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| Park Hyung-sik speaks for all of us during The Heirs |
From teens to Noonas, lots of romance this month.
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The Heirs
The Heirs is a classic teen K-drama from 2013. I had avoided it because I did not have a great first impression of Lee Min-ho from the eternal stiffness that was Eternal Monarch. But after seeing this, I get his appeal.
The Heirs is both amazing and bad. It is full of terrible messaging and some truly shitty men. But it’s also so delightfully soapy that you cannot help but fall for it immediately, especially if you were raised on similar overwrought teen movies from the 80s.
Kim Tan (Lee Min-ho) is a rich chaebol banished to the United States by his family. Cha Eun-sang (Park Shin-hye) comes to the US to see her sister get married only to have her sister lie about the marriage and steal the money she has brought. Kim Tan sees what’s happened to Cha Eun-sang and eventually tries to help her out. When they both end up back in Korea, whatever they felt overseas is still smoldering, but that smashes into the stark reality of their real lives.
He’s a pawn in his father’s business and being played against his older brother. She’s the daughter of the maid at Kim Tan’s house. She also catches the eye of Kim Tan’s ex bestie Choi Young-do (Kim Woo-bin) who is angry and aggressive but drawn to Cha Eun-sang as well.
There’s a lot of aggression as affection in this show. If I scare you, you will love me. If I grab you, you will love me. The teen boys are immature and their self-expression is on a very limited spectrum. It’s lite misogyny 101 and I know we’ve been conditioned to find this bad boy behavior attractive. I’m glad many dramas have moved away from some of these dynamics. Nevertheless, the show is catnip and for the most part you want to find out what is going to happen next.
With two different rich guys forcing themselves on her, neither fully appreciates the consequences for Cha Eun-sang. Even if she wants to date them, disaster waits for her for sure--their families will never approve, nor will her "peers." She’s damned if she gives into her feelings and they are making her damned if she doesn’t choose one of them. She is also unprepared for the social issues she’s about to face from her peers once she ends up at Kim Tan’s fancy prep school.
There are reasons these boys are so ill-behaved. And the chaebol kids are miserable in their own way. They are all victims of their circumstances and end up suffering based on what their parents have done. They are playing games their parents have set-up for them and they know no alternate path. Eventually the show focuses on the chaebol dynasties and it feels like this wants to be Shakespearean (which brother shall be crowned etc), but it can’t quite reach that level of DRAMA.
But if you are into broken, sad bad boys behaving badly and the romantic travails of wealthy teens (and who among us can truly resist this), then this show still has a lot to offer.
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Search WWW
Jang Ki-yong is just romancing his way through the K-Drama Noonas and I’m not complaining. After seeing him in Now Were Breaking Up, I checked out another Noona drama, Search WWW.
Following the lives of three professional women and their struggles at work and in love, the show unfortunately spends more time on the battles between search engine companies and not enough on the romance.
Bae Ta-mi (Im Soo-jung) gets fired from her job at the web portal Unicon and then goes to work for the rival company Barro. She also has a one-night stand with Park Mo-gun (Jang Ki-yong) who eventually gets hired to do work at the web portals. Her immediate rival at Barro is Scarlett (Lee Da-hee) but eventually Scarlett is won over by Ta-mi’s ideas and work. Scarlett becomes obsessed with a new actor on a daytime soap Seol Ji-hwan (Lee Jae-wook). Running Unicon, Song Ga-kyeong (Jeon Hye-jin) was close to Ta-mi but their differences in how to handle political pressure on the web portals drives them apart. Scarlett also knew Song Ga-kyeong growing up and they have a deep bond from those years.
This show is full of young men who are confident and direct and want to romance the Noonas. There’s something very enticing about their enthusiasm for these relationships that is neither smothering nor does it deny the woman’s agency. Park Mo-gun is happy to wait until Bae Ta-mi has sorted out her feelings. But his feelings for her remain strong whether she ends up wanting to date him or not.
Based on my very scientific poll of two shows, Jang Ki-young plays characters who the Noonas struggle to stop fucking. And he’s very good at it. There is a lot of horny staring, sex, and passionate kisses. Again 85% of his success in these dramas is him walking towards the woman and all of us melting as he does so.
Why is this so effective? Also please don’t stop doing it.
But the show’s focus is more the intense nature of female friendships and those break-ups. As far as I am concerned, there was some intense lesbian energy between Song Ga-kyeong and Scarlett. Nothing is overt but their pull towards each other was not explained in the limited story flashbacks.
The show also worked to explain why each of the women is driven to be the way they are. Song Ga-kyeong may be ruthless but she is also in a chaebol marriage that is devouring her whole. She was sold off by her ungrateful parents and is now trapped.
Scarlett is a little too happy to use violence and her obsession with the actor borders on stalking. She has one intensity and it is dialed-up to 11.
Ta-mi, at 38, doesn’t believe in marriage but she’s dating the 28-year-old who does. He needs family in a way she doesn’t. It’s a fundamental disagreement rooted deeper than their relationship.
It’s all meaningful stuff but I have found Im Soo-jung just too blank and wide-eyed. This is the third drama I’ve watched with her and she just doesn’t shade in the characters she plays very much. So while I enjoyed moments I didn't fall for this show.
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