Review: The Last Scandal Of My Life/ 내 생애 마지막 스캔들
I started on this drama before the exams, actually. Then came summer break and I embarked on Iljimae (which is SO TERRIBLY TRAGIC AND MELO I can't even recall it without wincing. In case you're wondering, no, I don't actually enjoy the fact that it makes me feel that way.) But as I was chatting with Elly about Fantasy Couple, I decided I needed to watch something where there wasn't someone dying in every episode (I kid you not). So I picked up where I left off, and boy am I glad I did.
Last Scandal has got to be the most well-rounded drama I've ever seen. With veteran actress Choi Jin-Shil (Feelings, Star In My Heart) and movie star Jung Joon-Ho - am trying not to giggle fangirlishly as i type his name - (Marrying The Mafia, My Boss My Teacher) helming the cast, it's no wonder the acting is stellar. They're so immersed and perfect in their roles, you just assume that's how they're like in real life. The plot development manages to stay realistic while moving quickly throughout the entire series so you don't get bored. Ever. No, seriously. I nearly fainted when I discovered the writer of Last Scandal also wrote.. Stairway To Heaven. Poor guy probably suffers from extreme bi-polar disorder.
A twist is (actually, many twists are) given to the already exhausted K-drama plot of being a house-keeper to a movie star.. Full House, anyone? Except this series is better than Full House in every single way - storyline, dialogue, and most importantly the acting. My only impression of Rain is of him hollering and giving the occasional cutesy beam. There's also the added benefit of not being distracted by Song Hye-Gyo's extreme beauty and having to run to the mirror every few seconds to figure out what it is exactly that your face is lacking -_- (But there's still Jung Joon-Ho here so it's not totally free of distractions hehehe)
Hong Sun-Hee (Choi Jin-Shil) seems like your typical ajumma (Korean term for 'aunty'), a subservient housewife doing the bidding of her mother-in-law, with her 14-year-old daughter, Jimin, in tow. Her husband's been uncontactable for a while (citing 'business ventures' as an excuse), and Sun-Hee's left to juggle both household tasks and part-time jobs as a source of income. While rushing to a casting call as an extra for a commercial, she bumps into movie star Song Jae-Bin (Jung Joon-Ho). Sun-Hee's struck by his striking resemblance to her high school classmate and childhood sweetheart, Jang Dong-Chul, but dismisses this thought quickly enough as her friend reminds her that while she's 39, Jae-Bin's only 32. How could they have been classmates? More importantly, how could a movie star have fallen for her when she looks like...
Unknown to everyone but Jae-Bin and his family members, however, Jae-Bin IS Jang Dong-Chul, and he's 39, not 32. Jae-Bin's movie star name and fake age were fixed by his manager brother, Jang Dong-Hwa (an uncharacteristically stoic Jung Woong In). When he bumps into Sun-Hee, Jae-Bin too notices a resemblance between her and his childhood sweetheart, but chuckles as he remembers how pretty Sun-Hee was (she'd starred in a chocolate commercial then, and set the hearts of many teenage boys aflutter).
After an on-set misunderstanding when Sun-Hee mistakenly believes that Jae-Bin was trying to take advantage of her daughter (who'd played truant to sneak onto the filming set so she could take pictures of Jae-Bin - she's a HUGE fan), Sun-Hee ends up assaulting Jae-Bin, who tries to avoid negative publicity by releasing news articles depicting her as a psycho fan.
Jae-Bin's PA is threatened with the danger of being fired "because he can't even protect Jae-Bin from a fan", and decides to get himself back into Jae-Bin's good books by hunting for the contact number of the legendary 'Hong Sun-Hee' that he remembers Jae-Bin recalling fondly the other day. The PA manages to get her cellphone number and address, and sneaks to Sun-Hee's flat to see what she looks like. He mistakes her glamorously-dressed sister-in-law for her, and proudly reports to Jae-Bin that Sun-Hee has aged 'very, very well'. Jae-Bin tries not to show it, but he's actually very excited to have found Sun-Hee again.
Jae-Bin calls Sun-Hee on her cellphone (as Dong-Chul, of course) and Sun-Hee, who was expecting her husband's call, picks up the phone and says 'WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG TO CALL?" Okay sorry I found that very funny - you have to see the way Jae-Bin stared at his phone in wonder to understand. Upon realising that it's Dong-Chul, Sun-Hee is still pleasantly surprised. They converse with each other with polite fondness over the phone, as first loves who haven't seen each other for 20 years.
Jae-Bin: "So.. What're you doing now?"
Sun-Hee: "Me? Oh, I'm listening to music while taking my car out for a spin.. I tend to do that sometimes. How about you? What are you working as?"
Jae-Bin: "Oh.. Um.. (glances at a plant in his room) I import plants and sell them!"
I find it quite interesting that both Sun-Hee and Jae-Bin lie about their current occupations to the other. Jae-Bin, of course, does it out of instinct - In Sun-Hee's memory, he's still 19-year-old Jang Dong Chul, except now he's 39. Sun-Hee, however, seems to want to maintain Dong-Chul's impression of her as the school belle, who's managed to age gracefully into a capable woman. Not a frazzled, bullied housewife with a bad perm, who's running all over the place taking as many jobs as she can. It's pretty sad if you realise, at 39, that you've lived a life your 19-year-old self wouldn't be proud of :/
Too bad Jae-Bin doesn't seem to realise that she's the same ajumma who he's already had a few clashes with.
Why is Sun-Hee so desperate for money, then? Turns out the only thing her husband got himself from the 'business venture' was a whole load of debts, and he got thrown in jail on charges of fraud. He begs Sun-Hee to save his sorry ass, and Sun-Hee thinks of ways and means to raise the required sum to secure his release. Her friend persuades her to seek Dong-Chul's help - the fact that he'd initiated contact with Sun-Hee after 20 years must mean that she's special to him. Sun-Hee takes her friend's advice and requests Dong-Chul (Jae-Bin) to meet her and he excitedly agrees. It's cute to see him so nervous about meeting his first girlfriend when he's a movie star, and he even comments to himself, "I was less scared during my first time on a filming set" while waiting for her in a hotel room.
Sun-Hee then knocks on the door and Jae-Bin opens it, and - I love how the PDs didn't drag this on and on - after a barely undecipherable look of shock, wastes no time in reprimanding her for 'taking her stalking of a movie star too far". He denies any knowledge of a person called Jang Dong-Chul, even saying "What kind of a name is that?!" and walks away from her very quickly, collapsing into a pile of stunned jelly in the elevator, wondering how his beautiful girlfriend could have changed so much.
Sun-Hee isn't fooled, however. She tricks Jae-Bin into revealing his identity as Jang Dong-Chul by calling his cellphone while hiding behind a wall at the TV station, and I can't describe how LOL i was when he picks up the phone and says, "Oh, Sun-Hee, sorry I didn't turn up the other day! I'm busy migrating to New Zealand right now, so let's meet when I get back! Don't worry, I'll visit Korea often!" Sun-Hee says, "Hang on, let's meet now. Turn around!" Jae-Bin looks behind him in alarm, and Sun-Hee steps out from behind the wall, smirking.
Sun-Hee's friend asks her if she'd managed to borrow money from Dong-Chul, and Sun-Hee says she couldn't do it, but refuses to explain why - mainly because it's too embarrassing for her to admit that it was probably cos of her appearance. Her friend then tells her a new plan, and Sun-Hee tries to fake incontinence so she qualifies for urinary tract surgery, which will entitle her to an insurance claim.
After a hilarious episode involving Sun-Hee gulping down gallons of water and then having to hold in her pee until the urine test, the gynae finally grants Sun-Hee her wish. Unfortunately, the gynae misinterprets her intentions and gives her.. vaginal plastic surgery instead HAHAHA. WORST THING IS CANNOT CLAIM AND MUST PAY MONEY SOMEMORE.
Sun-Hee stumbles out of the clinic in shock and post-surgery pains, and runs into Jae-Bin coming out of the cosmetic clinic opposite, where he was getting his Botox shots (so he can look 32). He sees her holding a cellphone, and thinks she stalked him to the clinic in the hopes of trying to snap shots of him getting Botox so she can post them online.
Jae-Bin is greatly affected by the realisation that Sun-Hee knows of his real name and age now, and has the potential to create a scandal and ruin his career anytime she wants. He starts getting nightmares of her, dreaming of her appearing on television to give reporters exclusive scoops.
Ling found this sequence hilarious cos Sun-Hee had to hold her own mask. They went to make her voice chipmunk-like somemore leh they are very good.
Jae-Bin then decides to save his reputation by doing what he does best: sweet-talking. He ambushes Sun-Hee on her way home one night and tells her that he's angry only because he's never been able to forget about her for the past 20 years, which is why he treated her the way he did. He places his acting experience to good use, and says tearfully, "If only I could have you.. For just one day." Sun-Hee mulls over his words.. and decides to approach him the next day in a last-ditch attempt to borrow the money her husband still needs - By offering herself to Jae-Bin, for just one day hehehehe.
Sun-Hee needn't have bothered, however, because her husband, Yoo-Shik, gets pimped (sort of) by a wealthy widow, who appears to have taken a fancy to him over the past year. The widow visits him at the detention centre and offers to help him out of his current situation. In return, Yoo-Shik has to belong to her. That useless piece of vermin readily accepts.
Meanwhile, at Jae-Bin's house, Sun-Hee is caught by surprise as the ever-astute Jae-Bin whips out a camcorder. He'd suspected that she was going to blackmail him (He still thinks she's a stalker), and is gleeful that by offering herself to him, she'd actually allowed herself to be blackmailed instead.
Thus begins their whole entanglement (:
To cut the long story short, Sun-Hee gets mistaken by Jae-Bin's brother, Dong-Hwa, for their new housekeeper. Dong-Hwa's young son, Hoon, takes a liking to her immediately, and she eventually moves into Jae-Bin's house with her daughter Jimin when she wins a family vote, much to Jae-Bin's chagrin. He wastes no time in using her to amuse himself, for example by giving her a welcome present, which turns out to be an outfit.. that turns out to be:
You'd think Jae-Bin was a complete jerk, and sometimes he does go too far, but he always realises that he was wrong and attempts to make amends in a grudging, clumsy manner (like asking Sun-Hee to help him pick out clothes for someone, then staging a fake conversation on his handphone saying "What? You don't want it?!" and telling Sun-Hee, "You have it then."). Sun-Hee sees right through his roundabout ways though ("You just wanted to buy real clothes for me to apologise for last night, right?"), which is really very sweet. They have the best chemistry ever, and you'd really believe they were old friends if you watch them just interacting with each other.
And then of course, the makeover scene arrives (much quicker than typical dramas too, I might add), and I love how they filmed it by making Jae-Bin's double take a muted one, as Sun-Hee is sleeping when he realises that the lady he's just walked past twice is actually her.
Friends, I am telling you again that hair is very, very important.
The biggest draw of this series would definitely have to be the humour. I didn't hate Yoo-Shik (Sun-Hee's ex-husband) as much as I should have, simply because his excuses and behaviour were ridiculous. It's as if the PDs deliberately made him a caricature so he wouldn't be taken too seriously. Even the characters didn't take him seriously hehe. This is one of the best shots from the drama, from the scene where Yoo-Shik's new wife makes him pay a visit to Jae-Bin's house (she hopes Jae-Bin will help promote their wine bar) and Yoo-Shik has to avoid letting himself be seen by Sun-Hee, who thinks he's working overseas to pay off his debts. Not so easy when you're visiting a house where your ex-spouse happens to be the housekeeper, but he somehow manages to pull it off in amazing Yoo-Shik fashion.
The level of humour in this show is really, really high. I don't laugh out loud easily when I'm watching shows, and this show made me laugh till I had stomach cramps. But it's not all just humour, because there are scenes like these too..
...where Jae-Bin grabs Sun-Hee to prevent her from turning around to see her ex-husband marrying another woman, shielding her from cameras that crowd around trying to catch footage of the woman whom movie star Song Jae-Bin is hugging. Le sigh.
Not forgetting the cutesy scenes, where Jae-Bin tries to express his affections for Sun-Hee without being too overt. I loved the amusement park scene, not least because of the blink-and-you-miss-it background action which was HILARIOUS (sorry, adjectives are the only description i can provide because narrating it'd sap it of all the humour). There was a classic Jae-Bin as a radio-dj guerilla event scene too WOW it was very very good.
There's a lot of emphasis on family as well, because they're both at an age where they can't possibly live their lives only for themselves. Sun-Hee already has a daughter, and Jae-Bin.. well, no spoilers here (: Point here is that I'm a sucker for heartwarming family scenes (not the Shou Zu kind, pls -_-), and this drama has plenty of them.
Even the kids in here are wonderful to watch, though you might find Jimin slightly whiny at the start.
Which reminds me that I haven't even started talking about Jae-Bin's family members yet, who turn out to be very important in the plot. And of course there's still the mandatory evil lady, who in this case is actually much more pitiful than evil backstabber. I sense that this post has probably been too wordy, and it'd probably have been a better idea to post in instalments since it's practically impossible to do a re-cap of an entire series. This is a review anyway, not a recap. Dramabeans has recapped the series though, and her blog really makes for an entertaining read, so if you're interested in the series (AND YOU SHOULD BE), just head on here.
professional part over, so i'm reverting back to starting my sentences with small letters hehe.
i'm currently going through a phase where if i don't like what i'm watching, i'll just drop it. 2007 was a year of endurance training for me - i forced myself through the entire length of horrible, HORRIBLE series like witch yoo-hee, fireworks and air city.. because i owned the dvd sets and i didn't want to waste my money.
2008's half over and so far i've tried to watch a bit of everything, like 3 dads and 1 mum, thank you, new heart, who are you, flowers for my life, on air etc, but i've only completed 2 series. which are hong gil dong and this one.
hong gil dong.. you'll remember i was raving about it right up to the end, and it was well on it's way to becoming number one on my list (up to episode 20, at least), but the ending, by which i mean the last 10 minutes of the last episode, killed EVERYTHING. it left elly and i in shock for a really really long time, and i just deserted this blog because i knew i should write about it but er.. i just couldn't. not because it hurts or what la, that's too much of an exaggeration. it just left me at a loss because it had SO MUCH going for it, but the ending just didn't fit in with the rest of the show and i didn't know how to slam it without giving the show (and kang ji hwan, who was supremely awesome) the credit it still deserved. too bad what sticks in your head will always be what you watched last, and yea. all i can say is that it really shouldn't have ended that way.
majimak scandal, on the other hand.. i'll give it that much and say that it still isn't perfect, that there are still minor blips on the radar at some points - again, concentrated in the last couple of episodes.. it must be really hard to write completely satisfying endings. but this is as close to perfect as perfect can get. this drama, if not the best, has definitely been the most entertaining one i've ever watched.
need proof of good acting? when you can tell what the scene is about just by looking at the actors' faces.
^ this is from one of the most poignant scenes in the drama, and i had a field day capturing screenshots because every shot could speak by itself. there were very little words in this scene, but there was no mistaking what the actors wanted to tell you.
look at jae-bin's face.. how can you mistake his expressions for anything else other than what you see? to steal a description from dramabeans, one of the main draws of this drama has to be how wonderfully jung joon-ho registers his emotions on camera. anyone can do over-the-top emotions like anger or jealousy (at least i sincerely believed anyone could, until i watched jeanette aw in action), but how do you convey weariness, muted sadness or quiet disappointment? how do you show that you're in pain from hiding the complete truth, without saying 'i have my reasons for not telling you this'? it takes a lot more, doesn't it?
just to hammer my point in, i would like to provide you with a contrasting screenshot.
ignoring the mosaic of pictures imposed by fangirls (WHY ON EARTH are you fangirling this kind of shows?!?!), what i have gathered from this scene is that.. er. oh god i don't know, it just makes me laugh because up to this day i can still remember how julian hee spoke in this scene. and look at qiu ze's face LOOK AT HOW PLACID IT IS
notice that how much expressions convey doesn't necessarily depend on the degree to which your face is contorted -_-
In short, this is the best drama ever not in terms of having THE most meaningful plot - which isn't to say that it's not meaningful, but simply because different people have different tastes. I might love only realistic dramas, but what's to stop you from preferring action and dramamama plots? - but because it's so so so enjoyable to watch. The standard of acting in here is superb, and the chemistry unmatched. I don't know if this is because the actors really do get along in real life, or if it's cos they're both so experienced at acting. Either way, the chemistry present between the leads is on a level of its own. No other words for it, just look at the screenshots for proof.
Okay simply put, if this drama was sub-par, I wouldn't have spent three days writing a review for it -_- ALSO... A SEQUEL IS IN THE WORKS, AND IS SET FOR RELEASE AT THE END OF THE YEAR!!! I'd known about this before I started watching the drama, so I didn't mind finishing it quickly because I knew there'd still be something left for me to look forward to. I can only imagine how thrilled the fans who'd already finished it must have been at hearing this piece of news. Omg am so excited, just hope they won't screw it up.. HEHEHEHE I'LL BE WATCHING JUNG JOON-HO WITH CHOI JIN-SHIL AGAIN <3<3<3
