The Newest Thing: Park Shi Hoo

[jaydk]

After watching the Princess’ Man, I really liked Park Shi Hoo.  I wasn’t in love with his character but I really really loved watching him.  So I started making my way through his old series, which has been a pretty fun.

Comments

[alexandral]

Family Honour was one of my favorites way back then, and I still love it. What a chemistry between the two leads! I am still sometimes re-watching it because - Park Shi Hoo and Yoon Jung Hee are just breathtaking together.. I liked it all the way, though, I LOVED the dating game (one of my favourite tropes), I thought all that stuff with Park Shi Hoo crying in the snow and saying things like "my heart is breaking but she doesn't care for me" to his friend was delicious!

I am usually not the one for the "second stage" of romance (after protagonists' confess to each other) , so as for you, the last 1/3 of "Family Honour" is my least favourite. It helped me that I also liked the other couples in the story, particular the young admirer of Dan Ah and Kang Suk's sister (but I also liked the cop lady/silly brother and the cleaning lady/serious brother), so I switched onto those couples.. I actually liked everyone in that drama for some reason, especially all Dan Ah's family and I don't usually like Kdrama parental figures at all. But here - I LOVE THE DRANDAD. LOVED HIM.

One thing I definitely liked in the last third that after they "confessed to each other" it was Dan Ah who was always wavering when their families were making obstacles, and Kang Suk "stayed strong". So , in this case, I would disagree with your assessment: I thought Dan Ah always had the strong side in the relationship and Kang Suk was always the one who had to adjust/sort himself/his family out! I thought that the main conflict was that Dan Dah didn't "agree with his moral qualities" so to speak, even though she felt drawn to him. He had to prove it to her that he "changed" which took a long time..
It is probably my biggest trope in any fiction - when the girl changes the guy!

And I liked it that Dan Ah "she said yes to his proposal and good bye to her dead husband in like a single episode" because I liked her strength and integrity - she was just that kind of person that once she decided Kang Suk is worthy of her, she gave herself fully!

I also liked PSH in "Iljimae". Although her "doesn't get the girl" in this one, he is absolutely delicious there (see the icon!).

For me "A perfect Neighbor" fas .. okey (but PSH is insanely hot there) and I quite liked "Prosecutor princess" with some reservations!

[jaydk]

Yeah, I want to rewatch Family Honor at least once more. The chemistry between PSH and Yoon Jung Hee was so wonderfully intense -- all those heated looks! Yummy. And I loved that they were both such strong, well-defined characters -- it added so much to their romance. I also loved that there was no secondary girl -- Kang Suk was all Dan Ah, all the way. And more than I can say, I loved that Dan Ah was an intelligent, successful, beautiful woman with a good career and loving family, not some total mess who couldn't hold down a job or dress herself attractively until Mr. Perfect rolled in the door -- now THAT was a refreshing change. I loved that when Kang Suk's kind of greasy, shallow friends met Dan Ah, they thought Kang Suk was dating outside his league!

I didn't like the fake dating because it made things too easy for Kang Suk -- I liked him struggling to come up with reasons to be around Dan Ah. But that broken confession to his hyung was great. I also loved when Kang Suk conned Dan Ah into making dinner for him, and was so thrilled by it, but then ruined it for himself by asking if she'd never wanted to have a life that that, cooking for her husband, and she answered that she had, but it didn't work out. And when he took her home, all his frustration came out with something like "You come to my friends' parties. You cook a meal for me when I ask you to. You do everything I want, but you never come one inch closer to me." It was such a devastating confession -- that he could get everything he wanted except what he really wanted. And her defense was all his own statements about how this was just a game that didn't mean anything. It was so fun watching Kang Suk struggle in the trap he'd built for himself!

My problem with the last conflict between them was that it wasn't about Dan Ah making the decision to let of her husband and come to Kang Suk, which I was really invested in, but about Kang Suk letting go of his plans to steal her family's company. At some point the dynamic changed and she was the one who was waiting for him, rather than the other way around, which was not the ride I signed up for, so to speak. All he ended up having to do was come to her and tell her he genuinely wanted to be with her. She wasn't demanding that he change or even that he stop stealing her family's company, in fact, she offered to keep seeing him in secret. He was the one who was like, "No, you make me want to live like a human being, not an animal; I want live rightly and fix everything so I can get your family's approval for our marriage." I guess my disappointment was that Dan Ah letting go of her first husband wasn't the critical turning point and felt almost like an afterthought. Kang Suk's choice was the big moment, not hers.

I've barely touched on the other characters, but I really adored almost all of them, especially the Ha family. Even the silly younger brother, whom I thought was going to be just annoying, turned out to be so touching and one of my favorites, and I loved watching the serious older twin melt like an iceberg. And the step-mother and the way she took charge like she was born to it -- she was beyond awesome! And the grandpa and his great-grandson -- I cried when that little kid prayed all night to the ancestors after Dan Ah was stabbed, that totally got me good! Darn you emotionally manipulative kdrama! And I loved that even Kang Suk's crass, greedy, oblivious parents had good reasons why they were that way, that their behavior was driven by pain and rage against what being poor had cost them. Kang Suk truly loved them, so the stakes were high when Kang Suk finally refused to follow their way of life. Family Honor was so good -- I could obviously go on forever!

That icon does make Iljimae tempting. But I just can't watch another series when I'm cheering for the guaranteed to lose guy -- I'll end up hating the first lead whether he deserve it or not. Now, "insanely hot" you say re: "A Perfect Neighbor"? That's definitely a good way to pique my interest!