September-October 2023: Liars, Liars, and Love

A classic truly terrible drama lyric

A bunch of shows sort of drifted between September to October so here's my wrap-up for the two months. 

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My Lovely Liar

I was smitten with this lil convoluted show starring Hwang Min-hyun and Kim So-hyun who shared a sweet chemistry.

Mok Sol-hee (Kim So-hyun) has been able to tell when people are lying since she was young. Rather than this be any sort of gift, it has brought her a lot of pain. So she turns it into a business and stays away from relationships. With a con-artist mother who went to prison due to Sol-hee tattling on her lies, her mother sponges off her when she can if she's not lying her way into landing a rich husband.

Sol-hee has some loyal employees who help her but she's pretty cynical about the world around her. Kim Seung-joo (Hwang Min-hyun) was accused of murdering his girlfriend back in college. Even his mother assumes he's done it. And he's been in hiding ever since as Kim Do-ha. But he's become quite famous as the songwriter for a famous idol, Sha On, and trying to keep his identity hidden with his increasing notoriety is hard. After a media scandal being paired with Sha On, he ends up going into hiding in the apartment next door to Sol-hee. When they meet, she finds he does not lie to her.

As with any good K-drama romance, these characters come out of their shells and learn to be in the world again thanks to the presence of the other. Sol-hee needs to believe there are people who won't lie and Seung-joo needs somewhere he can feel safe and out of the celebrity spotlight. For the most part, this feels organic and earned.

The pacing of them coming together as a couple is also handled nicely. They gradually and naturally get closer and find they want to protect the other, with romance following further down the line. They have shared interests and are kind of good match for one another. It's just those pesky lies and one murder get in the way.

The murder mystery isn't as carefully done, but by that point I was on board with the characters and just kind of rode that nonsense through until the end.

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Call It Love

I loooooooved this show at the start and then it died for me completely. It did not survive a romance vibe shift. Boooooooo.  From sad desperate broken people to schmoopy dull people. Ddeng. 

Shim Woo-joo's (Lee Sung-kyung) life falls apart when her estranged father dies and his mistress-to-second wife inherits the family home Shim Woo-joo and her siblings have been living in. The widow kicks the kids out and Woo-joo plots revenge. She takes a job at the company run by the mistress's son Han Dong-jin (Kim Young-kwang) who gave money to his mother to buy the family home. But after working there for a while she realizes she has feelings for him and her for her. The siblings have their own problems and are rescued by Woo-joo's long-time friend (Sung Joon) who gives them a place to live. 

This melodrama started out with an interesting posture as these two broken, lonely people who had struggled for so long because of the respective families find solace in each other. But some terrible filming choices (an overdose of sepia that actually starts to make your eyes hurt) and a complete narrative collapse causes this show to fall apart. 

The best friend's affection for this loving, messy family is a nice side story as he has cold, unfeeling parents and longs for this kind of closeness in his life. I enjoy "sad people being sad" dramas but I thought Kim Young-kwang was just bad. His performance was so subtle he was mostly just a tall skull with brief glints of reactions. Though I liked Lee Sung-kyung and her fierce, tough exterior as she thinks through what her emotions even are after years of packing them away to take care of everyone around her.

But ultimately the things standing in the way of this relationship are not real and there's no actual impediment and the dramatic tension is gone once the couple admits their feelings for each other. <farty balloon sound>

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Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency

This was a good example where you feel truly torn by the love triangle where the two men love the woman for who she is, if you can stomach a grumpy man who is maybe mean to cover up his true feelings. 

The matchmaking agency, Flower Crew, is run by three handsome men (Kim Min-jae, Park Ji-hoon, Byeon Woo-seok). After much persuading, they take on a poor blacksmith as a client, Lee Soo (Seo Ji-hoon). They organize and prepare his wedding to his tomboyish best friend, Gae-ttong (Gong Seung-yeon), who is rough around the edges but he loves her ardently. On the day of the wedding, Lee Soo disappears leaving Gae-ttong with huge debt for the marriage. 

With nowhere to go, she eventually weasels her way into working with the Flower Crew. She has spent her life on the run and with the Flower Crew, particularly the taciturn leader Ma Hoon (Kim Min-jae) she starts to feel like she has a home. And as her heart begins to open to Ma Hoon, Lee Soo returns. In a twist of fate, he has been named the king of Joseon (gasp!) but he still wants to marry her. But for her own safety she cannot know because, as per usual, everyone wants to control the king and who he marries. 

Each of the characters have a complicated backstory that once revealed shows they have a personal anguish they are trying to heal. With layers of complications, evil doers mucking things up, and believable plot machinations, it does feel like no one will come out of this story happy. 

So it keeps you engaged on that front. My gripes are small but significant. First, Gae-ttong starts to lose some of her feistiness once she "falls in love." I find this so irritating. She has not had a lobotomy. Let her be a whole person. Gong Seung-yeon acts as if she's in a toothpaste commercial with a shiny, vacant smile and I wanted to scream.  Eventually her personality returns and it's satisfying to see it. 

My second complaint is more of a confused observation. Park Ji-hoon's character seems like he's coded gay. He does the make-up for the brides, he's obsessed with fashion, and he even calls his male senior Ma Hoon, Unni (which is what a woman would call her older sister). I truly could not tell if this was play on old stereotypes or progressive inclusion. 

With a strong ensemble, a plot that yanks you around hoping it will all work out, and some nice characterizations even with my grumbles this is one I'd recommend as a solid romance. 

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Moving

I'm sure Moving is going to get a lot of ink. It's a high-budget slick webtoon to screen adaptation that feels very muppet baby Marvel. Think X-Men parents and X-Men kids in secret government training being chased by assassins. This is all sooooooooo not my interest or style. 

There is gory violence and endlessly bloody fight scenes which I find exceedingly boring. I gave up after 8 episodes. 

And my biggest complaint is that one of the characters needs to gain weight so he does not float off the ground (his superhero power). So the actor playing him bulked up for the role. But for some reason he is characterized as kind of mentally slow or maybe stupid. I was deeply uncomfortable with whatever the fuck was going on with this. It just felt fatphobic to me.  

Everyone else can enjoy this series without me.