Yes, I'm still watching Korean Dramas
Dearest friends,
So this is going to be my first post dedicated to a particular Korean Drama, but don't be fooled into thinking it's the last. All of my fan-girl feelings have to go somewhere, and I really enjoy these conversations I pretend to have with you all.
What I want to tell you about is a drama called City Hunter, which is arguably the most accessible Korean drama I’ve seen yet. It's a gateway drama, whose only fault may be that it is so good many of you will be concerned that nothing else can possibly top it.
When trying to describe this drama, I often say something like, if Robin Hood was raised in Thailand by the Count of Monte Cristo to get revenge on the people who conspired the murder of his father and then returned, like Diego de la Vega (Zorro), to Korea with an alter ego part Bruce Wayne part Clark Kent and then followed his own non lethal revenge...you might get something like City Hunter. However, usually people are so confused by the sheer number of references I've tried to fit into one sentence that I have to start over.
You see, there were these two friends who were secret service agents, and after an assassination attempt by North Korea on the President of South Korea, these two agents were asked by five very prominent Korean officials to form a team of 21 men and take out certain North Korean generals in a secret covert mission. You immediately know something is going to go wrong because Edmund Dantes, er, Jin Pyo, says to his BFF, “Your wife just had a baby, you should sit this one out.” But the friend of course doesn't listen. So while they're out being badasses, our Group of Five get some bad news, if there is any retaliation for the assassination attempt, the US of A is going to deny them all military aid. The only thing left to do is to cover up their crime, and by cover it up, I mean send a dude out to the submarine that is supposed to pick up our secret agents and have him gun them down in the water. Jin Pyo is the lone survivor thanks to the selflessness of his BFF. By way of thanking his friend for his kindness, he honors his dying request to take care of his wife and the baby by going back to Korea, kidnapping the infant child, and taking him to Thailand. Jin Pyo also follows the logical course of becoming a rich ruthless drug lord who forces the poor motherless hero to learn all the martial arts, as well as how to shoot a gun, set land mines around your house, and other skills every growing boy should have. Somehow though, this kid is not too severely scarred, probably in thanks to his surrogate mother and the fact that everyone is nice to him because of his super terrifying step daddy, known as The General. I guess I should mention at this point that his name is Yoon Sung, although he goes by a variety of other names as well. There's a lot more to his upbringing, a full episodes worth in fact, but the main thing is that his step daddy, for all his scariness, does at one point save our hero from getting landmined and in the process loses his leg. If there was ever any doubt that Yoon Sung would step it up and take over the take down of the Group of Five, it ended that day. As you may have guessed, Step -Daddy and son have a very deep, strange, twisted relationship. Which gives us one of our main themes, say it with me, “Daddy Issues.” These get a lot more intense when Yoon Sung goes to Korea, and Daddy discovers the one thing he was never able to teach his son, how to kill. Revenge, is dish best served with a healthy dose of humiliation, glazed in dishonor, and garnished with a lifetime in prison. Kids these days just don't appreciate the simple things.
Now what I've just outlined is the backbone of a pretty awesome story. You don't really need that much more. It's got conflict, it's got momentum, it's got character development, it's got heart. But let me tell you, the awesome doesn't stop there. The creators of the show obviously thought to themselves, this sounds like a super serious show. But wouldn't it be nice if it was a little more like Robin Hood, you know, had a sense of humor and a cast of interesting characters to help humanize our hero and really give depth to his conviction that there is more to life than revenge. Wouldn't his struggle to not become a tool of his father's be more convincing if we could see what that would mean for him?
Enter Kim Nana, a young woman living on her own in a home that is about to be repossessed because all her money from all her odd jobs has been going to keeping her dad on life support...for the past ten years. Poor thing. Except, not really. She's a level four Judo practitioner who's not afraid to flip a dude on his back for being aggressive or an asshole. She doesn't ask for pity or help from anyone, and oh yeah, she just started her job as a body guard at Blue House and will be guarding the President's immature daughter and perhaps one day the President (a member of the Group of Five). She also has some mysterious connection to Yoon Sung's only friend, a chef with crazy hair that Yoon Sung once saved from gangsters in Thailand. Naturally Yoon Sung is also working at Blue House, only as a tech geek. Kim Nana does not know what to make of Yoon Sung, which is partially because Yoon Sung has serious trouble committing to his alter identity. He's smitten with Kim Nana pretty early on, and given that he spent his formative years surrounded by hardened drug dealers and later worked on his "playboy" moves as a way cover up his real motives, he doesn't know how to have things like normal conversations. He jumps back and forth between playboy aloof, earnestness, and verbal diarrhea so often that poor Kim Nana really doesn't know if she wants to beat him up or kiss him. Basically, it's the best thing ever. It's like a romantic comedy keeps sneaking into the Count of Monte Cristo. And I don't even have to worry that she won't get to play a significant role in the action and revenge plots because she can take care of herself, she has a secret connection to one of the Group of Five, she will literally run in front of any bullet aimed at the President, and she's not stupid. Thank you TV gods for providing me with a non stupid love interest. This must be how you are repaying me for all those seasons of Merlin.
And finally, I get to tell you about Young Ju, the most awesome prosecutor in the world. He's the love child of Harvey Dent, Commissioner Gordon and Lois Lane. He will catch this vigilante who goes around exposing corrupt politicians. It is the law that should be bringing these men to justice, not some masked asshole with pretty impressive hacking skills. And why does the vigilante keep dropping off the politicians on his doorstep with a note on them saying, “Dearest Young Ju, I think you're the best. If you love me, make sure these guys spend the rest of their days in prison, hugs and kisses, City Hunter. “ Young Ju also seems to have a thing for Kim Nana and Young Ju's daddy is also one of the Group of Five. Oh Daddy Issues. Things are going to get messy. The best part about this guy though is just how smart he is. In one scene Yoon Sung provides Young Ju with his alibi. It takes Young Ju all of five seconds to crack it. I wanted to kiss him.
This drama gave me everything I ever wanted-a good story, a fast moving plot, smart and capable characters, daddy issues, heists, schemes, dramatic showdowns, heroes who get badly injured and don't magically recover in the next scene, believable romantic sub plots, and a sense of humor. Where was the last time you saw all those elements in one story. Carolyn nailed that one when she said Avatar the Last Airbender. So friends, put your prejudices aside and watch this show. It's for your own good.
I rest my case.
So this is going to be my first post dedicated to a particular Korean Drama, but don't be fooled into thinking it's the last. All of my fan-girl feelings have to go somewhere, and I really enjoy these conversations I pretend to have with you all.
What I want to tell you about is a drama called City Hunter, which is arguably the most accessible Korean drama I’ve seen yet. It's a gateway drama, whose only fault may be that it is so good many of you will be concerned that nothing else can possibly top it.
When trying to describe this drama, I often say something like, if Robin Hood was raised in Thailand by the Count of Monte Cristo to get revenge on the people who conspired the murder of his father and then returned, like Diego de la Vega (Zorro), to Korea with an alter ego part Bruce Wayne part Clark Kent and then followed his own non lethal revenge...you might get something like City Hunter. However, usually people are so confused by the sheer number of references I've tried to fit into one sentence that I have to start over.
You see, there were these two friends who were secret service agents, and after an assassination attempt by North Korea on the President of South Korea, these two agents were asked by five very prominent Korean officials to form a team of 21 men and take out certain North Korean generals in a secret covert mission. You immediately know something is going to go wrong because Edmund Dantes, er, Jin Pyo, says to his BFF, “Your wife just had a baby, you should sit this one out.” But the friend of course doesn't listen. So while they're out being badasses, our Group of Five get some bad news, if there is any retaliation for the assassination attempt, the US of A is going to deny them all military aid. The only thing left to do is to cover up their crime, and by cover it up, I mean send a dude out to the submarine that is supposed to pick up our secret agents and have him gun them down in the water. Jin Pyo is the lone survivor thanks to the selflessness of his BFF. By way of thanking his friend for his kindness, he honors his dying request to take care of his wife and the baby by going back to Korea, kidnapping the infant child, and taking him to Thailand. Jin Pyo also follows the logical course of becoming a rich ruthless drug lord who forces the poor motherless hero to learn all the martial arts, as well as how to shoot a gun, set land mines around your house, and other skills every growing boy should have. Somehow though, this kid is not too severely scarred, probably in thanks to his surrogate mother and the fact that everyone is nice to him because of his super terrifying step daddy, known as The General. I guess I should mention at this point that his name is Yoon Sung, although he goes by a variety of other names as well. There's a lot more to his upbringing, a full episodes worth in fact, but the main thing is that his step daddy, for all his scariness, does at one point save our hero from getting landmined and in the process loses his leg. If there was ever any doubt that Yoon Sung would step it up and take over the take down of the Group of Five, it ended that day. As you may have guessed, Step -Daddy and son have a very deep, strange, twisted relationship. Which gives us one of our main themes, say it with me, “Daddy Issues.” These get a lot more intense when Yoon Sung goes to Korea, and Daddy discovers the one thing he was never able to teach his son, how to kill. Revenge, is dish best served with a healthy dose of humiliation, glazed in dishonor, and garnished with a lifetime in prison. Kids these days just don't appreciate the simple things.
Now what I've just outlined is the backbone of a pretty awesome story. You don't really need that much more. It's got conflict, it's got momentum, it's got character development, it's got heart. But let me tell you, the awesome doesn't stop there. The creators of the show obviously thought to themselves, this sounds like a super serious show. But wouldn't it be nice if it was a little more like Robin Hood, you know, had a sense of humor and a cast of interesting characters to help humanize our hero and really give depth to his conviction that there is more to life than revenge. Wouldn't his struggle to not become a tool of his father's be more convincing if we could see what that would mean for him?
Enter Kim Nana, a young woman living on her own in a home that is about to be repossessed because all her money from all her odd jobs has been going to keeping her dad on life support...for the past ten years. Poor thing. Except, not really. She's a level four Judo practitioner who's not afraid to flip a dude on his back for being aggressive or an asshole. She doesn't ask for pity or help from anyone, and oh yeah, she just started her job as a body guard at Blue House and will be guarding the President's immature daughter and perhaps one day the President (a member of the Group of Five). She also has some mysterious connection to Yoon Sung's only friend, a chef with crazy hair that Yoon Sung once saved from gangsters in Thailand. Naturally Yoon Sung is also working at Blue House, only as a tech geek. Kim Nana does not know what to make of Yoon Sung, which is partially because Yoon Sung has serious trouble committing to his alter identity. He's smitten with Kim Nana pretty early on, and given that he spent his formative years surrounded by hardened drug dealers and later worked on his "playboy" moves as a way cover up his real motives, he doesn't know how to have things like normal conversations. He jumps back and forth between playboy aloof, earnestness, and verbal diarrhea so often that poor Kim Nana really doesn't know if she wants to beat him up or kiss him. Basically, it's the best thing ever. It's like a romantic comedy keeps sneaking into the Count of Monte Cristo. And I don't even have to worry that she won't get to play a significant role in the action and revenge plots because she can take care of herself, she has a secret connection to one of the Group of Five, she will literally run in front of any bullet aimed at the President, and she's not stupid. Thank you TV gods for providing me with a non stupid love interest. This must be how you are repaying me for all those seasons of Merlin.
And finally, I get to tell you about Young Ju, the most awesome prosecutor in the world. He's the love child of Harvey Dent, Commissioner Gordon and Lois Lane. He will catch this vigilante who goes around exposing corrupt politicians. It is the law that should be bringing these men to justice, not some masked asshole with pretty impressive hacking skills. And why does the vigilante keep dropping off the politicians on his doorstep with a note on them saying, “Dearest Young Ju, I think you're the best. If you love me, make sure these guys spend the rest of their days in prison, hugs and kisses, City Hunter. “ Young Ju also seems to have a thing for Kim Nana and Young Ju's daddy is also one of the Group of Five. Oh Daddy Issues. Things are going to get messy. The best part about this guy though is just how smart he is. In one scene Yoon Sung provides Young Ju with his alibi. It takes Young Ju all of five seconds to crack it. I wanted to kiss him.
This drama gave me everything I ever wanted-a good story, a fast moving plot, smart and capable characters, daddy issues, heists, schemes, dramatic showdowns, heroes who get badly injured and don't magically recover in the next scene, believable romantic sub plots, and a sense of humor. Where was the last time you saw all those elements in one story. Carolyn nailed that one when she said Avatar the Last Airbender. So friends, put your prejudices aside and watch this show. It's for your own good.
I rest my case.