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 K-Drama Alert: Cheer Up/ Sassy Go Go

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Update: Final series review

You know how I was just complaining that there's nothing to watch? Well now, in the space of a couple of days, I'm having trouble deciding what to watch first!

I ultimately decided to go with Sassy Go Go aka Cheer Up! For the record, Sassy Go Go is the literal Korean title, while Cheer Up! is the official English title according to KBS and also the original Korean title. I'm just going to go ahead and stick with Cheer Up since a) it's shorter and b) Sassy Go Go is awkward and kind of makes my eyes bleed. Cool? Cool.



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? (If you've ever seen a sports movie, the answer is almost certainly yes, but only after some sweet training montages.)

Number of episodes watched: 2

Thoughts so far: I generally need four episodes to really get a feel for a series, but I didn't see reviews on the bigger recapping sites yet and and want people to talk about it with me, so let's just jump in a little early and chat together, shall we?

I have to admit that I have a soft spot for cheerful high school dramas, and I have an especially soft spot for cheerful high school dramas where people dance or sing or otherwise perform. Maybe it's because I inherited oh-so-awkward Finnish dance moves from my father (and by "moves," I mostly mean flailing off beat), so dancing of any kind is like watching wizardry to me.

No, really, is this magic?

In any case, I was already primed to like this series before the premiere, and so far, it's hitting exactly everything I want from this type of show. When done well, high school dramas manage to combine the lightheartedness and the angst of youth in a way that feels nostalgic and heartfelt rather than obnoxious. I would point to Answer Me 1997 as the gold standard of high school dramas, but even shallow fluff shows like Dream High can get away with being shallow fluff shows because they're filled with so much joy, energy, and friendship.

When done poorly, high school shows only dwell on the angst and forget the exuberance. Heirs strikes me as a perfect example of high school students spending way too many episodes dwelling on their annoying high school student angst without any kind of tongue-in-cheek recognition that having an angry love triangle face-off at the end of every episode is maybe a little bit silly.

What I like about Cheer Up's opening episodes is that they draw you into the emotion of high school when everything feels so raw, and yet the show does so in a way that feels natural to teenage life. I loved the moment in episode one when Yeon Doo burst into tears at the dinner table because it reminded me so much of the way I felt at 16. There's some nuance there that makes the series feel like it's populated with some living, breathing high schoolers instead of soap opera adults trapped in school uniforms OR one-dimensional cuties who have nothing to do for 16 episodes but look nice for the camera and go on dates.

We're only two episodes into the series, but Eunji really deserves a lot of the credit for making me feel so invested in Yeon Doo already. I know some people complain that Eunji tends to play similar characters over and over (if you can even make that kind of claim for someone who's only had 4 roles), but I don't really mind. Yes, her characters are similar, but they're also intensely likable, and they all go through such a full range of emotions that it never feels like she's playing a caricature.

Thus far, this is Eunji's show. We've seen glimpses of character depth in some of the other players (and my heart is already breaking � again � for poor Ji Soo), but they haven't really had enough screen time to show us what they're all about.

I swear if you make me cry one more time,Ji Soo...

Personally, I want to see much, much more of Kim Ji Suk's sympathetic teacher. How much do you love him? Because I love him a lot.

I'm particularly perplexed by Lee Won Geun's Kim Yeol. Why is he always smiling like that? Is it just arrogance? Does he have some secret reason for liking Yeon Doo? (Please tell me they are not long-lost first loves because I will throw my computer.) Is it just stiff acting from an inexperienced actor? I guess only time will tell. Lee Won Geun does seem to be a bit wooden so far, especially next to the firebrand that is Eunji, but the script hasn't given him a ton to do yet, so I'm willing to suspend judgment for now.

It's a perfectly nice smile and all, but why?
Years of drama watching has made me suspicious of any man who isn't glowering in episode one.

Even if he ends up being a little stiff, I can't say that I necessarily mind. Under normal circumstances, being pleasant and having a nice smile aren't enough to cover bad acting, but if there's anywhere to get some practice in a lead role before really jumping into the big leagues, it's a teen drama. I mean, Taecyeon and Suzy weren't exactly Academy Award-winning material in Dream High, but that never hindered my enjoyment like it would in a different genre.

We have some hints that Cheer Up can be more than just a fluff cheerleading piece, taking on some of the more serious issues that students face. If it can keep up the balance between serious and joyful, I think I'm going to enjoy this ride very much.

P.S. I know this series got abysmal ratings for the first episode in Korea, so let's all keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't get cut short, shall we? Please tell me that there are more people in the international audience watching this one! I'm not watching alone, right? ...Right?

Where to watch:
DramaFever
Viki

New K-Drama Alert: She Was Pretty

Via

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