#to the conflict between her and her friend’s semi obvious chemistry

[rowrowronnie]

coming in to say that i very much enjoyed the first episode of ms marvel, love the personality and style of the show, the vfx artists went crazy!! excited to see more, hoping it lands on its feet by the end!

[idontwanttowhy]

Review: My Girl (2005)

I'm not quite sure why they call Yoo Rin a "con artist," but other than that this drama is sooo enjoyable.

Synopsis

Joo Yoo Rin is a tour guide living on Jeju Island who has lived in many different places with her dad, who is a compulsive gambler. When the loan sharks that her dad has borrowed from to fund his habit show up to collect, they begin to go after her for their money. In the ensuing chase, she nearly runs into a car driven by Seol Gong Chan, the heir to an upscale hotel chain, who was in town to check on their resort. One thing leads to another, and after Gong Chan realizes that Yoo Rin speaks Japanese and is a pretty convincing liar, he hires her to pretend to be his long-lost half-Japanese cousin, who was widely believed to be dead when her family was caught in a devastating earthquake. The arrangement starts off fine, though slowly but surely the two “cousins” begin to catch feelings for each other, despite the fact that Gong Chan is dating Kim Se Hyun, a Korean tenis star, and that as his long-time friend Seo Jeong Woo attempts to capture Yoo Rin’s heart. As Yoo Rin and Gong Chan try to keep their secret under wraps, their growing feelings and their friends’ and family’s meddling begin to derail their lies. Will they be able to be together, or will their lies keep them apart?

Overall: 10/10, would watch again

This has to be one of the cringiest love triangles (squares?) ever written, but not so much that you can't get into it. As someone watching in 2021, this show actually holds up pretty well, with the obvious exceptions of style (hindsight is 20/20). If you want something funny, dramatic, and sweet, this is your show. Even though the ending takes a while to wind down, the final scene is so funny that you almost can't help but leave on a good note. What's Wrong with Secretary Kim? (2018) or Full House (2004) would be excellent follow up shows, though for different aspects of this show.

Review

I am slowly but surely making my way through the top k-dramas of the 2000s, so I knew My Girl would be a must. What I didn’t know was that it would actually hold up so well. It has all the essentials: main leads with awesome chemistry, a solid group of likable side characters, a secret that can’t be easily revealed, and meddling second leads that you don’t like enough to root for but you don’t dislike enough to not feel bad for their plight. I was expecting way more melodrama and leading-man-pining-over-second-leading-woman, which of course we do get. I felt that this show didn’t dwell on it as much as others from the same time (My Lovely Sam Soon (2005) and Full House (2004) being the first examples that come to mind). There were many funny scenes between the main leads, and Jeong Woo was always there when Gong Chan was going back to Se Hyun for whatever reason, so our Yoo Rin was never left out in the cold for long. 

What’s more, it actually has an interesting storyline, and knows that it is doing something different from what might be expected. I kid you not, there is a whole scene where they make fun of a potential plot, which was also the theory I had for the show. I am so glad that they didn’t do that ending, but the ending that we did get was extremely drawn out. As I pointed out in my True Beauty post, I HATE time jumps. This one had a bit more going for it because it made some sense to have distance, but it really came out of nowhere. I would have preferred that they didn’t have it, but at the end of the day the show ended nicely. Besides this, my only other semi-complaint about the show is that Se Hyun’s character was so indecipherable. Not in a good way where she is acting in a particular way and we are trying to figure out her motivations, but that her motivations are all over the place and lead to her acting in weirdly conflicting ways. They try to give her some scenes where she shows her inner conflict that leads to her actions, but ultimately if they were trying to portray someone with inner and outer conflict, they should have just given her more screen time. Then again, I say this knowing that my favorite second leading women have all had pretty clear cut motivations with trajectories that lead them to a happy-ish ending. That said, I’m still not over how they did Seo Dan in Crash Landing on You (2019), but that is a post for another day!  

This show is definitely worth a watch!