Did the dramas I watched in August run out of steam or did I?
Looking back on how I fell into K-dramas, it was clearly about the collective trauma of the pandemic. I needed this narrative softness to fall into and a certain sense of clarity in a moment of extreme confusion. While the pandemic is not over, the world has moved on. But I am still watching dramas.
And the month of August was in no way the equivalent of the early pandemic but I was under a lot of stress. My bathroom renovation was almost done and my contractor quit the job. I had been navigating so much conflict with him the entire time. The shows I watched were not giving me what I needed in the midst of this.
It is hard to separate that from my experience of them. Not every show is a perfect fit for me but these were not ideal this month.
My Roommate is a Gumiho
My Roommate is a Gumiho involved a magical marble that a nine-tailed fox (Jang Ki-yong) passed to a random girl (Lee Hye-ri) who later becomes his girlfriend and then it passes back again and I could not for the life of me understand the magic marble and it's significance, power, or weird implantation dynamics.
Was this totally on me? I don't think so. It was a cast of actors I've enjoyed elsewhere but I did not press on until the end. I will never know what happened with the magical marble and whether it was somehow a sexual metaphor or just a power marble or something else.
See You in My 19th Life
There was some magical thinking in See You in My 19th Life but on a level I could comprehend. But as the lead character encountered more conflict, I checked out. It might be one I need to go back to and rewatch, or it just missed its moment with me.
In it, Ban Ji-eum (Shin Hye-sun) is living her 19th life but unlike others who have been reincarnated, she remembers all of her past lives. She died quite young in her 18th life and tracks down the people from that life (and earlier) and re-inserts herself into their lives. With one woman, she is the reincarnation of that woman's uncle and Ban Ji-eum tells her that. But others she encounters don't know that she is the person they once knew and loved. She experiences the consequences of being reborn and seeing the grief she left behind. She also has no place for her own grief.
I enjoyed her being smarter and more talented than most (she remembered all of her past life skills as well) and her teasing, flirtatious nature with adult Moon Seo-ha (Ahn Bo-hyun) her childhood friend that she loved. But there was something a little uncomfortable about the teen version of her being in love with maybe a 10-year-old boy. I don't know. With the casting, it just looked like an 18-year-old girl hitting on a kid. Not great.
Eventually, the mysterious and possibly nefarious Kang Min-gi (Lee Chae-min) shows up and it takes some unfurling to know what their connection is.
The magical issues around her remembering her past lives and how that might impact others got fuzzy but also by then I was barely holding on.
Heartbeat
See You in My 19th Life unexpectedly shared some parallels with another show I watched in August, Heartbeat.
There Seon Woo-hyul (Ok Taec-yeon), a vampire who has lived for centuries, remembers the people he has lost. He hopes the woman he loved will eventually return to him. He's stuck in the past and is not sure how to move on.
He's been asleep for 100 years (in a failed attempt to become human--he becomes half-human) and everything has changed except him. Miraculously, his house from 100 years ago is still standing but he is accidentally awoken from his 99.9 years of slumber by Joo In-hae (Won Ji-an) which is what prevents him from becoming human. They develop an untold connection and must figure out how to share this house.
Heartbeat is a lot more playful than 19th Life. I've enjoyed Tac-yeon in comedies. Here it's a nonsense set-up involving a vampire looking for love. The cure he needs involves Joo In-hae finding love. But she does not believe in love.
For all this goofiness, there is something quite tender about Seon Woo-hyul seeing the woman he thinks is the reincarnation of his love who does not know who he is and does not remember him. This fated love he thinks will instantly come rushing back does not. And he must navigate this reality and disappointment. It would be easy to chalk this up as a bit of a silly story but Tac-yeon makes this a lot more meaningful within the larger fabric of the storytelling.
But the subplots and side-charactered started to weigh the whole thing down and again my attention drifted.
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Live On
I also watched a terrible teen bullying drama because Hwang Min-hyun was in it. It involves a mean, rich influencer who keeps everyone at arm's length and is rude and obnoxious. But it turns out she's just such a mean girl because she was the victim of bullying but didn't want to let anyone know. WHAT? And then there's a very Pretty Little Liars plot about a secret hater who is trying to take her down. But they didn't even have good reasons. There was something all too blunt and poor in the character development. I did not get it.
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