Oh My Venus

Oh My Venus

5/10

Oh My Venus

Genre:                            Episodes: 16                          Year: 2015

Romance

Comedy

Synopsis:

Kim Young Ho is a personal trainer for famous American stars, who keeps his real identity a secret by using the alias ‘John Kim’. After a scandal breaks out involving John Kim and a famous actress, Young Ho returns to Korea. Kang Joo Eun is a successful lawyer in a long term relationship with her first love. She was stunningly beautiful as a young woman, but stress led her to gain a large amount of weight. Joo Eun discovers Young Ho’s identity as John Kim and blackmails him into becoming her personal trainer. 

Cast:

Shin Min Ah (Kang Joo Eun)

So Ji Sub (Kim Young Ho)

Jung Gyu Woon (Im Woo Shik)

Yoo In Young (Oh Soo Jin)

Sung Hoon (Jang Joon Sung)

Henry (Kim Ji Woong)

General Thoughts:

I remember really, really loving this drama for a significant portion of its run. But then after a slight stumble (followed by a crashing fall) I found myself forgetting what I had loved so much about it in the first place. Which is unfortunate. 

At least the boys were cute

There’s basically no plot. None. Which means that the whole drama is driven by its characters and their relationships- and yet that still doesn’t turn out as badly as it should.

You can't deny the buckets of cute

When you’ve got a main pairing made up of So Ji Sub and Shin Min Ah, the two make it very easy to bypass the plot for a whole lot of cute- because there’s just so much firecracker chemistry between them. Both So Ji Sub and Shin Min Ah would be able to create shocking chemistry with a rock, so it’s no surprise that when you stick them together the sparks are off the charts. No one really cares about Joo Eun’s quest to be a great lawyer. No one really cares about Young Ho’s chaebol family or his identity as John Kim. But everyone cares about the two growing closer and using exercise as an excuse for giant amounts of skinship. Henry and Sung Hoon get their fair share of chemistry with Shin Min Ah too, and complete our little makeshift family. While neither of these boys has any sort of complete story arc themselves, they were simply great characters. Even though Kim Ji Woong basically did nothing as a character in the story, he was worth having around just for his giant bear hugs and Henry’s adorable blend of American/Korean. Because he was just too cute. All the time. Characters that were supposed to be set up as our antagonists just sort of fell by he wayside.

Do I care? No. Not really.

Im Woo Shik turned out to be a pretty nice guy who’d never had to breakup with anyone and had no idea how to handle it properly- so you couldn’t really fault him for that. Oh Soo Jin just turned into a closed-off, insecure puddle, so she wasn’t much of a threat. And weird Chaebol Uncle just swooped in, smashed his car into a bunch of people, and quietly crawled away. Because there’s no plot, there’s also not much tension in the drama. There are good K-Dramas that lack tension, and ‘Oh My Venus’ seemed to be on the right track for quite some time. Great chemistry with brilliant leads can conquer anything after all. But then the writers tried to force a bunch of tension in at the three quarter mark. And failed. Miserably. 

What Was Great:

There's just no way that combo was ever not going to work

Our Leads:

What can you say. They’re phenomenal. While the main characters weren’t anything new for our leads (a stand-offish hottie that melts for a certain lady for So Ji Sub, and an adorable lady with a bit of spunk for Shin Min Ah) you kind of don’t care that you’ve seen similar characters before, as the charisma from the actors just makes you love them anyway. While the characters did have certain charms themselves, it was definitely the actors behind them that made them so loveable and endearing. 

Stance on Health:

It’s always a bit risky doing a drama that focuses on weight as it’s main topic. So many dramas and movies fall into the problem of self-worth being measured by beauty- which of course includes weight. Thankfully, the drama chose to focus on weight as a health issue rather than a cosmetic issue.

Weight...always a risky plot choice

Young Ho doesn’t have a problem with Joo Eun’s weight because it makes her unattractive- he has a problem with her weight because it is the direct cause of her health problems. The writers skilfully manage to avoid having it appear as though Young Ho fell in love with Joo Eun for her looks (because, you know, Shin Min Ah), and it was always clear that it was her determination, drive, and personality that he was falling for. The stunning good looks and adorable dimples were just an added bonus. 

What Wasn’t:

Side Couples:

I did not want to see beautiful Joon Sung getting tied off with that stupid bloody actress. Oh my GOD was that girl annoying. She was clingy and frustrating, and I wanted to punch my TV every time she was on screen.

This is not happening. Please go back to making this not a thing.

And then they started forcing the two together? No. No, no, no, no, NO. Not only was she super bloody irritating, but it didn’t fit with Joon Sung’s character to have him grow an interest in her. He had less than zero interest in her to start with, and her constant attempts to try and seduce him seemed to annoy him rather than make him soften towards her. All series long we’ve seen that Joon Sung has been a rather stubborn and consistent character who rarely changes his mind- yet suddenly his opinion of this annoying girl does a complete 180 and he’s all interested. Excuse me while I go bash my head against the wall.

K-Drama- will you never learn?

Bloody Great Time Skip:

By now you should all know my stance on time skips. THEY SUCK. THEY ARE THE WORST THING EVER. STOP PUNISHING ME FOR YOUR EXREME LACK OF SCRIPTWRITING ABILITY. So yeah. People fall in love, and right when they should start settling in for the long run together one of them f*cks of to another country for a year or so, screeching the breaks on any sort of development plot or romance wise. Yeah, not a fan.

Re-watch?

Never again. While there was a lot of cute, the meandering plot began to get irritating and even So Ji Sub and Shin Min Ah can only keep a drama going on their own steam for so long. Hopefully both are off to bigger and better things. 

Cute, but remarkably unexceptional