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| All these princes need therapy. |
Life got away from me with concerts, surgery, and a busy work project. Saw J-Hope's solo show, Hwasa's world tour, and got very buried in my job.
But there were a few dramas I wanted to talk about from February and March.
Study Group
Happy to see Hwang Min-hyun in a more playful, action-comedy role in this high octane high school drama that feels a bit like Muppet Babies Fight Club.
Everything in this show plays delightfully against type. It is centered around a nerdy high school student, Yoon Ga-min (Hwang Min-hyun) who just wants to study, but whose grades are terrible. It turns out, he is secretly very good at fighting but would prefer not to if he can help it. But in a school run by a crew of student gangsters, there really is not a chance to turn down a fight and he gets sucked in. Nevertheless, Ga-min persists and forms a study group made up of other students with good grades and the ability to fight and he focuses on both his GPA and saving people who need his help.
Based on a webtoon, this is not played as graphic student bullying violence but more of a hyper-stylized comic book violence. The dramatic tension is Ga-min slowly collecting allies as unlikely as that seemed given his track record in life and the extremity of violence in the school. Essentially, it is about making friends when everyone has their guard up and the power of teamwork.
I usually hate comic book style dramas. I never enjoy violence for violence's sake. But Min-hyun’s soft and unexpected Ga-in kept me engaged. Plus the violence has consequences. And moves the story ahead as they get deeper into a battle with the big bully and they rescue people from the clutches of the gang and those folks becomes their friends. And the study group which was hard fought to form becomes closer as friends as well.
There are unexpected twists I did not see coming with the background of some characters as well. At only 10-episodes, things get a little rushed in the end (leaving me wondering if it's supposed to get another season). The big battle at the end is not as important as the characters' journeys on the way there.
Also I really liked the theme song Back Packer by Matthew & Gunwook of ZB1. Such an earworm.
My Dearest Nemesis
With a goofy set-up, I was not sure I would fall for this enemies to lovers story, but it grew on me.
Baek Soo-jung (Moon Ga-young) and Ban Joo-yeo (Choi Hyun-wook) first meet as teenagers in an online video game. But when they finally meet face to face Soo-jung finds out the high schooler she thought she was talking to is actually a middle schooler. Horrified by the mistake, she breaks his heart and her own by rejecting him.
Fast forward, to them being adults working at the same job. Joo-yeo is the chaebol grandson of the company's owner and being tested as the successor to his grandmother. But Soo-jung is known as the VP killer because she is often in conflict with the executives overseeing her. Despite the bickering and fighting they eventually find some common ground and the reasons for their protective walls start to fall. But they don't know that the other is their first love and the root of their relationship troubles as adults. They are the people who have hurt each other the most and yet become a great comfort when they meet again as adults.
While K-dramas offer a lot of uptight, jerk chaebol characters, Joo-yeo is clearly the way he is because of the abuse and distrust sown by his grandmother. Deep down, he's really the same goofy nerd he was in middle school. Thankfully, he's more open-hearted fanboy than regressive manchild. He’s wildly not cool. But he has to keep all his personal tastes a secret as he plays this role of successor. He takes his adult responsibilities seriously. But he has an inner child side he feeds because that was something taken away from him as a child. With this vulnerability, even if he’s being a jerk it never feels like a heavy hand. Its a delicate line and this drama walks it carefully.
Rooting for Joo-yeo and Soo-jung are Seo Ha-jin (Im Se-mi) and Kim Shin-won (Kwak Si-yang) who have known both of them since they were kids. But they start a romantic entanglement of their own which is complicated by Seo Ha-jin's feelings after her divorce and Shin-won's reputation as a serial dater.
Choi Hyun-wook moving into more adult roles is welcome even if the character is juvenile at heart.
It's not the romance of the century or anything but it's a solid little drama about healing from your past.
Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo
This legendary drama is finally available on Viki. And while it's set-up is tantalizing as a woman works through her feelings between two princes both looking to become Emperor, the 20-episodes to get there are full of bad choices by all the characters all around.
It's a drama that shows it's age through the egregious lack of consent, weak female lead, and horrible reasons characters claim they are in love. But I watched all 20 episodes because I needed to know how it played out. That's how they get you.
For no reason I can understand, a woman from the present drowns and goes back in time to the era of first emperor of Goryeo. There she is known as Hae Su (IU) and she is cared for by a loving cousin and her husband (Kang Ha-neul), Wang Wook, the 8th prince.
The Emperor has many wives, concubines, and sons. In fact, there are 14 princes and over time Hae Su comes to meet them all and befriend most of them.
But primarily she is torn between her feelings for Wang Wook (whose kind wife conveniently dies while he's been making eyes at Hae Su) and Wang So (Lee Joon-gi), the 4th prince. Wang So was scarred by his mother on his face as a child. He has bee rejected by her (for reasons I missed). He is the black sheep of the family and was sent away to become a mindless killer. He gets a reputation as a violent man but he longs to be accepted back at the palace. When he returns, he meets Hae Su and finds that she is not afraid of him like most people and she opens him up. But the tensions between the brothers necessarily will come to a head because several of them want to be the next emperor and whether they take that role by violence or cunning will make up most of the plot of the series.
Things will get very complicated as Hae Su gets engaged to the Emperor, the princes' father, briefly, and then becomes a court lady in what I can only describe as the spa of the palace. But the brothers will fight each other for power and Hae Su and there can only be one emperor.
I got to a certain point with all the characters where I was mad at all of them for the poor choices they were making. Everyone is pretty forgiving over a little murder between relatives but I was less so. The cast is chockfull of name actors/idols (Ji soo, Baekhyun, Nam Joo-hyuk, Seohyun, even Byeon Woo-seok has a blink and you will miss him cameo).
My main frustration was with how underwritten Hae Su is. She starts out kind of spunky but loses her personality as time goes on. She's not smart or strategic. But everyone falls for her. She spends a lot of time crying and clutching her weak heart. I'm not sure she's the Helen of Troy figure they mean her to be.
Then there is just the all over the place characterizations for Wang Wook and Wang So. The oscillating between ardent and evil just gets old. Commit to a path! Because once you start drifting down evil...the romance should go out the window and alas it does not. So it's hard to root for either coupling when the men are shitty. These are not good dudes and Hae Su should be fighting her way back to the present day.
The drama feels like it forgets all together that she is an inexplicable time traveler. I certainly did for a good chunk of the series.
I'm glad I could finally tick this one off the list but mostly I am mad they sucked me in and then squandered the goodwill on a zig-zaggy plot that did not enhance the characters or the stakes.
Potato Lab
Happy to have Kang Tae-oh back from his military service but he should fire his agents immediately. He should be getting better material than this really underbaked potato.
This was such an odd one because it sets up a woman to be wildly mistreated by her past boyfriend, who kind of clings to her, and then she gets fired by the new guy she's been flirting with and starting a new relationship with. Not great. Though I never really liked her character to begin with. And that makes it hard to root for any couple.
It's not even worth breaking this one down more. I'd call this one a pass.
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