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| A birthday present to myself |
In March, I did not think I’d be having my November birthday
during the pandemic. And yet, I did. Alone in my apartment. Eating a cupcake.
Middle age is for sure here and with it came bifocals. Got a
new pair of glasses which involved walking miles, up hill and down, back and
forth through Queens, three times this month.
Everything just takes more time and effort right now.
Things have been hard. The aggregation of the past 8 months
really caught up with me in November.
The election, non-election, election, my struggles in Korean class,
unrelenting sadness, weight gain, time passing, time passing me by, and standing
still all just weighed on me.
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| Some haunting ghost leaves |
With all this internal turmoil, I could not settle on a show
in November. I kept switching off every show I started. Nothing quite fit.
Nothing was what I wanted. And even what I watched was not good. December is
already looking up and I’ve found some shows to buoy my mood. So, fear not.
In my quest to just enjoy something, I feel so easily broken by the
simplest setback or interference.
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One Spring Night
All of a sudden as I was watching this show I recognized an apartment
complex. I had DEFINITELY seen it in a drama before. Had I become a Seoul real
estate savant? No.
I did some googling and realized that the director (Ahn Pan
Seok) and writer (Kim Eun) of Something in the Rain also created One
Spring Night. This explained why there was a huge overlap in cast between those
shows, common locations, and the same relentlessly annoying soundtrack of
English-language songs used to fill in every single emotional beat.
Both dramas operate at specific low-grade frequency. There are not crazy coincidences nor big
events. Everything is quite quotidian and scaled to real life challenges. They
are also particularly interested in issues facing aspiring middle-class
families and their focus on advancing social status through their daughters’
relationships.
In each show, it is known in advance that the romance will
cause tension/problems with the woman’s family. The families fight and fight
against what these women want. And it’s terrible for everyone.
In these narratives, love comes quickly and the character
have sex (not just chaste k-drama kisses here), but the anguish over the
relationship and how it impacts the families drives the conflict. It’s a slow twist of a knife because someone
or something has to give and the family pressure is immense.
Both shows also layer this with additional social
commentary. For Something in the Rain,
it was age differences for the couple, being an orphan, sexual harassment, and
workplace abuse. With One Spring Night, they delved into the stigma of
single parenthood and intimate partner violence.
Jung Hae-in remains an adorable, sweet lead who suffers
quietly and has fine chemistry with Han Ji-min who is lively and sassy. My
personal fave Joo Min-kyung plays a no-nonsense, wild younger sister.
But what was hard for me with both shows, was that the women
were well-educated and self-possessed people being dragged down by these family
expectations. In addition, the choices these women had were like 2000% awful
man or this perfectly good dude who their parents refuse to consider for
questionable reasons. The parental obstacles just come off as extreme and
abusive.
Meanwhile, I had no interest in any of the side stories. There were so many terrible men in One Spring Night that I fast-forwarded every time they were on-screen—bad dads, bad dudes. There’s a relentless ex-boyfriend who will not
accept that the couple has broken-up. There’s a soon-to-be ex-husband who will
not accept a divorce. These women deserve better and they tolerate far too much
abuse, stalking, and coercion for my comfort.
Chicago Typewriter
The version of this show in my head is 200% better than the
version of this show they made for television.
In 1930s, three people were part of a secret rebellion
against the Japanese colonial government. Fast forward 80 years and those three
people meet again…sort of. Unfortunately, the 1930s story is fascinating, but we spend most of our time in the near present.
In the present, Han Se-joo (Yoo Ah-in) is a wildly
successful author who ends up with writer’s block until a ghostwriter Yoo
Jin-oh (Go Kyung-pyo) starts writing this story about the 1930s under Han Se-joo’s
name. Jeon Seol (Im Soo-jung) is the author’s number one fan and gets
mysteriously drawn into his life and orbit, despite him constantly being mean
to her.
First off, Yoo Ah-in is like 1000% hotter in the 1930s—both
as a character and physically. Without question, I would overthrow the Japanese
for him. There is an absolute A+ sizzling 1930s kiss in this show that we
revisit from time to time. But in the
present, his character is a jerk (and as always in K-dramas, with reasons). But
it’s a struggle to want to spend any time with him as he shouts at everyone and
is just miserable. Also, watching Jeon Seol take this abuse over and over again is
really uncomfortable. She’s so willing to do anything for him, even when he
hasn’t earned it.
I have to imagine there were budgetary issues that limited
the show and kept us mostly in the present. There’s a lot of “explaining” what
happened in the 1930s rather than showing. But the narrative of trying to
overthrow the Japanese occupation is obviously a lot more compelling than a
rich author being mean and isolated and trying to learn to make friends.
I feel compelled to also report there’s some ridiculous
altheleisure wear and outrageous designer sweaters in this show. What was with
that deep v-neck with the open knit pattern? It’s not sexy. Stop it. At some
point, he’s wearing bell sleeves and maybe the worst bucket hat in the history
of hats. It’s not helping his tiresome character to also dress like a style
buffoon.
Also, inexplicably Im Soo-jung’s character in the 1930s
sings in a nightclub…but in the whole show we can never hear her sing. The scenes play as if she is singing, but we cannot hear any vocals. Your two choices are to dub her singing or don’t make her a singer/don't show
singing scenes and you went with a third ridiculous option.
Basically, I watched for Yoo Ah-in being smoldering in suspenders, the brief glimpses of political intrigue, the past sadness and woe of the 1930s characters, while suffering through some bad sweaters in the present.
My ID is Gangnam
Beauty
This show is bad. I’m not sure it knows what it wants to say
about plastic surgery.
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| Maybe better if she was a meerkat. |
Kang Mi-rae (Im Soo-hyang) thinks she is ugly and hates that people look at her, so she has secret
plastic surgery on her whole face and body before going off to college. She
gets to college and everyone thinks she’s hot, but she’s still plagued by low
self-esteem. She now struggles with her sensitivity over having had the surgery
which is obvious to others she has had. She also meets a “natural” beauty Hyun
Soo-ah (Jo Woo-ri) who pretends to be her friend but is absolute evil to her
core. She runs into the most
handsome guy from high school, Do Kyung-seok (Cha Eun-woo) who remains the most
handsome guy at college, but he doesn’t care about looks at all.
While the show dives into the issues surrounding
beauty standards, plastic surgery, and discrimination based on looks in Korea,
the show spends very little time on interiority. Kang Mi-rae’s psychological
issues are barely explored. She ends up making a lot of dumb choices and is so
easily manipulated. While at the same time, Do Kyung-seok’s backstory is more
interesting.
The story then tries to explain Soo-ah’s unforgiveable
behavior and abusive nature. By that point, all interest I had in the show had
totally waned and I was furious they were trying to make me feel bad for her. Also,
there’s an incel.
There’s an important conversation to be had about beauty, self-abuse, societal expectations, self-esteem, and eating disorders, but this show doesn’t find a sensitive, smart, or thoughtful path through them.
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