New K-Drama Alert: She Was Pretty

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Am I the only one who has been longing for a new drama cycle? I'm in love with Twenty Again, but every other show on the air right now is making me roll my eyes and yawn at the same time.

I just watched the web series Noble, My Love out of sheer desperation for something fun and mindless (because that's what web series do best). It was both of those things, but it also took every single sexist trope that has ever bothered me in a K-drama male lead and put them into one (admittedly handsome) character. Dear Sung Hoon, if you flatly refuse to wear a shirt, I will happily use it to strangle your domineering character. But I digress.

Speaking of terrible male leads, let's talk about the first entry in the upcoming drama cycle � She Was Pretty.


Premise: Kim Hye Jin (Hwang Jung Eum) was pretty and poised as a child, but loss of fortune and some unkind puberty turn her into an unattractive (read: frizzy hair and too much blush) and noisy mess. Ji Sung Joon (Park Seo Joon) was Hye Jin's first love, an overweight, awkward child who grows up to be a handsome, accomplished magazine editor. A series of events (aka FATE) leads them to work in the same office, but Sung Joon no longer recognizes Hye Jin.

Episodes watched so far: 4

Thoughts so far: Ummmmmm I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are some major red flags in the first few episodes.

Neither am I, Sung Joon. Neither am I.

Let me start by saying that I found Park Seo Joon enchanting in Witch's Romance, so I really hoped to love him in this role.

Too bad his character is the pits.

I know, I know. He's a K-drama male lead, so what did I expect? Of course he's going to be coldhearted and cruel for the first few episodes, and then we'll find out that something terrible happened to him in America and that's why he goes around telling presumable strangers that they are too ugly and awkward to deserve the same name as his first love.

The problem isn't the type of character so much as the handling of that character so far. As Oh My Ghostess so recently illustrated, it's possible to have a jerk boss character who is also empathetic and multifaceted from episode one. I don't feel that way about Sung Joon, however. Instead of seeing a softer side to him in his sweet scenes with Ha Ri, I mostly just find those scenes annoying. How dare you treat everyone with contempt and then turn around and pretend to be sweet and charming to the girl you assume is your first love? It comes off as fake, and it kind of makes me not care about hearing his inevitable sob story.

Unfortunately, Hwang Jung Eum's character isn't exactly a shining beacon of character depth. I find it interesting that she called herself a supporting character because that's is exactly how she has been written so far. A caricature is okay as a secretary, but it's not ideal to carry a show. Hwang Jung Eum needs a director who can tone down her over-the-top histrionics, but it feels like, if anything, the writer and director are encouraging her to dial up the crazy even more.

Sorry, but if I were her boss, I would definitely fire her for trying to pull down my pants on the second day of work.

It's not all doom and gloom on the show, however! I'm pretty sure the amount of time it took me to catch a massive case of Second Lead Syndrome for Siwon's goofy reporter (and probably chaebol in disguise) must be some kind of record. Yeah, his character is a little zany too, but his brand of zany actually makes me like Hye Jin more when they're together.

The same can be said for Go Joon Hee as Ha Ri, Hye Jin's best friend. Even if she isn't Sung Joon's actual first love, that pairing has much more chemistry than our OTP does so far. I also love having a second female who isn't a terrible person, giving us one of the better female friendships I've seen on a drama in a while.

I know that the entire premise of this series revolves around First Love That Must Be Fate, but this is a rare case where I feel that the show could really benefit from carrying the B pairings to the end. Siwon's Shin Hyuk sees Hye Jin in a way that Sung Joon doesn't. He doesn't need the inevitable makeover or the fateful pull of first love to make him appreciate her for who she is. Similarly, Sung Joon and Ha Ri genuinely seem to enjoy being together right now, in the present. Why not just go for something different and give us the pairings that already work?

Why do I love you so much, Siwon? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

I'm still hopeful that I'll end up eating my words and that the show can turn things around, but for now, I'm bracing myself to sob over Siwon's sad dimples until the end of time.


Where to watch:
Viki
DramaFever (premiering 9/30 with a 2-week delay)

New Drama Alert: Twenty Again and Yong Pal

We're not dead! (*throws confetti*) Some people are really responsible and good at juggling blogging even when real life throws real life things at you. I am not one of those people, which means that I have a back log of about 15 posts partially written in my mind that may or (more likely) may not actually get written. Sigh. 

On the upside, there's something refreshing about unplugging from dramaland for a bit. Drama watching time has been pretty limited around here, which has made me really selective about the shows I choose. Fortunately, the summer offerings have been excellent so far, so I don't really feel like I'm missing out if I only have time to watch one or two excellent shows (I swear an Oh My Ghostess review is coming next!) instead of four mediocre ones (The Time I Loved You, I'm not at all sad that I dropped you).

Right now, I'm semi-watching two very different dramas, and, while I enjoy them both, I may need some encouragement to keep watching one of them. Tell me what you think!

Twenty Again

Source

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.

Episodes watched: 4

Thoughts so far: TvN is hitting all the right notes for me lately. They pull me in with lighthearted, cute teasers, but then as soon as they start the show, they know that what I really wanted was some emotional depth. Like its tvN predecessor Oh My Ghostess, Twenty Again starts with a much more serious feel than you would expect from the zippy trailers, and I think it works to the show's advantage.

I'm generally not a fan of shows making female leads downtrodden sad sacks just for the sake of being downtrodden sad sacks, but in the case of Ha No Ra, it makes narrative sense. Even if you take someone outgoing and confident, twenty years of being told you're worthless will take its toll. Instead of the typical "she's sad because she's poor" storyline, there's room for realistic and satisfying emotional growth here.

Four episodes into the series, there are several things that I'm already watching with anticipation. First and foremost is No Ra's budding friendship with her classmate and (hopefully) future dance partner, as well as the other students. When Soon Nam stood up for No Ra to the other students, I cheered at my screen. More Soon Nam, please! 

Next is obviously the romance. It might just be Lee Sang Yoon's puppy eyes and dimples talking, but I love the way Hyun Suk reverts to a seventeen-year-old-boy with a crush every time he sees No Ra. 

Well, for the most part. Puppy eyes and puppy love can cover a lot of pettiness, but telling someone who stood up to a sexual predator that she's on her own? I just about reached into the screen and strangled him. Fortunately, he mended his ways on that one because I wasn't going to let it slide, dimples or no dimples.

This might be a weird one, but I also enjoy the characterization of the husband so far. I mean, he's a jerk, but I don't feel like he's painted with the broad villain brush the way most K-drama villains are. There are these moments where you see that he feels he's trying to do the right thing, even if he's terrible at it. For example, he defends No Ra to both his son and his mistress, and at least he wants to make a clean break with his wife instead of cheating on her indefinitely. Yeah, it's not much of consolation prize for a guy who's emotionally abusive and cheating on his wife, but it does leave an opening for some interesting character development, and I really hope the writer takes that opening.

Things I don't love: Any scene with the son or his girlfriend. Can they both be hit by a truck of doom next episode? Please?

So far, I see this series having a lot of potential, but there are also a lot of ways it could go wrong, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Where to watch:

DramaFever

Yong Pal

Premise: Kim Tae Hyun (Joo Won) is a talented surgical resident who moonlights as an emergency surgeon for gangsters in order to earn money to treat his ailing sister. Meanwhile, Han Yeo Jin (Kim Tae Hee) is an heiress chilling in a coma at Tae Hyun's hospital. WILL THEIR PATHS COLLIDE? (Yes, obviously.)

Episodes watched: 7

Thoughts so far: Okay, so this show is 10 episodes in, which doesn't reeeeeally qualify it as a "new drama," but when you consider that one of our leads was in a coma for the vast majority of the first 6-ish episodes, I think I can stretch the rules a bit.

To be perfectly honest, I started this series with a lot of enthusiasm, but now I'm having a hard time keeping up with episodes, and I'm mostly doing this introductory review so that all of you can pool the collective wisdom of the internet and tell me if it's worth continuing.

I found the first six episodes well written, well acted and engrossing. I haven't seen much of Joo Won's work before, but now I see the big deal. He carried the weight of the series on his shoulders, and he did it well. While sometimes the case of the week was a little weak (random woman manages to wander into the radioactive area of the hospital and find the one key she needs to blow everyone up? Uh, sure....), I found the overall narrative tension strong with just enough heartfelt moments to keep me emotionally invested. It's also a very pretty series to watch, which doesn't exactly hurt.

So where did it go wrong? I can't believe I'm saying this, but as soon as they switched gears to focus on the romance, I lost interest. 

Whaaaaaaaa? I mean, I love romance! That's my favorite part of almost every show! This is why I watch K-dramas! Still, I felt like the way they handled the romance came at the expense of the plot. When Tae Hyun and Yeo Jin were joking around and becoming friends, I found that it matched the characterizations well. When the emotionally cautious Tae Hyun was suddenly "in love" with Yeo Jin when she had realistically only been awake for an episode and a half, it felt rushed and out of place. I think they pushed the romance so fast to give us a reason why Tae Hyun would take such a risk to keep Yeo Jin alive, but that really wasn't necessary. We've seen Tae Hyun risk a lot before to save random patients, and he probably wasn't secretly in love with all of them. I guess I just wish they had kept some of that friendship going before forcing the love.

Basically, I'm asking all of you if it gets better. If everyone says that it's amazing and that the pace picks up again, I may give it another shot, but if the writing stays loose and lazy, I'm bailing on this ship now and not looking back. What do you think?

Where to watch:

DramaFever 

Viki