Kim Sam Soon: a mixed bag
I have finished My Name is Kim Sam Soon.
Hmmmmmm.
I have decidedly mixed views on this drama. It was entertaining but not going anywhere near my Top 10.
Yes, I realize I risk being disowned by flist, but here it is.
LIKED:
Doctor Henry! OMG. Seriously. Not only is he hot and sweet and wonderful, but he wants to work with starving children in Africa (is it Medicin sans frontiers?) Oh God. And all that without being cloying.
Henry/Hee-Jin. YESSSSS! Seriously. She is all upset he is leaving for MSF and OMG OMG she wants to go with him and he kissed her!!!!! And OMG, Henry/Hee-Jin, awesome together and will be going to Africa together once she gets her degree. YES. They are perfect. I ended up profoundly not caring about Jin-Heon/Sam-Soon, but Henry/Hee-Jin more than satisfied any OTP cravings I had.
The Chef and the Older Sister. So funny.
Sam-Soon's mother really amused me.
Hyun Bin's acting in his quiet moments. I can see why they thought to cast him in Snow Queen. He is OK in the loud, comedy scenes, but it's in the wordless, still ones where he really shines.
Hee-Jin. I have rarely liked 'the other girl' in a quadrangle. But forget 'like.' I ended up loving Hee-Jin. Which is more than I can say for Sam-Soon.
Which brings me to:
DISLIKED
Sam-Soon, Sam-Soon, Sam-Soon. Someone on my flist didn't like her (who was it?) and I totally agree. I ended up not liking her at all. I mean, I didn't hate her or anything, but she irritated the heck out of me. That is rather unusual, as normally I adore kdrama heroines, and often prefer them even to male leads. I couldn't identify with SS at all, but more importantly, I didn't like her. Part of it is her age. I am a lot more forgiving of someone being silly and immature at 19, than someone being silly and immature at 30.
Also, it's the constant surprised, puzzled, and 'what is going on' expression on her face. It didn't make her look smart. In fact, I ended up thinking she is a bit of a slow thinker, and somewhat dim. Now, I don't need my heroine to be a Nobel Prize winner (I adore Chae-Gyung in Goong, and she is not the sharpest knife in the drawer) but it helps.
She was also vaccilating, high-maintenance, and rather rude. Not in an endearing fashion but in a 'come on, you are old enough, behave' fashion. The whole scene with misdirected postcards and her treatment of Jin-Heon? If I was supposed to be on her side, it failed. The usual puzzled expression didn't help.
But the thing that I think really put the nail in the 'liking Sam-Soon' coffin (up until that point, I was somewhere in between indifferent and mild like, but not after that) was when she became that loathsome type of woman who is OK with dating someone who has a GF. When she told Jin-Heon she'll sleep with him when she loses some weight (WTF? that was so stupid of her, God, she is a nutter) and appeared OK with dating him, instead of telling him no sex and no dating until he breaks up with Hee-Jin? I lost any like, respect and even tolerance for her. She didn't even mention it to him! It worked out eventually because Jin-Heon didn't want to two-time, but that is no thanks to her. Seriously, ugh. After that scene...she was fictionally dead to me.
Jin-Heon didn't emerge unscathed from the above either. I ended up not caring for them both, especially when you add in his immaturity and her silliness.
But Hyun Bin is a better actor than the lady who plays SS (who is she?) so I think I ended up liking him more sheerly because of that.
Oh, also: the attitude to love was not one I approve. The whole 'you love someone for a bit, the shine comes off you move on, ad nauseam?' Nope. Sorry. According to this logic, everyone should be marrying serially, a la Elizabeth Taylor. You have a relationship, and you work on it, and you keep loving. I love my husband more now than when I met him almost eight years ago. My grandparents have been married for almost 60 years and still love each other etc etc. I wouldn't mind so much if the drama presented it as merely Hee-Jin's mistaken view of what broke up her relationship with Jin-Heon (after all, in reality, there wouldn't have been room for separation if she didn't leave and they grew apart) but the drama itself seemed to endorse that view. And Sam-Soon at the end? In the future, maybe we'll break up, maybe we won't. But I learned to love myself. Yeah, you really love him, girl. I am convinced. So convinced. Not how it works, sorry.
A lot of kdramas go one way into silliness: love that makes R/J seem like cheap nonsense. That's unrealistic. But this isn't how it is, either. When you love, you can't see the end, not in a smug, self-actualized tone. I can't root for them, because they break up? So what? Get the next person and the next and next. It's meaningless.
Anyway, I wouldn't mind watching a drama about Henry/Hee-Jin but got one about JH/SS instead.
Hmmmmmm.
I have decidedly mixed views on this drama. It was entertaining but not going anywhere near my Top 10.
Yes, I realize I risk being disowned by flist, but here it is.
LIKED:
Doctor Henry! OMG. Seriously. Not only is he hot and sweet and wonderful, but he wants to work with starving children in Africa (is it Medicin sans frontiers?) Oh God. And all that without being cloying.
Henry/Hee-Jin. YESSSSS! Seriously. She is all upset he is leaving for MSF and OMG OMG she wants to go with him and he kissed her!!!!! And OMG, Henry/Hee-Jin, awesome together and will be going to Africa together once she gets her degree. YES. They are perfect. I ended up profoundly not caring about Jin-Heon/Sam-Soon, but Henry/Hee-Jin more than satisfied any OTP cravings I had.
The Chef and the Older Sister. So funny.
Sam-Soon's mother really amused me.
Hyun Bin's acting in his quiet moments. I can see why they thought to cast him in Snow Queen. He is OK in the loud, comedy scenes, but it's in the wordless, still ones where he really shines.
Hee-Jin. I have rarely liked 'the other girl' in a quadrangle. But forget 'like.' I ended up loving Hee-Jin. Which is more than I can say for Sam-Soon.
Which brings me to:
DISLIKED
Sam-Soon, Sam-Soon, Sam-Soon. Someone on my flist didn't like her (who was it?) and I totally agree. I ended up not liking her at all. I mean, I didn't hate her or anything, but she irritated the heck out of me. That is rather unusual, as normally I adore kdrama heroines, and often prefer them even to male leads. I couldn't identify with SS at all, but more importantly, I didn't like her. Part of it is her age. I am a lot more forgiving of someone being silly and immature at 19, than someone being silly and immature at 30.
Also, it's the constant surprised, puzzled, and 'what is going on' expression on her face. It didn't make her look smart. In fact, I ended up thinking she is a bit of a slow thinker, and somewhat dim. Now, I don't need my heroine to be a Nobel Prize winner (I adore Chae-Gyung in Goong, and she is not the sharpest knife in the drawer) but it helps.
She was also vaccilating, high-maintenance, and rather rude. Not in an endearing fashion but in a 'come on, you are old enough, behave' fashion. The whole scene with misdirected postcards and her treatment of Jin-Heon? If I was supposed to be on her side, it failed. The usual puzzled expression didn't help.
But the thing that I think really put the nail in the 'liking Sam-Soon' coffin (up until that point, I was somewhere in between indifferent and mild like, but not after that) was when she became that loathsome type of woman who is OK with dating someone who has a GF. When she told Jin-Heon she'll sleep with him when she loses some weight (WTF? that was so stupid of her, God, she is a nutter) and appeared OK with dating him, instead of telling him no sex and no dating until he breaks up with Hee-Jin? I lost any like, respect and even tolerance for her. She didn't even mention it to him! It worked out eventually because Jin-Heon didn't want to two-time, but that is no thanks to her. Seriously, ugh. After that scene...she was fictionally dead to me.
Jin-Heon didn't emerge unscathed from the above either. I ended up not caring for them both, especially when you add in his immaturity and her silliness.
But Hyun Bin is a better actor than the lady who plays SS (who is she?) so I think I ended up liking him more sheerly because of that.
Oh, also: the attitude to love was not one I approve. The whole 'you love someone for a bit, the shine comes off you move on, ad nauseam?' Nope. Sorry. According to this logic, everyone should be marrying serially, a la Elizabeth Taylor. You have a relationship, and you work on it, and you keep loving. I love my husband more now than when I met him almost eight years ago. My grandparents have been married for almost 60 years and still love each other etc etc. I wouldn't mind so much if the drama presented it as merely Hee-Jin's mistaken view of what broke up her relationship with Jin-Heon (after all, in reality, there wouldn't have been room for separation if she didn't leave and they grew apart) but the drama itself seemed to endorse that view. And Sam-Soon at the end? In the future, maybe we'll break up, maybe we won't. But I learned to love myself. Yeah, you really love him, girl. I am convinced. So convinced. Not how it works, sorry.
A lot of kdramas go one way into silliness: love that makes R/J seem like cheap nonsense. That's unrealistic. But this isn't how it is, either. When you love, you can't see the end, not in a smug, self-actualized tone. I can't root for them, because they break up? So what? Get the next person and the next and next. It's meaningless.
Anyway, I wouldn't mind watching a drama about Henry/Hee-Jin but got one about JH/SS instead.