oheotteoke-blog - Tumblr blog

[oheotteoke-blog]

Hanbok Idol, brought to you by the DNA Registry of South Korea

Jang Bori Is Here!  This 52 episode family drama took the “stolen life” idea to its makjang outer limits.  A hanbok sewing dynasty is at the center of a struggle between the desires and ambitions of “real” children versus the adopted, the “fake” parents versus the biological parents.  Foundlings and found-families battle the presumptions and imperatives of bloodlines. At some point, perhaps the third or fourth time a character brandished a printout of their DNA report, I laughed aloud and barked “Jang Bori is Here!  Brought to you by the DNA Registry of South Korea!”  (There are such things, of course, with multiple purposes including fighting crime, preparing for reunification with the north and as an aid to the countless adopted korean children and their families.)

You can tell the good guys from the bad guys by their philosophy of clothes.

The story nicely juxtaposes the inadequacies of the meek and the transgressions of the bold, as embodied by a cast of characters who are, with the exception of some of the children in the story, routinely unlikeable, frustrating, and outrageous.  This drama also provided an evil character that was more resolutely BAD than any I’ve seen in a family drama before.  Yeon Min-jung.  "Minjung," over the months that my husband and I watched this drama, became a noun and a verb in our household.  A minjung: an audacious baldfaced lie; sheer avarice; deranged ambition; the lowest of the low.  Most korean dramas craft an ingenious redemption for even the evilest of mothers-in-laws or most unrepentant gangster, but Jang Bo-Ri is Here! set up Min-jung in such a way that her punishment or penance became a narrative necessity.  The latter episodes were a delicious reversal of fortune, as lies upon lies began to unfurl and each character had their course-correction, with the exception of Min Jung.  She goes down with a fist of hot coals and never opens her hand again.  Even in the tidy wrap-ups of the final episode, though she is compliant with her fate, she admits that she cannot unclench that fist because, if she released it, she’d only do more evil.  

Yes Bo-ri, yet another person did yet another utterly horrible thing to you.

It must also be said that no small part of my enjoyment of this show was the plot framework that I came to think of as "Hanbok Idol", and it would be a worthy spinoff.  The hanbok competitions, the very idea of a hanbok competition, was great, and many of the costumes and character’s wardrobes, especially Min-jung’s during the middle episodes, were beautiful and interesting designs.

Please take out her eye!

[oheotteoke-blog]

Modern Farmer

This winter I found myself knee-deep in not one but two 50+ episode family dramas (Ojakyu Brothers and Jang Bo Ri is Here) at the same time, and quickly realized I needed something light to counterbalance the heavy.  I picked Modern Farmer at random off of the DramaFever page because it seemed like a ludicrous story with cartoonish visuals.  Indeed it was colorful, goofy, and light, in all the right ways.  This drama excelled at being only what it needed to be, in each moment, to remain fun and easy-going until the next episode.  Never mind the slapstick absurdities, the storylines that went nowhere, the hodgepodge jumble of plot elements, so long as they gave enough screen time to the lovable characters and the village hijinks, I was as committed as the show’s makers obviously were to the spirit of the thing.  

Take for example Lee Hong Ki.  Twice before my mind has tried to blow him off - first as just a pretty boy in the background, as Jeremy in You’re Beautiful, and then again when I failed to even recognize him, at first, in Bride of the Century.  This time I had to give in.   I don’t know why I resisted before.  I loved the breezy quality he sustained as Lee Min Ki … never one to be brought down by adversity nor one to be pinned down for long under the weight of any emotion.  He seemed always quick and in the moment.  On the other hand, Honey Lee gave some real gravity to the show as the woman in charge of the farming village, pairing a necessary confidence with vulnerability.  While the lead pair didn’t have much “chemistry,” the entire ensemble cast and the village itself had a warm, earthy chemistry.  This was a show more about community and friendship than romance, even though it had everybody somewhat needlessly paired off.  

I laughed readily at the repetitive dumb jokes (grandpa’s leftover almonds) and the scatological humor, surprised to find myself doing so.  Cabbage is inherently funny, and so too, apparently, are illegal immigrants and the wife who cooks poorly, and the town drunk passed out on the side of the road, and the ex-rocker dad, and the guy who everyone keeps thinking is married to his sister.  Any one of those stories could have been a great show in and of themselves, and I wanted to see more of so many of them.  But, as the boy band blows in and out of the village, carelessly causing trouble and then earnestly winning hearts, so too did the show, in a big, sloppy final episode that didn’t even bother to try and wrap everything up.  It was worth it, and it was a good time.

[oheotteoke-blog]

"Let's Be Fair" - Jang Bo Ri is Here!

[oheotteoke-blog]

Wild Chives and Soybean Soup

We went on our summer vacation in September and this was the drama we watched while we relaxed.  I picked it somewhat randomly, and our vacation house-mates wound up watching it with us.  I wish they hadn't, since this is not a good drama, and while they professed to enjoy it, I'm not sure I'll get them to watch another.  The drama had potential, with a story of teen pregnancy and the role of fate in determining social class. 

The drama title is a play on the heroine's name - first Jang Gook, then Dallae. Ok, with that out of the way, on to the World Cup game.  The 2002 World Cup is the backdrop that ties everyone together on the fateful night in which our young couple get themselves into trouble.  The latter half of the show is set twelve years later when they are unsuspectingly thrown together again in the workplace.  I won't bother to say more than that because it is all for naught - the show was cut short by a few episodes and rushed to an unsatisfactory conclusion which left numerous subplots unresolved.

[oheotteoke-blog]

Arang and the Magistrate

This was my first sageuk fusion genre drama.  Sageuk and what, I'm not quite sure.  Murder mystery, I guess.  Or theological fantasy.  First win: Shin Min-a.  Glad to see her again.  She's a Joseon era ghost who has avoided getting shipped off to the underworld, and she strangely doesn't remember her life preceding being a ghost.  Along comes a nobleman's son into town, accompanied by his manservant (second win:  Kwon Oh-joon, who is just as funny and physical in this as he was in Hundred Years Noodle House), to take up residence as the magistrate.  The magistrate has his own mysterious past, can see ghosts, and of course is enlisted to solve a murder mystery.  This being my first sageuk of any kind, I spent a lot of time enjoying the costumes, especially the beads that hang from the hats, called gatkeun, and the spectacular silk garments worn by the character Joo-wal.

some green finery

Nothing outdid the elaborate wigs and adornments worn by the truly creepy, crazy-eyed demon woman, though. 

terrifying crazy-eyed demon-mom

The story was charming, romantic, and had some great mystery and even horror elements.  The depiction of the celestial and underworld cosmology was the most interesting part - Hang Jung-soo wonderfully plays a down-on-his-luck grim reaper.  The detached sparring of the Jade Emperor and King of the Underworld as they toy, from a distance, with human affairs, is a fascinating spin on... hmmm, Taoist philosophy, I suppose?  And again, in this drama, we see the trope of the bumbling, unreliable shaman. 

the adorable, under-achiever shaman

[oheotteoke-blog]

A New Leaf

I watched this because I needed to see (and hear) more of Kim Myung Min.  Unethical defense attorney gets amnesia and turns over... you got it... a new leaf.  Interesting, we noted, that unlike the heroism of the defense attorney in US pop culture, in this drama the defense attorneys were generally loathsome people, while there prosecutors were depicted as the unimpeachable saints. 

Kim Myung Min did not disappoint, though the entire show turned out to be something of a primer for global financial regulation and corporate law... maybe?  I can't say for sure.  But clearly the regular folk were being championed, as were unions, so it was alright by me.  But after a while I'd completely lost track of what was going on amid all the legalese and plot turns that were supposed to be occurring in global economic markets - a hard thing to depict.  It was also completely rushed into an unsatisfactory ending-- the series was cut short by several episodes.

[oheotteoke-blog]

Nine: Nine Times Travel... genre but not generic

After reveling in the gooey deliciousness of King of Dramas, I thought I'd serious-up and try out another genre for a change.  Nine: Nine Time Travels fit the bill since I love time travel stories.  I'll just sum it up with: newscaster time travels with his dead brother's ancient Himalayan incense sticks in order to save his father from murder and winds up accidentally turning his fiance into, well, not his fiance. 

It got off to a very slow start,and that's often par for the course in kdrama, but I'm not complaining.  It was a gratifyingly slow build.  It might have been six or more episodes before all the careful setup started to pay off in a big way.  What a fresh, possibly unique, spin on time travel.  It may have been more of an alternate universe story than a time travel story.  The way in which the past ran concurrent with the present in real time, in the unfolding of events, created great tension in the plot.  The show, from the midpoint onward, was constantly surprising with its inventive, but not overblown, twists and turns.  Great writing and character development - even the comical characters, such as the tirelessly devoted best friend, were engaging.  There was absolutely nothing predictable or generic about this series.

[oheotteoke-blog]

I am having a blast watching this one, King of Dramas, and I swear to god it isn't just because of Kim Myung Min's character with his tight vests and fur-collared suits.  Is kdrama over now that it has become self-referential?

[oheotteoke-blog]

Bride of the Century

Bride of the Century featured a rather mercurial ghost, and was the first time I really started to notice the trope of the unreliable and hapless shaman character.

[oheotteoke-blog]

A Hundred Years (you figure out if it should be years' or year's) Inheritance

A Hundred Year's Inheritance was just the thing to get me through the end of a long winter.  A 50 episode old-school family drama with the big, extended family all living together, bickering while trying not to disrespect the elders...the noodle factory...the orphaned women with their secret past...a cross-generational love affair...weddings and funerals.  It started off big with our heroine falsely committed to a mental hospital, but then eased into a satisfying story about family, love, and greed.  It was funny but also sad.  It had everything, including Park Joon Geum who never fails to crack me up, this time wandering around in some kind of weird variant on yoga clothes when not dolled up as a Gangam lady.  And Park Won Sook plays one of the most over-the-top mother in laws I've yet to see in kdrama.  She completely hams it up in the role yet somehow, as bonkers as her character's behavior is, she evolves and gains sympathy over time.  While the leads, and their perpetually thwarted romance, were uninspiring and flat, there was plenty else to make up for it.  I was completely charmed by the scandalous romance between "Rooftop Oppa" and Ki Ok.

"Utility Pole Oppa"and "Cafe Madame"

There are quite a few trips to the pokey in this family drama.

Ki Ok and Kang Jin (Rooftop Oppa)

Grandfather's funeral was a real tear-jerker.  Shin Goo was great as the sensible but strict noodle maker and patriarch.

The orphan ladies get nasty over the stolen baby. This was a satisfying moment.

[oheotteoke-blog]

Gheongdongdam Alice

gif by kakashi

Kind of refreshing to see a depiction of a successful bipolar romantic jerk prince having manic episodes while off his meds.

A sympathetic portrayal of several people pursuing their dreams (and greed) in varying ways, with a lot of nuance and gray areas, particularly with respect to the measures the poor must take to climb socially.

[oheotteoke-blog]

Flower Boy Next Door

gif by kakashi

This was "meh" for me, except for the supporting actors (Kim Seul-gie was hilarious as the webtoon editor), and the apartment-building ensemble framework.

[oheotteoke-blog]

That Winter, Written on the Wind

I realize the popular crossover audience for Douglas Sirk films and Korean tv dramas may be non-existent, but surely the director of That Winter The Wind Blows had Sirk in mind.  Whether the heady color schemes, crazy interior details, the over-the-top sentimentality of the glass bell, or the incessant framing in mirrors, windows, doorways, there is more than enough Sirkian imagery in the show than to be merely coincidental.  My favorite Sirk element is the old wall clock in the study.  It looms uncharacteristically in several scenes before it plays its pivotal role in Young's disillusionment in episode twelve and thirteen.  Oh Soo throws Secretary Wang against the wall and the clock face pops open with a loud sound, alerting Young so that she hears their argument and the truth about how they've betrayed her.

[oheotteoke-blog]

Kim Tae Woo is just great in That Winter The Wind Blows. I failed to recognize him from The Future of Man is Woman, but that film is ten years old after all. He should read things late at night on the radio, because I’m fascinated with his voice and intonation.