Toxic Leads
I watched this series based on its good ratings and some social media posts describing it as funny. The show does have some poignant moments thanks to its premise -- the male lead had a brutal childhood, which he is still addressing in his late 20s, and his misfortune only gets worse when the story starts -- and the show also has its share of hilarious moments.But...
I absolutely loathed the male and female lead characters. Just hated them, and by the end I did not care if they got some sort of happy ending or not. The male lead, Hae Joo, is immediately shown to be willing to ruin a stranger's wedding out of boredom. Hae Joo decides that was fun, and so next he ruins his ex-girlfriend's (the FL, Jae Mi) wedding by knocking her unconscious and kidnapping her. Once she recovers, he uses every form of manipulation to keep her at his side. It is gross, but I guess we are supposed to see it as funny? Or maybe we are supposed to accept it, because the ML is younger and more handsome than the 2ML? Or maybe we accept it because the ML has some awful misfortune (admittedly his life genuinely does suck)? I don't know. I kept waiting for consequences or redemption or growth from the ML, but he's the same childish mess all the way to the end. This makes the story tougher to swallow.
The FL is almost as bad. She's childish and cringy, showing little development in spite of the demands of the plot. Jae Mi frequently yells and beats on people like she's an idiot. Her treatment of her fiance, the 2ML (Eo), is also gross. Then again, the 2ML is at one point literally portrayed as a whimpering dog... maybe we're supposed to laugh at him? For the FL, the even worse part is her relationship with the ML, which gets to my problem with this series: I think it's celebrating an ugly case of codependency as a "beautiful story."
We're left with two tortured two souls in the leads, which I guess explains the ratings, but the writing doesn't take the characters past wallowing in their own excrement. Further, the whole story is artificially built around the ML -- the ML grabs a love interest who repeatedly overlooks his many flaws, and that leads to a love triangle trope but the ML is so flawed we need a weakling 2ML, plus the story needs supporting characters who cater so extensively to the leads (and the plot) that they might as well be NPCs in a video game. Maybe there is a point about our own selfishness here, which flew completely over my (and everyone else's) head, but absent that, the high point for me is imagining Alan Rickman's voice over and over again, yelling at Hae Joo, "I see you managed to get your shirt off."
Sorry, just not for me. The leads are just too toxic.
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"We didn't have much but our hearts were warm"
I was familiar with the concept of "comfort food" and Reply-1988 is what I would call a "comfort show." We, the viewers, follow five kids (each born in 1971) and their families, starting in 1988. It's an ensemble cast, around 12 characters total, each of whom is a vehicle to explore topics like family, community, youth, aging, and romance. Bad guys are scarce, and they tend to show up for a scene or two, and then disappear. This is a drama about how a family of families support one another.The central character is Deok-sun, the one girl of the five kids. The series is framed as a flashback from the present day, and that framing raises the big question of who does Deok-sun end up marrying. But that's really just the frame, and there's an awful lot of other not-so-romantic issues to address in the story. You'll get a pretty good sense of what to expect from the series in the opening voice-over, which I've headlined with "we didn't have much but our hearts were warm."
Deok-sun herself is a bit different from your standard lead character. She's pretty, yes, but the four guys have been friends with her so long that they barely notice. She struggles as a student, and her college options aren't looking promising. Deok-sun does seem to have a special... social awareness... not sure how to describe it. For example, when her teacher needs someone from the class to take care of a complex problem (no spoilers here), the teacher sagely selects Deok-sun even though Deok-sun's grades aren't so hot and also, frankly, in spite of Deok-sun tendency to act like an idiot in some situations.
That mysterious special-ness of Deok-sun, and similar special-ness of the other main characters, gets to the focus of the show, and why it's rated so highly. The viewer has a nice time, watching these characters help one another and navigate their way to the present day. It is something to emulate.
As for possible complaints, I didn't see not a lot of action in the show, which might turn off some. Again, you can figure out pretty quickly, if that's going to be a problem for you. The only other thing I might complain about would be the weird redactions of the show on Netflix. Apparently there are some questions about property rights, so the editors constantly blurred pop culture imagery -- stuff on the Goldstar TVs, book covers, magazines, wall posters. All the blurring is distracting, and on top of that, folks back in Korea have said all those little pop culture bits enhanced the ambience, so if you can find an unredacted version, then go that route.
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Sweeping Epic
"Mr. Sunshine" is a grand story, taking place in Korea during the 1895-1910 time frame, as the Japanese gradually, and brutally, colonize Korea. We watch as the characters are swept from their old lives into a new, ugly era. It is a heavy story, and (slight spoiler) the ending is true to the that heaviness.What did I like?
The main characters are distinctive with their own internal conflicts. The main character, Eugene Choi, was born in the slave class of Korea; as a child he escaped to the USA, and decades later returned to Korea as an officer in the Marine Corps. Eugene maintains his American identity to the end, but paradoxically falls in love with the aristrocrat-turned-assassin Go Ae Shin. Go Ae Shin is universally respected and cherished, a symbol of what's good in Korea; when she met a boy from a butcher family (a social status similar to Eugene's), that boy, Gu Dong Mae, called her a "spoiled, noble fool", which so haunts her that she eventually joins the anti-Japanese militia. After that encounter Gu Dong Mae had escaped to Japan, where he joins a yakuza-like organization, and then returns to Korea to lead a group of swordsmen who wreak havoc on Korea. Kim Hui Seong also has returned from Japan to his wealthy Korean family, ostensibly to marry his betrothed, Ae Shin, but he struggles with a vague alienation from his social standing. Rounding out the main cast is Kudo Hina, the daughter of a traitorous and powerful Korean official; Hina is a young widow, whose wealthy Japanese husband died under mysterious conditions, leaving Hina enough money to build a large hotel in Hanseong (Seoul).
These characters engage with each other and the contrasts are interesting and entertaining. As their own personal histories become overshadowed by the growing Japanese crisis, for their own reasons they converge, and this convergence (more so than the war itself) is the center of the story. There's some off-beat humor that comes with this convergence (the humor helps to convey the convergence), as these people grow closer even with obvious reasons to not like one another.
The acting is superior. I saw the characters as people. My only concern would be that some of the bad guys were over the top, but the historical record suggests that the actors in some of the villainous roles may have underplayed it a bit.
The cinematography is gorgeous, both inside and out. I have a whole list of locations in South Korea I now want to visit. The production values are high -- obviously I don't know what exactly Hanseong looked like in 1903, but I buy the details that they're presenting.
What did I not like?
The show has action-packed war scenes looming, and yet it's character-driven with gorgeous imagery, which means some folks thought the pace was way too slow. I tend to luxuriate in these scenes, particularly as I need to read the bottom of the screen for the translation of the dialogue, but, yes, the story often drags. Scenes where Eugene and Ai Sin are alone, simply conversing with one another, could be the worst culprits.
In spite of the slow pace and the lengthy close-ups, the character development does have a bit of a hole to it: Why are these three guys so devoted to Ai Sin? She is pretty and passionate and pure of heart, and maybe that's enough. We don't really get significant personal interactions that would show the development of the relationship, and the story felt a bit thin here.
Finally, to reiterate, this is a heavy show. Between episodes, I found myself repeatedly asking "Was it really that bad?" And the answer was generally "Yes, and it's going to get worse." There is no way I could re-watch 35 hours of this any time soon, as entertaining as I thought the series was. In addition to pondering the fates of these characters, I spent so much time thinking about what really happened, and my understanding of the history of that period has gotten darker. Now I need to find some some light-hearted romantic comedy.
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The Courage to Find Happiness
IOTBNO is a character study, heavy on pathos. The premise is that the leads are broken people helping each other heal, and so the leads' mental health is central to the story. As the writer clearly wants to focus on the three leads' psyches, the weakest point in the show has the most physical action.The characters are multi-layered and nuanced, and the actors are effective at presenting their emotions and their inner conflicts. The whole cast is top notch, but the ML (Kim Soo-hyun) and FL (Seo Yea-ji) have incendiary chemistry and the ML's autistic brother (Oh Jung-se) is a fleshed-out human.
The FL writes macabre children's fairy tales, which are used to frame the overall narrative, giving the series a distinctive gothic aesthetic (BTW the FL's books are available for real at Amazon). The show has enough callbacks and symbolism to keep your interest in the details.
Your opinion of the series is likely to be driven by your attitude towards the FL. The FL is arrogant and selfish, and she gets away with outrageous behavior because she is rich and pretty. The series straddles the fences with details on the FL's mental health; the sleaziest character states in the sleaziest way possible that the FL has an antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) while more reliable characters use only vague language to describe her personality. The FL does exhibit some obvious ASPD behaviors (and SYJ, perhaps unreliably, described her character in promo bits as having ASPD) but the FL also shows some empathy early on, and that capacity for empathy grows over time. We are left with a character who literally may or may not be a sociopath, and in the real world that has some consequences that go beyond the depth of this series.
Whatever the case, we are not supposed to be comfortable with the FL. That said, I consider her to be an inspiration in some ways because in spite of her (initial?) toxic behavior, the FL finds the courage to find happiness and furthermore she helps the ML (whose own mental health is a wreck) and his brother develop that same courage. Whether or not they live happily ever after, they have each found a path forward, which seemed impossible at the beginning.
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This review may contain spoilers
Need to Know a Bit About What to Expect
There is a mild spoiler ahead, but it's from episode 2. I include because if you are thinking of viewing this show, there are three things you should know before you start:1. This is the story of Cha Mi Jo (played by Son Ye Jin) and her two close friends, Jeong Chan Young (Jeon Mi Do) and Jang Joo Hee (Kim Ji Hyun). In episode 2 we learn that Chan Young has a terminal illness and that she will not recover. The rest of the series is devoted to the ways Mi Jo and her friends deal with this awfulness, up to and beyond Chan Young's death. This is a tear jerker.
2. Reiterating something from #1, while this is the story of three friends, Mi Jo is clearly the main character, and Chan Young's passing is largely shown from Mi Jo's perspective. One reviewer suggested that Chan Young's death was a prop in Mi Jo's journey, which is exaggerating, but there is a kernel of truth there. Joo Hee is a third wheel in the friendship, almost from the beginning of the show (and from the beginning of the friendship troika going back 20 years). It shouldn't be too surprising, since in kdrama land Son Ye Jin is royalty, Jeon Mi Do is coming off her breakthrough role with Hospital Playlist (after a long experience on stage), and Kim Ji Hyun is a stage actress without any big kdrama roles before this.
3. Mi Jo gets annoying at times. There were a few times when I wanted to yell at the TV "Your friend is dying, stop nagging her!" It is awkward to have a show focusing on one friend's emotional, and at times irrational, reactions to another friend's impending death.
When thinking about the path to #3, I realized this is where the story starts to get personal, and in a way that's uncomfortable for me (at least). Mi Jo desperately loves her friend, and it is tearing her up inside that her friend will be gone soon. Most people face that position at some point, be it a close friend, a parent, or a spouse. Yes, it's their life, and I want to be supportive, but I will have to deal with the consequences too, and I can guess how bad it will be after this person close to me is gone. I am scared about what might happen if my wife, a cancer survivor, dies.
This story was a lot more challenging than the "happy go-lucky three friends find love and meaning as they approach their 40th birthdays" tale that I expected. That would be my summary of the series, solid story, good acting, just not what I was expecting. My only real complaint would be the adoption story lines, which were not exactly "bad" but felt barely relevant to the main story. Again, a good series, as long as you know what you are getting into.
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Love comes most cruelly to those who do not believe in it
The premise of this series is that an alien from another planet has been quietly living as a Korean with minimal social connections for 400 years. Three months before his return to his planet, he is working as a young college professor in Seoul, when the hottest TV star in Korea moves into the luxury apartment next door. She is arrogant, ignorant, and vain, but (perhaps because he has no idea who she is) she also shows her vulnerable side to him. Further, with his super sensitive ears he clearly hears her talk of her unhappy life and then he has premonitions that she is in danger and in need of protection. By the third episode, despite his best efforts to maintain his solitude, she has taken over his life.If I haven't lost you by this point, you will probably enjoy this show. There is a sci-fi component here, but much of that is seen through the eyes of a kdrama diva, often to comedic effect. Mainly the ML character (Do Min Joon) hops onto the FL character's (Cheon Song Yi) roller coaster, and we get to watch the ride. The writer has built a character in Song Yi -- lonely and vulnerable, but with an inexhaustible reservoir of ego and self-confidence -- that makes the romance with a reluctant super powered alien seem downright logical.
The series occasionally brought out my inner Roger Ebert to ding it in a review, but it is too much fun to be harsh. The many iconic moments -- the ending on the red carpet, the kissing problems, him literally sweeping her off her feet, his rigid lifestyle giving way to whatever she needs, the "You are my destiny" anthem -- make the story epic no matter its smaller faults.
Beyond the romance that leads the story, we have a memorable psychotic character who murders anyone who even thinks about getting in his way. We also have a handsome rich guy who desperately tries to ward off our male lead, but so good-natured that Min Joon enlists his help to care for Song Yi. There's also some social commentary about Korea's unhealthy habits with regard to celebrities and status.
So, yes, the writing at times seems to be filling-out a 16 episode story into 21 episodes with overdoses of flashbacks and double scenes, and the acting and staging occasionally feel dated, I guess? I also had questions about what actually is happening, especially between Min Joon and the girl he met 400 years before. But if you know what you're getting into, you'll likely enjoy the story.
For the sake of reference, this show was written by the same person who wrote Crash Landing on You. There are some obvious similarities between this series and CLOY. If you are looking for something like CLOY, then MLFAS is a kind of CLOY precursor that you might enjoy.
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Some Good, Some I Don't Understand
Let's do it by the numbers, starting from a baseline of 6.0.+1 because Kim Tae Ri nailed the Na Hee Do character the energy and innocence of youth, along with the various mannerisms of a teenage athlete. I don't how she did it, but she earned some awards for this performance. She made the character a lot of fun.
+1 for the rest of tbe acting cast and characters. There are a couple of jerks in the script but no continuing arcs of bad guys. These are young, mostly likeable young people trying to make tbeir way through life. What conflict that emerges is from reasonable differences in priorities and from social circumstances.
+1 for the relationship between Na Hee Do and Baek Yi Jin, two people who were too young to be so alone like that. They helped each other through some dark times in their youth when nobody else was there for them. We all should have someone like that in our lives. The payphone scene was an effective way to express how important these two were to one another.
+1 for the relationship between Na Hee Do and Ko Yu Rim. A relationship like this between two young women just doesn't seem to happen often in the shows I have watched. This relationship has only the slightest hint of being part of a love triangle, and that hint dissappears quickly enough. The hug in Madrid and Hee Do saying "nobody else knows what we have been through" conveyed the special nature of their connection.
+0.5 for the introduction to fencing, a sport I knew nothing about. I do wish the series had done some more here. In particular I wish there had been some more slow motion shots and better camera angles, because there were a few times where I could not tell what thr heck was going on.
-1 for the framing of the story as primarily a giant flashback from 2022 to 1998-2002. The times play a key role in the relationship between Hee Do and Yi Jin, so i understand why the story would start in 1998, but I don't understand the point of the bits of dialogue that take place in 2022. It feels like the primary purpose was to give us some hints on how the story will turn out, but judging by social media, a LOT of people did not get the hint. Adding the daughter character led to a cute "breaking of the fourth wall" scene but it also led to an obvious but futile question about the daughter's connections with the main narrative. There is another question -- is Hee Do happy in the present day? -- which gets almost completely ignored, which leads to...
-1 for the story gaps. So we get heavily invested in this character Na Hee Do, and we get little hints about her present day life, and, er, that is it. Just felt weird. I don't want to go into spoilers, but there are obvious questions about Mr. Kim that went completely ignored. The bigger gap though is what happens near the end of the main narrative, where the relationship between Hee Do and Yi Jin just... breaks down? Yi Jin made a decision that in some respects is true to his character, but also seems to violate his personal prime directive of not hurting Hee Do. That conflict needed to be presented explicitly on screen, and it wasn't, and a LOT of viewers were frustrated as a result. The other gap is what happened in the later years between Yi Jin and Hee Do; while it is easy to guess, it feels odd that we have to guess given the narrative framing mentioned above.
-0.5 because my wife thought the story didn't seem to have an underlying point. There is some discussion about impermanence and youth, and there is some discussion of "the times", that the forces of history at work on our little lives. But these themes seem to waft in and out rather than driving the story.
I am neutral on the ending. Some people were offended by it, but i thought it felt natural and true to the characters. If you are the type of person who will fall in love with an attractive actor like Nam Joo Hyuk, you will be frustrated with the ending, but I thought the presentation of the character made clear how this story would turn out. As mentioned above, the writing could have been tighter with the resolution, so no positives from me.
One aspect of the series that it is unclear to me is that Hee Do's mom was a well known journalist who completely fails to acknowledge in public that this extremely successful and prominent athlete is her own daughter. This is held out as a basic tenet of professionalism, but it is foreign to me. Is this common among Korean journalists? Or is this woman weird? For that matter, is her successor as UBS news anchor also similarly pathological during an interview with a close friend?
Finally, the idea that the best fencer in the world might be 18 years old and then retired by age 29 (or earlier) puts some additional negative vibes on the ending. The series has some uplifting moments at the start and then... well, we're past our peak at 25. There is a vague sadness around the older Hee Do, that she was done writing "her story" even when she still had more Olympic gold medals ahead of her. That does not seem true to the younger Hee Do, and again I will attribute the inconsistency to the clumsy present day framing.
In summary the plot was good, not great. The characters, their relationships, and the acting carried the series. It is a good watch, but clearly not for everyone. 8.0/10.
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Some shows get you, which makes me happy
I could write a lengthy essay on My Mister, but let's try to boil down to the basics.First, if you are reading this and you haven't watched My Mister (My Ajusshi) yet, then go watch it. The script and the acting are dazzling and the production is first-rate.
Second, if you are reading this and you have watched My Mister, then go watch it again. It's that good, and the show is loaded with so much context, symbolism, coded language, callbacks, double-meanings, etc. that you probably missed a whole lot of stuff the first time around that will yield a very different viewing experience the second time. Maybe spend a little time on social media to prime your next viewing.
The premise is that Park Dong Hoon (Lee Sun Kyun), the ML, is a 43 year-old structural engineer experiencing a mid-life crisis as his marriage, his job, and his brothers' lives are all showing cracks. Lee Ji An (IU) is the FL, a 19 year-old temp worker at the same company as Dong Hoon. While Dong Hoon's life is filled with angst, Ji An's life is simply miserable from crushing poverty and a sadistic loan shark.
You need to know that the series at the outset is grim, but that gloomy environment becomes fuel for the bond that forms between Dong Hoon and Ji An. One important detail of the dreary start is that the central relationship of the series kicks into gear when Ji An steals some money from Dong Hoon. Ji An is a criminal, not just an angel with a dirty face, but downright cold. The writing walks a fine line, not exactly endorsing her actions, but making it clear there's a kind of innocent motivation. Ji An is portrayed as a feral animal, preying on humans for her survival. Again, this is bleak, but from the bleakness emerges something to behold.
The key aspect of My Mister is the ineffable relationship between Dong Hoon and Ji An. It is worth mentioning that the second time through changed how I viewed their connection. The narrative includes so many events depicting Ji An's importance to Dong Hoon, that she almost literally gives him the ability to breathe. OTOH Dong Hoon teaches Ji An what it means to be human. Make no mistake, this is a love story even though there is virtually zero physical intimacy between the two, on screen or off. This develops into a platonic-but-romantic relationship. The romance is not the main focus, as these two are soul mates, who connect in spite of their vast differences, at a time when both desperately needed this connection.
The writing and acting masterfully creates an intense but ambiguous relationship. There is a great reliance on "show not tell." The CEO -- who is unambiguously a weasel -- is used occasionally to state the obvious, but otherwise there are all kinds of clever narrative tricks on display. One such technique is to build other relationships to put mirrors on the main relationship. The most obvious mirror was the pairing between Ki Hoon (Dong Hoon's volatile younger brother) and Ju Ra (an actress who had worked on an unsuccessful movie Ki Hoon directed), where Ju Ra is shown to be playing a character uncannily similar to Ji An. Ju Ra is quirky, and sometimes bubbly, and while I assume this is a joke about the public's perception of IU, Ju Ra's talk about love (and other matters) indirectly shows Ji An's true feelings but does so without impact on the main character's aura.
It is a complex show that works on the most basic level, but maintains its appeal when you dig deeper into the presentation. The craftsmanship in all aspects -- the writing, the acting, the editing, the OST -- is consistently outstanding. This is brilliant television. Again, go watch it.
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The premise of the story, that these three sisters deal with their entanglement with this sordid business, is set up well. Each of the secondary characters has some role with the Jeongran Society, and the writing kept me interested in guessing who is doing exactly what (i.e., who is the Big Villain). But the two main characters, In Joo and In Kyung, are frustrating to watch. In Joo has gotten herself into an obviously perilous situation, which she apparently doesn't bother to discuss with her sisters, even though (among other things) she may be putting her family in danger. In Kyung is similarly reckless, possibly getting a couple of people killed. They both are completely clueless at times.
My wife and I got so frustrated that we nearly quit midway through. The writing does tighten up, and some of the glaring holes -- for example, why didn't this dangerous and powerful organization just kill these hapless sisters? -- do get some answers. And it feels oddly satisfying when a couple of friendly characters use In Joo's naivete to their advantage. Basically, the story recognizes the limits of its characters, and those limitations are not glorified.
I did come away with some questions with this show. Holy cow, is Korean law enforcement really this useless? Are Koreans really that concerned about the financial backgrounds of their co-workers? Where do all these dozens of corporate goons come from, and would they really keep gooning when it is obvious the corporation is falling apart? Just felt off here.
The show does have a few elements -- the recurring scenes with the blue orchids, the flashbacks for Korean soldiers in the Vietnam War (which got this show banned in Vietnam), In Joo's bizarre experience in Singapore -- that give a show a distinctive feel. So it's an interesting series, and a good watch, but the two leading characters are a bit too dim to make it a great show.
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