Bride of the Century

Bride of the Century

5/10

Bride of the Century

Genre:                                   Episodes: 16                                   Year: 2014

Romance

Comedy

Supernatural

Synopsis:

Choi Kang Joo is the eldest son of Taeyang Group, a large conglomerate. His family is rumoured to have been cursed hundreds of years ago, and as a result of the curse, the first wife of the eldest son will die on the wedding night. Due to this rumour, Kang Joo’s family is unable to set him up with an advantageous business marriage. Jang Yi Kyung is the daughter of a failing company, and her mother agrees that she will marry Choi Kang Joo for his family’s support, even though Yi Kyung has no desire to marry Kang Joo. When Yi Kyung runs away in the middle of marriage negotiations, her mother discovers a girl named Na Doo Rim, who happens to look exactly like Yi Kyung. Yi Kyung’s mother pays Doo Rim to pretend to be Kang Joo’s fiancé until Yi Kyung is found. 

Cast:

Lee Hong Ki (Choi Jang Joo)

Yang Jin Sung (Na Doo Rim/Jang Yi Kyung)

Sung Hyuk (Jang Yi Hyun)

Jang Ah Young (Lee Roo Mi)

Kim Seo Ra (Kim Myeong Hee)

Shin Eun Jung (Ma Jae Ran)

Kim Ah Young (God of House)

General Thoughts:

I really, really, really wanted this to be a good drama. The first half was amazing, starting off at a strapping pace. We get an instant idea of who our main characters are, and what situations they are in. The plot moves fairly quickly, with the characters making bold moves right from the start. We are set up to feel pity for Jang Yi Kyung when we see Choi Kang Joo treating her badly, which predisposes us to feel positively towards Na Doo Rim, her doppelganger. Na Doo Rim completely steals the show, not taking a backseat to Kang Joo, and her fiery rebellion is a great contrast to Yi Kyung’s simmering dissent. Yang Jin Sung does an excellent job expressing her two different roles, capturing both Doo Rim’s cheerful innocence and Yi Kyung’s festering anger. Lee Hong Ki is perfection (when isn't he) and gives a wonderful performance- perfectly capturing the very gradual softening of Kang Joo’s heart.

The beginning was ripe with hilarity

However, no amount of great acting can cover up for poor script writing. At exactly the halfway point, the plot takes a dive, and our characters suffer for it. The plot slows right down and we are privy once more (as is so common in K-Dramaland) to characters making stupid decisions. At this point in the drama they start to introduce the idea that longing and letting go is also a form of love.

"Why yes, I will lose my sh*t halfway through."

Sweet baby Jesus, we’ve seen so much bloody longing and letting go in K-Dramas. Please no more. When done well, and for good reasons, a main lead stepping back from their desires for the happiness of their significant other is heart-wrenching and bittersweet. However, in this case, it’s just a display of pure stupidity. If abandoning your loved one changes nothing in their situation, why abandon them at all? And the lame, played-out excuse of ‘saving them from suffering’ doesn’t cut it anymore. Haven’t we all gathered by know that being heartbroken at the departure of their lover is a form of suffering? Seriously. The writers also try to over-complicate a rather simple plot. Most of our characters’ major cards had already been played, and they’re all doing a lot of darting around in the shadows to try and get the upper hand, while not a lot is changing on the surface. The series also started out with a fair amount of quality humour, but that starts to flat-line as the drama has an identity crisis and tries (and fails) to become a melodrama.

We all know, but no one cares

The show gets back a bit of its old spark towards the end, bringing the humour back in and starting to round the rather haggard plot into its climax. And then we have some more uncalled for ‘I’m going to leave you because I love you’, with no real consequence except to make our characters (and viewers) miserable again.

What Was Great:

Ghostie Girl:

Most adorable ghost ever

The ghost was a nice twist on the classic rich-man, poor-girl scenario. I really enjoy characters with hidden motives, as it prevents the drama from becoming too predictable, and frankly it can get a little boring when you know what everybody wants. Right until the end, it was unclear what the intention of our ghost was- did she want to kill Doo Rim or not? I must admit, towards the end there I was hoping she would. What I was most worried about was that the drama would fail to address why this ghost was bothering this family, but thankfully, we got an episode that explained quite nicely what our ghost’s deal was. It was a pity the rest of our characters weren’t mapped out this nicely.

Flashback:

I’m not usually a fan of flashbacks at all- particularly when they are used to explain the current actions of the characters. However, surprisingly enough, this drama showed a nice little example of how effective flashback can be when pulled off well. It gave us insight into both our living character’s intentions, and also perfectly explained why ghostie was harassing this family. The key point was that the drama didn’t focus on the past characters for too long, only giving us a little snapshot of what had happened, while managing to include all relevant information.

Oppa:

Okay, Jang Yi Hyun was a great (if unrealistic) character. He was essentially perfect- with a kind heart, gentle nature, and strong sense of responsibility. The way he protected Doo Rim from the Choi family, and eventually even his own family, was massively endearing. He had so much cute going on with Doo Rim, and it was so easy to love him as an audience. Running away to live a happy life with this man does not sound like a horrible plan at all.

He's basically just wonderful. All the time. Forever.

Initial Setup:

The beginning of this drama was so, so, so, so good. All our characters had reasons behind their actions, and we even had some pretty surprising character reveals- with some people in our main cast not being who we thought they were. The idea of the curse was set up strongly, and our characters were slowly beginning to circle each other in preparation for the big climax- which sadly fell a bit flat after a drag in the build-up. We were also given little hints to side problems that may arise later in the drama: daddy Choi’s first love, discovery of Doo Rim, and Oppa’s half-brotheriness.

Back before the drama lost the plot (quite literally)

Roo Mi:

Oh, how rarely do we see a well executed turn-around for our female jilted ex-lover. Originally Roo Mi was set up as dislikable- antagonising Yi Kyung and doing everything in her power to keep Kang Joo for herself.

Omg, a successful side-woman character switch-up

She is the perfect opposite force for Doo Rim, giving Doo Rim opportunities to buck up, display some delightful sass (without coming off b*tchy), and stick close to Kang Joo. Unlike SO many girls in K-Dramas- Roo Mi when to back off. Instead of making an ass of herself when she realised Kang Joo was really in love with Doo Rim, she backed away from the situation. Hooray! It was totally believable that she didn’t like Doo Rim for a patch in the middle- who likes the girl that captures the heart of the man you love? Then, as the story progresses, and Doo Rim makes stupid, incomprehensible decisions, Roo Mi works really hard to help Kang Joo and Doo Rim’s relationship work, because she’s a smart lil’ cookie, and figures out that she can’t be happy and move on if the man she loves is miserable. The discovery of Yi Kyung’s true character also makes it much easier to accept Roo Mi’s apparent character change. It was a wonderful, well-executed character 180°.

Grandma’s Role:

Okay, this whole tie-in with Doo Rim’s family was actually pretty cool. It was nice that they revealed all these hidden connections, even if it was mildly incestuous.

What an unexpected gem

What Wasn’t:

Letting Go is Love Too:

Oh. This whole concept is just….blegh. We are actually given a nice, hidden, accurate representation of what this means. Roo Mi. Even though she loves Kang Joo, she lets go of her feelings for him so they can both be happier.

If you run off I'm going to dislike your character instantly. 

I cannot stress enough- THIS CONCEPT DOESN’T REALLY WORK ON TWO PEOPLE WHO ARE TOTALLY IN LOVE. It just doesn’t, K-Drama. Stop trying to make this a logical move. It is never, ever going to be a logical move between our main couple. Sure, Doo Rim’s backing out made sense when Kang Joo didn’t even know she existed. He really might have been happier not knowing that the fiancé he fell for was a different chick. Maybe. But then the second running away is just ridiculous. Not only does Kang Joo specifically ask her to wait until the commotion dies down so they can be together, but nothing actually changes with Doo Rim’s disappearance. Except that now both she and Kang Joo are sad little heartbroken babies. Not even kidding, the situation would have played out the same regardless of Doo Rim’s presence- the only difference being that everyone would have felt a little less like shooting someone if Doo Rim had even tried to stick it out. It’s just salt in the wound that Kang Joo has potentially ruined his whole life for this girl, and she just buggers off. I swear, if another K-Drama does this (which it inevitably will), I’m going to lose my noodle.

Not my tears.

Ethical Queries:

Okay, was I the only one that was massively uncomfortable when this girl married Kang Joo while still pretending to be someone else? It was dead creepy. The whole scene was given this super dreamy, golden light and music vibe, and I’m just sitting here like ‘dude, he doesn’t even know who that is’. Was it supposed to be sadly romantic when in her vows she thinks her own name, but says someone else’s’? Because it wasn’t. It was weird. And wrong.

Wrong on so many levels

Doo Rim was given so many perfect opportunities to tell Kang Joo who she really was, and she passed them all up. That whole episode was just waiting for her to let the secret out, but no. She chooses to secretly marry this poor, unsuspecting man while continuing the lie. Understandably, Kang Joo’s not pleased when he finds out.

What. What are you even. You crazy.

And then, THEN, ohmygodguys, THEN she has a secret baby. I mean, the whole marriage thing can sort of, maybe be given a pass if you kind of squint your eyes. It was her he loved and not Yi Kyung after all. But on what planet is it okay to give birth to your sort-of-husband’s baby and raise it for two years- all while he’s running himself ragged to find you? Not this one, I can tell you. In this moment, Doo Rim’s character lost any feelings I still had left for her (which was minimal after the uncalled for disappearance). I was really hoping Kang Joo would find her, blow his top, take the kid, and arrest her for impersonation and identity theft. But no, he’s not even mad. He’s mad that she lied to him for a couple of months about her name, but it’s totally cool that she lied to him for two years about his own fatherhood. Drama, what are you even doing. Stop. Stop it now. Stop it forever.

Oppa’s Family:

I didn’t really get this whole plot-point. Is Yi Hyun actually related to Yi Kyung? I thought so, but then everyone’s talking about how he wouldn’t act this way if Yi Kyung was his real sister. Isn’t a half-sister still a sister? Don’t these kids have the same baby-daddy? I thought they did.

Sooooo is it borderline incest or not?

Really, I don’t know why they bothered bringing this up at all because it had no impact on anything relevant. Maybe the writers were hoping it would just make it a little less weird that Oppa fell for a girl with the same face as his sister.

Re-watch?

Absolutely not. This drama made me so mad. It was most likely the excellent start that made the low points seem so very, very low. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry at the writers before now. Why did you kill this drama half-way through? Jerks.

There was so much right, but so much wrong