Lovers: how awesome you are
In between everything else, I’ve continued with my watch of Lovers and I love it more and more.
One of the things I adore the most about dramas is that often (not always, but often), the dramas deal with men. No, I have not traded my feminist badge. What I mean is ‘men’ as opposed to ‘boys.’ Even if they aren’t men at the start of the story, more often than not they end up men at the end. A drama like Meteor Garden/Hanadan or Delightful Girl Chun-Hyang or Return of the Condor Heroes is as much about the male lead growing up as it is about anything else, love included. That is a huge difference to a lot of Western shows and movies where men in their forties are supposed to behave like immature teens and women are supposed to find it attractive. Newsflash: I do not. Fun loving is not the same as immature.
And Lovers is yes, a drama where both protagonists are grown up. Kang Jae and Mi Joo are an adult man and woman even at the start, and I cannot even begin telling you how attractive it is.
I love their interactions: they are fun and biting without spite, if that makes any sense. There is banter, no blood drawn. It’s clear, however subtly, four episodes in, that Mi Joo is drawn to Kang Jae. If you think about it, he is a total catnip and the progression is delightfully gradual. She first notices him completely randomly and she mentions he is good-looking (‘black suit, dimples’) and well-off. I love that this drama makes no bones about the fact that Mi Joo craves stability money brings. In that way she is like Yu Rin from My Girl or Chun-Hyang from DGCH, in that it’s important to her, but she won’t destroy herself for it nor is she weak (one thing that drove me crazy about the heroine of Bali was her constant waffling and inability to have a will of her own).
And then she finds out he can be patient and kind (she mistakes him for a deadbeat bf of a friend and goes after him, but he is patient and actually scares the bf straight for her).
And then she finds out he can be very dedicated to his gf (KJ’s ex lives next door and he’s been trying to get her back. More on her below).
Later she finds out that he is dangerous (when he gets stabbed in a mob thing in front of him) but at the same time it not only shows his danger-zone but his care. I think it really says a lot about Kang Jae, and sums up why despite his profession he is redeemable and why Mi Joo isn’t completely nuts to check him out, that even though he is stabbed (badly enough to die, especially since he is a diabetic) his first priority is to check she is ok.
And then icing on the cake is he shows vulnerability in the conversation with her by the fire.
That’s the thing about Kang Jae. You don’t get the sense he is a bad person, but he makes no bones about what he does. In some ways, that was the best outcome for him: he tells Mi Joo (after he’s had a conversation about God with her Dad) that if God cares so much, why did he make him an orphan (and so his reluctance to take over the land which has an orphanage on it is explained) and then mentions he ran away when he was 16 or he would have killed the ‘benevolent’ person who ran the place. The mob boss basically picked him up. At least this way, Kang Jae channeled his brain and aggression into something more or less organized.
And the thing is, KJ slowly likes her too, even though he doesn’t realize it yet. He apologizes to her for not saying goodbye after he left after the surgery, he is kinda little-boy-aw-shucks on the plane when he happens to sit next to her, he is totally jealous when he finds out the bf she was going to is the mob boss’s son etc.
I think he has fun with her. His gf is a very nice woman, who temporarily dropped him because he didn’t want to marry or have kids, but she isn’t fun, probably because he would be a stressful bf to have. Mi Joo is both very pragmatic and can take care of herself (I love how she socks it in to her boss after she is fired, and hey she saved his life) and is not fixated on family (she wants to continue being a doctor though she has an aversion to life-and-death situations, I wonder what happened) and there is a certain wise innocence to her (yeah, I know contradiction) that is irresistible.
When she walks out of the wannabe bf’s house on an island and asks KJ to drop her off, she asks him for advance on land he was going to buy in paying her for a hotel room because she was going to go straight to the airport but she thought when will she ever be in a place with this many palm trees, and mentions it’s her first vacation, it’s just…you want to hug her, the matter of fact way she puts it and…seriously, I am girlcrushing. There is no self-pity, but a bit of wry amusement and matter of factness. And hey, Kang Jae is totally melting a bit. It’s just like her attitude he is a mob boss. She is not glamorized, cowed, anything.
I think in some ways, what Kang Jae wants most is to belong, because of his background. That is why he tries to create a quasi-family. The way he treats his second in command is in huge contrast with his rival guy.
And that’s where mob boss’s son comes in. For complicated reasons, he ends up liking Mi Joo but I think only now will chase her in earnest because he thinks it’s who KJ wants. There is jealousy there, on the son’s part, because he perceives that his father trusts and likes KJ better than him, his own son (there is a very telling flashback). I don’t think he is capable of differentiating between love and recognizing someone’s capability. In a way, what he wants is also acceptance. But it also must gall because KJ is a man and mob boss’s son? No so much.
It doesn’t hurt that LSJ is so incredibly hot in this drama I randomly space out. And doesn’t he have the most gorgeous hands?
In conclusion, here is an awesome Lovers mv:
And now I am off to do replies.
One of the things I adore the most about dramas is that often (not always, but often), the dramas deal with men. No, I have not traded my feminist badge. What I mean is ‘men’ as opposed to ‘boys.’ Even if they aren’t men at the start of the story, more often than not they end up men at the end. A drama like Meteor Garden/Hanadan or Delightful Girl Chun-Hyang or Return of the Condor Heroes is as much about the male lead growing up as it is about anything else, love included. That is a huge difference to a lot of Western shows and movies where men in their forties are supposed to behave like immature teens and women are supposed to find it attractive. Newsflash: I do not. Fun loving is not the same as immature.
And Lovers is yes, a drama where both protagonists are grown up. Kang Jae and Mi Joo are an adult man and woman even at the start, and I cannot even begin telling you how attractive it is.
I love their interactions: they are fun and biting without spite, if that makes any sense. There is banter, no blood drawn. It’s clear, however subtly, four episodes in, that Mi Joo is drawn to Kang Jae. If you think about it, he is a total catnip and the progression is delightfully gradual. She first notices him completely randomly and she mentions he is good-looking (‘black suit, dimples’) and well-off. I love that this drama makes no bones about the fact that Mi Joo craves stability money brings. In that way she is like Yu Rin from My Girl or Chun-Hyang from DGCH, in that it’s important to her, but she won’t destroy herself for it nor is she weak (one thing that drove me crazy about the heroine of Bali was her constant waffling and inability to have a will of her own).
And then she finds out he can be patient and kind (she mistakes him for a deadbeat bf of a friend and goes after him, but he is patient and actually scares the bf straight for her).
And then she finds out he can be very dedicated to his gf (KJ’s ex lives next door and he’s been trying to get her back. More on her below).
Later she finds out that he is dangerous (when he gets stabbed in a mob thing in front of him) but at the same time it not only shows his danger-zone but his care. I think it really says a lot about Kang Jae, and sums up why despite his profession he is redeemable and why Mi Joo isn’t completely nuts to check him out, that even though he is stabbed (badly enough to die, especially since he is a diabetic) his first priority is to check she is ok.
And then icing on the cake is he shows vulnerability in the conversation with her by the fire.
That’s the thing about Kang Jae. You don’t get the sense he is a bad person, but he makes no bones about what he does. In some ways, that was the best outcome for him: he tells Mi Joo (after he’s had a conversation about God with her Dad) that if God cares so much, why did he make him an orphan (and so his reluctance to take over the land which has an orphanage on it is explained) and then mentions he ran away when he was 16 or he would have killed the ‘benevolent’ person who ran the place. The mob boss basically picked him up. At least this way, Kang Jae channeled his brain and aggression into something more or less organized.
And the thing is, KJ slowly likes her too, even though he doesn’t realize it yet. He apologizes to her for not saying goodbye after he left after the surgery, he is kinda little-boy-aw-shucks on the plane when he happens to sit next to her, he is totally jealous when he finds out the bf she was going to is the mob boss’s son etc.
I think he has fun with her. His gf is a very nice woman, who temporarily dropped him because he didn’t want to marry or have kids, but she isn’t fun, probably because he would be a stressful bf to have. Mi Joo is both very pragmatic and can take care of herself (I love how she socks it in to her boss after she is fired, and hey she saved his life) and is not fixated on family (she wants to continue being a doctor though she has an aversion to life-and-death situations, I wonder what happened) and there is a certain wise innocence to her (yeah, I know contradiction) that is irresistible.
When she walks out of the wannabe bf’s house on an island and asks KJ to drop her off, she asks him for advance on land he was going to buy in paying her for a hotel room because she was going to go straight to the airport but she thought when will she ever be in a place with this many palm trees, and mentions it’s her first vacation, it’s just…you want to hug her, the matter of fact way she puts it and…seriously, I am girlcrushing. There is no self-pity, but a bit of wry amusement and matter of factness. And hey, Kang Jae is totally melting a bit. It’s just like her attitude he is a mob boss. She is not glamorized, cowed, anything.
I think in some ways, what Kang Jae wants most is to belong, because of his background. That is why he tries to create a quasi-family. The way he treats his second in command is in huge contrast with his rival guy.
And that’s where mob boss’s son comes in. For complicated reasons, he ends up liking Mi Joo but I think only now will chase her in earnest because he thinks it’s who KJ wants. There is jealousy there, on the son’s part, because he perceives that his father trusts and likes KJ better than him, his own son (there is a very telling flashback). I don’t think he is capable of differentiating between love and recognizing someone’s capability. In a way, what he wants is also acceptance. But it also must gall because KJ is a man and mob boss’s son? No so much.
It doesn’t hurt that LSJ is so incredibly hot in this drama I randomly space out. And doesn’t he have the most gorgeous hands?
In conclusion, here is an awesome Lovers mv:
Click to viewAnd now I am off to do replies.