Dramas reviews galore!

It’s almost Christmas and what better gift than four short drama reviews?  I’m too short on money to send you a little something, but I’ve put all my heart in these reviews. The latter could have been shorter but I love to talk. There’s no cure for that so far so I’m happily living with that little mania of mine! Here are four reviews of my recently completed drama.

TWENTY AGAIN

"Here’s your second chance at life, don’t miss it!"

Twenty Again or Again 20 years old, isn’t exactly what I’d call a revolutionary drama. But it’s sweet enough and has the merit to have delivered what he promised: a human drama.
A chance was given to most of the characters to chance their lives and perspectives.

Ha No Ra (Choi Ji- woo), our heroin, is married to Kim Woo-chul (Choi Won-young) for more than twenty years. We could say the couple is facing a crisis but that wouldn’t even partially match the truth. The couple is in crisis for years, from the beginning actually. They probably break all records: there’s no communication, no affection, no sweet moments, no understanding. No wonder in that atmosphere Kim Woo-chul, who’s now a professor at university, asked for a divorce. For our Ha No Ra, it’s an earthquake. She has nothing else except that marriage and her son, Kim Min-soo (Kim Min-jae). Ha No Ra and Kim Woo-chul both got married early, had a son almost immediately and the three of them flew to German to give Kim Woo-chul a chance to pursue his studies and career. Ha No Ra couldn’t possibly be the girl ruining her husband future, so she accepted to live, far from home and her grandma, in a country with no friends, no relatives, no connexions and mostly no affection from a husband who quickly appeared to be selfish. For an 18 teen, it’s a lot of sacrifices. But twenty years later that same husband is asking for divorce. Hard to accept. That’s why this loving mother and wife decided to go back to university. She has no diploma, but once graduated and cultivated, there’s no way her husband will let her go. It’s a delusion but it’s touching. She will win over her husband again and over her son, who also grew up distant. One thing leading to another, the whole family will end up at the same university! A real family’s reunion, I swear. 

Rapidly Ha No Ra’s motives will change. Attending university won’t solely be the way to hold her husband back, it will be her chance to start afresh, to have a new beginning. It will take some time to go there but at least she has those perspectives ahead and the power to decide. She’ll go beyond her doubts, her fears and will fight (her husband who works where her future ex-wife is takin classes, her son and students’ preconceives ideas) to study. If university is like an open road to a different future for Ha No Ra, it will also slowly become a place of reminiscence, a mix of her past and the whole new possibilities. She’s given the chance to settle things of her past to eventually let it go in order to find true happiness. And what better way to be happy than tasting love with Cha Hyun Suk (Lee Sang-yoon). 

He’s an old high school comrade and also a part of her past. Cha Hyun Suk was deeply in love with her but somehow missed the chance to confession his love and lost Ha No Ra to Kim Woo-chul. He’s now a successful professor at the university attended by Ha No Ra and her son) and theatre director. His encounter with Ha No Ra won’t leave him unmarked. His love for her followed him all his life and influenced his choices. He’s bitter, grumpy, still in love and angry. He’s angry to him who can’t forget his first love and to Ha No Ra who dare to leave him alone. You rarely win against your heart. Cha Hyun Suk and Ha No Ra will both learn it. Twenty Again was a lovely and sometimes hard journey for Ha No Ra. She was shunted around from one chaotic situation to another but she hold on, from one chocking revelation to another but she held on and assumed more in few months than she ever did in twenty years. Ha No Ra had weakness but that exactly those that made her stronger and even more human.

Ha No Ra wasn’t the only one given a second chance:  

Kim Min-soo: Apple does not fall from the tree. Kim Min-soo’s the perfect prototype of her father. He does what her father says and reacts the same way. His path is traced and except aliens’ invasion, there’s no possible deviation. Can you possibly accept from your father to go directly to the army if you dare to date at the university? If you don’t date there where will you? Someone please rescue that kid! And we don’t have to look very far because that someone will be Ha No Ra. Min-soo will rediscovered his mother and will eventually realize her unconditional love for him. Through her love and presence, Ha No Ra will made him understand that having a girlfriend (Oh Hye-mi played by Son Na-eun) isn’t a crime and having fun isn’t incompatible with lessons. I love how he progressively got rid of his father’s influence to look for himself, who he really is and what he want to do with his life and future. 

Cha Hyun Suk: His heart somehow held to a love he wasn’t ready to let go. Unconsciously Ha No Ra played a big role in who he became. Despite the anger he felt at her who left him without any notice, he loves her. But he still has to admit it. He will have to break the walls his frustration and anger built to show his feelings. 

Shin Sang-ye (Choi Yoon-so): In love with Cha Hyun Suk, her sunbae, for years will painfully realize she can’t win over Ha No Ra. She could have become that second lead bitch type and ruin Cha Hyun Suk and Ha No Ra’s second chance, but she’s smartly let go. Best decision if you want to give your love life a new start.

Twenty Again taught me this: if life gives you a second chance, grab it, fight and never give up.

YONG-PAL

"Vengeance is a dish served cold."  

Whenever Joo Won confirms a new drama, the whole me is on alert. It’s like red lights shinning in my head, a Pavlov reflex. My mind is conditioned. If he has to read the whole dictionary all through 16 episodes, I’m in. If he has to be dressed like a high school teen girl for 20 episodes, I’m in. Even if it’s a mute drama with him as the lead, I’m be in. Yes that’s where my love for him can take me! He’s not the only one on my lost but it could take hours to name everyone and give you reasons. 

So let’s go back to, Young-Pal, one of the biggest hit of this year (in terms of ratings). I liked almost everything about Yong-Pal’s premise: Kim Tae-hyun (Joo Won) is a talented surgeon. Desperate for money to pay his sister's medical bills, he adopts the code name Yong-Pal and offers his medical skills to those in need of medical attention but who cannot do so publicly. He’s dealing with gangsters and corrupt tycoons, as long as he’s paid. It is while making such a house call that Kim Tae-hyun rescues the "sleeping beauty" Han Yeo-jin (Kim Tae-Hee) a chaebol heiress. Han Yeo-jin’s rescue will lead into unintended consequences. (Source)

No way for me to miss that. I was ready, like I’ve never been before for an exam! And the first two episodes didn’t disappoint me. The tension, the action (that high-speed car chase kept me breathless, I swear), Joo Won hotter than ever running in every possible directions, how to say no?  You can giving me more of that, I won’t mind. For a couple of episodes, I was hooked. Definitely was. I was jumping with Kim Tae-hyun/Young-Pal, cutting people’s chests with him, sweating when he was, laughing at his pun of words and nervous when he was in danger. 

I was undoubtedly curious and impatient: what will happen to him? What about his dongsae? Is it going to be confounded? Really? Can the sleeping beauty’s brother, Han Do-joon (Jo Hyun-jae), be even more evil? Why is the wife of the latter, Lee Chae-young (Chae Jung-an) is playing the superficial idiot while she’s the sharpest of them all? I was dealing with those questions (and a lot more) when a terrifying truth hit me: How come I never asked myself anything about the sleeping beauty? Han Yeo-jin was sleeping and while a lot happened because of her I was curious about her actually. When will she wake up? What will happen to her? What will she do after? Nothing. It’s probably because I knew the drama would be completely different the moment she’d wake up.

It’s not the first drama focused on hospital but I was fascinated by the angle it took. This VIP section for patients that will always worth more than the rest, upset me but then there were nothing new. This hospital like any other major company, leaves no place for sentimentalism and as strange as it sound, I liked that rough aspect of things. The drama was simply dealing with an ugly reality and there weren’t much to do about it except accept it.

I really enjoyed those first episodes where we followed Kim Tae-hyun in his illegal job, his struggles. We entered his universe and understood his motives, but then Han Yeo-jin woke up and as suspected the drama went in an odd direction, a direction I didn’t like. I’m not saying Han yeo-jin ruined the drama cause her fully awake gave us some sharp and stressful moments (in the second half of the drama) I’m saying gosh Yong-Pal was doing so great without any romance! Truth. Han Yeo-jin woke up cause there’s no point of letting her sleep forever (a revenge without an avenger is ridiculous) but my main complain here is: what did you had to add romance when obviously it wasn’t needed? You had a good plot, a great lead, an intriguing sleeping beauty ready to wake up and send to hell her crazy brother, obsessed with power and recognition who trapped for three years, a puppy like chef of clinic. Enough elements to make something awesome out of it. Why add romance? All right everyone need some love and clearly if two people were in lack of affection it’s Kim Tae-hyun and Han Yeo-jin! I give you that but to make them fall in love as soon as she wakes up? Really? I’m not buying that.

They should have wait more couple of episodes and naturally introduce a love story that would have made more sense then. But the drama went through a boring and long (long) period of soppy, pseudo-romance. That wasn’t subtitle, at all. Don’t get me wrong, me not buying the romance doesn’t mean there were no alchemy but the romantic part wasn’t well managed. All that didn’t help me feel much sympathy for Han Yeo-jin. She was expressionless most of the time, at time sweet, at time furious, angry or desperate. As soon as she became that crazy chick, obsessed with vengeance, I finally read some expressions and emotions on her face which is never a bad thing for an actress. That vengeance part was actually great and well done. Thank God, I’d say, that prevented me from completely ate up my laptop out of frustrations (but we weren’t far from a real catastrophe). I wanted Han Yeo-jin to be fierce and she was! No mercy, no regrets, no sympathy. Either you were with her (no assurance you’d stayed alive though) or against her (and you better prepare yourself).

If that revengeful journey breathed second wind and dragged me out of my lethargy, it also shown how unbalanced was the whole drama.

Han Yeo-jin slept or laid in bed or hide herself for few episodes while Kim Tae-hyun was running everywhere and fighting for her, he was doing fine on his own. Once Han Yeo-jin got all powers again, she got herself busy with taking everyone down and she was also doing great on her own. Beside her vengeance obsession the problem is I’ve never felt her torn between her ultimate goal and her man (who ended up being simply the rich chaebol’s boyfriend. When you’re a geniiiiiuuus surgeon, it's hard) I never root for that couple for those reasons. Again it’s beyond the miss of alchemy, they served us the romance way too awkwardly and that unbalanced the story which is too bad. I had to say it.

In conclusion, Yong-Pal had a hell of a start, then took a 180 degrees curve, entered an obscure zone, came back to life before serving us two extra episodes that turned the end into a ridiculous and botched end. You guys should have talked beforehand. I mean couple should be on the same page. Just sayin’…

SASSY GO GO 

"Easy come, easy go!"

I have a soft spot for high school dramas. Some of my all-time favourite dramas are high school dramas. Imagine my curiosity when I first read about Sassy Go Go. I’m going to be honest, all the cheerleading premise, secretly got me worried. I instinctively made a comparison with all the American high school movies about cheerleaders and everything. It’s no joke, it’s huge. The discipline asks a lot of practice, technique and precision. Therefore I was a bit sceptical about a bunch of young actors who, as far as I know, never done it before. Ii know cheerleading was supposed to be an excuse to portray the educational environment therefore I decided to be optimistic and even enthusiastic.

Quickly Jung Eun-ji got attached to the project and some cuties confirmed after her, Lee Won Geum and Ji Soo. Talking about cuties, those two together were worth watching. It wasn’t in my plan to start with those two, but I don’t really want to fight with my heart. That bromance was so adorable, it made me want to go back in high school to live that kind of friendship. 

Seriously Kim Yul (Lee Won Geum) and Seo Ha-joon’s (Ji Soo) bond is hard to explain. It’s the kind of relationship that sweeps everything away. The two friends loved and protected each other no matter the situation, they fought anyone that was an obstacle, they were ready to risk everything in the name of their friendship. Two friends who understand each other without any judgment. That friendship is, for sure, one of the strongest points (the strongest?) of Sassy Go Go. It almost stole the light of the drama (or maybe it did in the end?)  

Let’s put the context in place. We have a notably well noted high school, Sevit High School, where faces two clubs: the Real King club and the Beak Ho Club. 

The first is headed by Kang Yun Doo (Jung Eun-ji) and Kim Yul (Lee Won Geun) is the latter’s president. Nothing differentiated the two clubs in itself except Real King counts the worse students of the school while Beak Ho is composed by the elite, the pick of the bunch, la crème de la crème. More differences and you die. Beak Ho is all about studying, Real King club is passionate by dance. If they can’t study at least they can dance. But for the scheming director of the school, Choi Gyung Ran (Park Hae-mi), dancing never gives any school a good reputation. Count on her to constantly try to disband the club. But the director’s determination is equal to Kang Yun Doo’s strength of mind. She’s uncompromising, can’t stand injustice, and always act before thinking. It’s her mark trend. It’s Kim Yul’s perfect contraire. Ranked first in the whole school, Kim Yul is mature, rational, prudent and very conscious of this world’s reality. On paper nothing should have made the two clubs and our leads dealing with each other, but call it fate, call it magic, call it skulduggeries they will all end up in one club: the first cheerleader club of Sevit High School!

Kwon Soo Ah (Chae Soo-bin) is at the source of this forced reunion. Well it’s more her mother’s plan, Choi Hyun-mi (Go Soo-hee) than hers.  Kwon Soo Ah’s mother is one of those crazy mothers who idolize the first place as a divinity. They push their kids to their limits, create monsters (and Kwon Soo Ah is one of them), thirsty for success and ready to do everything and to destroy any one. It’s creepy and very scary if you ask me. Competition is fierce and in order to get credits that will help her daughter to attend a prestigious university in the US, Choi Hyun-mi, with the complicity of the director (integrity is dead), created the cheerleading club. The more her daughter will gather credits, the bigger she chances will be to be accepted by a famous university. If she has to be a clown, she’ll be one, if she has to be a trapeze artist, she’ll the best out there. Lucky Kwon Soo Ah, it’s only cheerleading. One or two jumps never killed anyone. Ingenious mother. And since both Kang Yun Doo and Kim Yul have serious reasons to join the club (blackmail always works. Take notes people), things are quickly settle. 

So here we are, a brand new club with ten desperate members, a not so concerned cheerleading coach, Nam Jung Ah (Lee Mi Do) to teach the kids and an outcast professor, Yang Tae Bum (Kim Ji Suk) to supervise the group. Cheer up, everyone, here comes the fun!

Naturally the club will face difficulties, injustices, hardships, scandals, treasons, doubts but will also learn love, friendship, loyalty, value of life, to stand for what they believe in. I took Sassy Go Go for what it was: an enjoyable drama with no pretention. We’re far from a serious project but we can’t throw everything away either. I started with one the strongest point of the drama (Kim Yul and Seo Ha-Joon’s bromance) but the love line between Kang Yun Doo and Kim Yul was another cute element.

Nothing original in how they got connected, fought and eventually fell in love, but what could we expect from a quite predictable drama? At least they were adorable and that’s enough for me. Most of the events were déjà vu but again the drama was light, no headaches, so I won’t complain. Buuuut since we’re I started with complains…: drama did you have to make Seo Ha Joon fall for the Kang Yun Doo? I really really hate when two friends or two brothers fight for the same girl. It’s disturbing and not healthy! Don’t try to suddenly play with the big boys. Heavy melos, it’s the next door. I'm not sure I liked Kan Yun Doo’s mother, Kim Yeo-jin (Park Sun-young) and Kim Yul’s dad, Kim Byung-jae (Choi Duk Moon) being a couple. That love line didn’t raise much emotion in me. So I’m gonna pass that one. I’d have loved to see Kim Yul and his father having more scenes together though. Yes they settled things in the end but it was rushed, too bad. I still feel like complaining: So many times, I wanted to slap that awful human being, I named Seo Ha Joon’s father (Jo Won Hee). Abject, hateful emotionless, he’s the worse thing that can happen to a child. He’s a perfect match with Kwon Soo Ah’s mom. After thousand beatings, punches and slaps, Seo Ha Joon dared to face that father he always feared. He stood for his friends, the club and mostly what that club represents. Of course it was a first step, but it was a significant victory for that troubled kid. 

Talking about troubled kids, I can’t skip Kwon Soo Ah. She’s the villain, the monster who caused everyone’s misfortune. I went through mixed feelings with her: I hated her, then tried to understand her actions but I ended up hating her more. But the truth is Kwon Soo Ah is a pitiful child. She’s been manipulated, influenced, programmed by her mother to be a despicable girl. She didn’t give her a chance to live a normal high school’s life, to make true friends, to live memorable moments. The pressure was so high, Kwon Soo Ah could only turned into a detestable student, depraved of humanity.  

Some would say the drama was cheesy. Yes it was in some ways, but I’ve seen stupidest dramas. The first episode gave the ton of the drama, so no surprise all through the 16 episodes. It’s not the drama of the year but it’s not the worse thing ever. If you have 16 hours before you and you want something light and cute, just go for it. Sometimes, that’s all you need.   

THE VILLAGE: ACHIARA'S SECRET

"I swear we should avoid secrets between us."

I rather go live on a deserted island than taking my own two feet to Achiara. That village isn’t exactly what I’d call friendly. Of course, Han So-Yoon (Moon Geun-Young) isn’t aware of that when she decides to leave Canada to live there. Her grandma just committed suicide and despite her pain Han So-yoon is determinate to find out the truth behind the newspaper clipping she found in her grandma’s stuff. That newspaper clipping refers to that terrible car accident that took her parents’ lives and separates her from her older sister twenty years ago. And Achiara is clearly mentioned in the clipping. She has to go. If she can fin her missing   unni, it will be a chance to start anew with her and to catch up the time. Han So-Yoon isn’t sure of anything but the truth she will eventually unveil is sadder than anything she could ever imagine.

Everyone knows everyone Achiara, so when Han So-Yoon, the new English teacher shows up all habitants are curious. She becomes the centre of attention nut rapidly her arrival will lost interest. Indeed when Han So-Yoon will accidentally discover a buried body in the forest that tragic discovery will feed all the conversations and rumors. It’s a shock for that peaceful village. Nothing so terrible ever happened. How to deal with that horrible discovery? Achiara’s people seem to have found a solution: to stay silent no matter what. But despite this code of silence, quickly two important questions will find their answers. First: Han So-yoon’s sister, that foster sister she lost after the car accident is named Kim Hye-jin (Jang Hee-jin).

She lived in Achiara but disappeared without any trace two years ago. No one in the village reported her as missing. Secondly: the buried body is no other than the missing Kim Hye-jin. 

Han So-Yoon is now more than determinate to found who killed her unni and in which circumstances. The village is in effervescence and the local police station, that consist of inspector Han (Kim Min-jae) and the young Officer Park Woo-jae (Yook Sung-jae), is even more on alert. It’s the first time they have to deal with a murder. It’s big case but they are confident: they will resolve that murder! 

The problem with that kind of peaceful village, where nothing ever happens, is there’s more than what we actually see. The more you dig, the more secrets are terrible. When everyone’s mouth is sealed and every little secret is protected like a treasure, it’s even more complicated to investigate. But Han So-yoon and the enthusiastic Officer Park Woo-jae are not the kind to give up. Like them, let’s logically start with the motives. That first lead will guide them to the richest and most powerful family of the village: Seo Chang-Kwon’s (Jung Sung-mo) family.

He’s a shady congressman who dreams of building a tourist complex in Achiara. He had an affair with the victim, Kim Hye-jin and in those classic cases scenario, the first suspect is the scorned woman, I named Yoon Ji-sook (Shin Eun-Hyunk). She grew up poor with her mother and little sister Kang Joo-hee (Jang So-yeon), the pharmacist of the village and married to that rich family. Yoon Ji-sook, is distinguished, elegant but also conniving and cold. She knows exactly what she want and how to obtain it. Yes she had a good motive to kill her her husband’s mistress, yes they fought because of that but she swears to God she didn’t killed. 

Sure, but even her 12 years old daughter, Seo Yoo-na (Ahn Seo-hyun) seem to have her doubts. Seo Yoo-na was close to her painting teacher to the point of annoying her mother. Apparently the girl hasn’t get over it. And since we’re talking about that family we can’t ignore Seo Gi-hyun (On Joo-won), the oldest son of the family who’s back in the village after few years in USA. He’s officially back to take on the business but is he really as innocent as he pretends? Does he really have nothing to do with the village’s life and Kim Hye-jin’s death? He’s ready to do anything for Yoon Ji-sook that step-mother who raised him like her own son, what’s really there relationship?

When a cross-dresser starts to make appearances in the village’s streets at night, will open new lead to Han So-yoon and the police. He must be involved in the murder. But can we possibly forget about the other leads? The pharmacist is having an affair with Nam Gun-woo (Park Eun-seok). The latter happens to be Han So-yoon’s colleague and a friend of the dead Kim Hye-jin, so what the pharmacist, who has conflicts relation with her sister and Nam Gun-woo are plotting? What about that student Ga-young (Lee Yeol-eum), who follows Nam Gun-woo everywhere and seems to know more than what she says? And what about her mom, Gyung-Soon (Woo Hyun-zoo), who obviously hides some important info? Can I even skip Kim Hye-jin’s mother who showed up several day after the identification, why wait so long? Han So-yoon and Officer Park Woo-jae will put pieces together and lift the veil on multiple painful and terrible secrets to find out the whole truth behind Kim Hye-jin’s murder.

I couldn’t help thinking of Broadchurch (the British series) while watching The Village: Achiara’s Secret. A small place where everyone knows everyone (seems to know) and everyone loves everyone (at least in appearances), confronted to a horrible crime. Both series had the same ingredients and used the same formula. Considering the fact I loved Broadchurch I was ready to feel the same passion about The Village but my excitement faded rapidly. Yes the first four episodes got me hooked. I was on the verge of my couch wondering what will happen and asking myself the same questions as Han So-yoon. But then the drama started to lose his cruising speed and became slower and slower, both in the development and the intrigue. Some of the clues were leaded us in multiple directions which isn’t bad since we’re dealing with a thriller you have to make people confused and curious. But instead of serving the drama, those multiple directions became a disadvantaged. I, sometimes, got lost in the explanations and the how did we get there? That said, I like the web built around Kim Hye-jin’s death and the fact that it touched most of the village. It could have been each and everyone at the same time. And that’s how a mystery should work.

The veritable character that really stand out for me, is Yoon Ji-sook. Shin Eun-Hyunk. She deserves all the praises here. She was astonish, fantastic in this role. She always had the right expressions, the right looks. In turn the humiliated woman who fights till the end, the daughter-in-law, ready to do anything to please her dissatisfied mother-in-law, the loving mother, the carin step-mother or the monster desperate to maintain appearances of a happy family, she was right in all her roles.

Yoon Ji-sook loves her family, that’s for sure, but she probably loves her comfort and social status even more. She was a complex and interesting character she brilliantly portrayed by Shin Eun-Hyunk.

The Village: Achiara’s Secret fell in his own trap: slowness. When you have a plot material that can easily fit in 12 episodes (or even less) it’s hard to reach the 16^th episode without being redundant or repetitive. For me The Village lost his magic somewhere along the way, precisely because of that. I just found myself wanting to know the culprit more than following the development. I was like: just give me a name already! Too bad drama, you had it in the beginning. The Village: Achiara’s Secret isn’t completely a loss for me, more a frustration.