinion on this one isn't entirely valid.  As we've already established, though, just because I didn't finish doesn't necessarily mean that the whole thing was a train wreck.  Here are a few brief thoughts on the whole thing:

Overview

I was drawn to this drama because it showed up on Netflix, but then I stayed for the premise.  The optimistic "Candy girl" (*see the explanation below) who cheerfully works hard under any circumstances is a kdrama staple, and Cheongdamdong Alice was a refreshing twist on the formula.  It finally asked the very real question of "What happens to Candy girls when things don't get better?"  What happens when cheerfulness and optimism only yield more trouble and pain?  At what point does Candy stop being Candy?  

Han Se Kyung (Moon Geun Young) isn't always the most likable female lead, but people aren't always likable when their lives have been trampled, and I appreciated that honesty of characterization.  Even when I didn't agree with her choices, I could at least understand them.  (Okay, except I think most of us would jump to goals like "I want to have enough money for rent and food" before heading straight to "I want to marry a rich guy so that I can own fancy purses.")  Even the initially wicked rival became increasingly human as the series progressed.

Note to self: If I ever need to hide a terrible secret from my past, I should probably not cry and start to tremble every time anything remotely related to it comes up in conversation.

 Opposite to Se Kyung, we have Jean Thierry Cha, played by Park Shi Hoo.  I have kind of ambiguous feelings about Park Si Hoo as a person, but as an actor, he always throws himself into roles.  Yes, he overacted some scenes to the point that it was a borderline offensive portrayal of mental illness.  But you know what?  I appreciated that he wasn't the stereotypical male lead.  So many male leads fall into either "grumpy and cruel" or "nice doormat" categories, and Jean Theirry Cha was slightly different.  Sure, he was a chaebol with a grumpy exterior and a broken heart, but that only lasted for an episode or so before he became enthusiastic and vulnerable.  It was kind of a nice role reversal to see the male lead fretting over his feelings while the female lead pretended she didn't care.  He was trying so hard to make the chemistry believable, and even though I didn't always buy the relationship as a whole (maybe because Moon Geun Young looks so young and was stone-faced all the time?), I at least bought his side of it.  Bonus?  The overacting gave us moments like these:

He's definitely the Mad Hatter in this fairytale...

So why did I quit?  There wasn't anything specifically terrible about the series that made me stop.  I just kind of lost the will to keep watching after a while.  Once they got together, I had a sense where the series was headed, and it didn't seem worth it to spend another 6 hours getting to the end (I later read spoilers for the last episode, and it ended much like I suspected it would).  I started fast forwarding things as early as episode 2, which should have tipped me off that I wasn't fully engaged from the outset.

*The term "Candy girl" in Korean dramas stems from a Japanese manga written in 1975, where the main character, Candy, is an orphan.  She maintains a cheerful, hardworking, selfless attitude through all of her trials until she is finally adopted by an anonymous rich benefactor.  When kdramas refer to someone as being a "Candy," they often mean a kind woman who works hard until a rich guy sweeps her off her feet.

Conclusions

I can see why people give this drama credit for its social commentary and its twist on the traditional kdrama formula, but every time I started a new episode, I kind of wished that I was watching something else.  Once I gave up and actually started watching other shows, I was kind of relieved.

Where to watch Cheongdamdong Alice:

Netflix

DramaFever

Viki