Chief B and the Love Letter

Chief B and the Love Letter

5/10

Chief B and the Love Letter

Genre:                                                 Episodes: 1                                    Year: 2017

Romance

Melodrama

Synopsis:

Despite being in her 30s, Bang Ga Young has never had a boyfriend. After she receives a love letter form a secret admirer, she starts to take more notice of the men at her workplace.

Cast:

Song Ji Hyo (Bang Ga Young)

Jo Woo Jin (Shim Byung Sun)

Kang Yoon Jae (Son Jae Hyun)

Lee Joon Hyuk (Lee Joon Hyuk)

General Thoughts:

It’s an interesting watch for sure, with the story not being the typical cheesy, sugary fluff that is usually delivered short shows. I do find that events that showcase winners of script competitions, or scripts that have been specially selected (such as TVN’s Drama Stage that this series was on) do tend to move away from the cliche- as this is the reason why the scripts are noticed in the first place.

Not your usual love story

It’s pretty hard to tell a detailed, well-rounded story that can pull on your emotions in only one hour, and I think the writer here did a pretty good job at bringing out the important points of the story, while ignoring more trivial facts. I almost would have liked if this drama had been a smidge longer, as it seemed as though there were more layers to what we were shown,

This pairing weirdly grew on me too

and that so much of what the writer had imagined for these characters was cut out due to time constraints. The show never felt childish or cheap the way a lot of other short shows do, and it felt like it was created with care by all the production staff involved. There were nice music choices, and the directing hand felt confident and sure of the story they wanted to tell. The acting was surprisingly good, especially from Song Ji Hyo. While I’m a fan of her (mostly from 'Running Man'), I must say that I do sometimes feel as though she’s putting up a wall between herself and her characters. However even though this was only a very small drama, I really felt her throwing everything she had into this character. Ga Young’s innocent happiness when she thought someone liked her, crushing embarrassment when she realised they didn’t, and feelings of humiliation and uselessness afterwards all felt very authentic due to Song Ji Hyo’s portrayal of the character.

The secondhand embarrassment was strong

Ga Young felt like a character that had been lived in, and we were being offered a small snapshot into her life. Though admittedly, I do find it a little exasperating when shows play that someone as devastatingly beautiful as Song Ji Hyo has not had a sniff at love. Like sure, pull the other one. And when Ga Young dresses up and everyone is surprised at how pretty she is. As if a bad hairdo and plain work clothes could hide the fact that Song Ji Hyo’s looks are waaaaaay above average. But moving on from Song Ji Hyo, Jo Woo Jin seemed sweet but unremarkable in his role.

An interesting learning curve

The story was definitely about Ga Young and her self-discovery, so the male characters were pushed to the side. Jo Woo Jin did a good job at not making his character seem too lame or unlikeable, only slightly nerdy, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that someone like Ga Young would fall for him. Kang Yoon Jae had a pretty small role, but he played the cute younger man with…well…a good deal of cute. 

What Was Great:

Different:

I liked that this show skewed more to melancholic rather than humour, as it gave the show a more thoughtful, mature vibe. It made the plot feel very different from something that you would usually find in a short drama, and set it apart.

Not a lot of dramas have their lead not being romanced

The fact that the love letters were actually a marketing scam was a great twist that I definitely didn’t see coming. Rather than playing this twist for a laugh, the show instead looked at how lonely and pathetic that made Ga Young feel, and how just the idea that someone might have liked her made her feel like such an important person. It was an interesting commentary on self-importance and confidence that I think does ring true to real life. When someone is interested in you, you feel special and important, no matter who it is that likes you- whether it’s the cute younger coworker, or the slightly odd older coworker. Of course having these letters come from no one made those feelings Ga Young had disappear in an instant. Having our heroine not being involved in some sort of romance was a bold and interesting move, and again set the drama apart from others (though I seem to recall ‘If We Were a Season’ trying this, and in my opinion failing). Despite only being an hour long, the drama never felt predictable, and it certainly never felt cliched. 

What Wasn’t:

Feeling:

Tying into what made this drama feel special and different is also the reason I kind of didn’t like it as much as I'd hoped. While I enjoyed the show’s unique take on what could have been a very common and cheesy situation, I also found it perhaps a little depressing.

Ah alcohol- the poster boy for self medication

The social commentary about what can make a person feel special was definitely interesting, but it was also sad to see how horrible people felt when they didn’t have this sense of validation. When you tie in that it’s not just that this character hasn’t been liked for a long time, but that no one has confessed to her ever, it made the overall tone of the show a very lonely one. It was a success of the drama that I related to Ga Young, but having her left feeling so miserable then also left me feeling a bit miserable.

Just date him already

The show did save itself a little at the end there with the hint of a new (and real) romance for Ga Young, but I do wish that the show had perhaps taken it a little further to show that Ga Young was taking and using what she learned from her situation with Byung Sun, and confessing first.

Recommend?

If you’re a Song Ji Hyo fan it’s probably worth a watch, because she was really charming in this, but otherwise not really.

Basically a Song Ji Hyo special

Rich Man

Rich Man

3.5/10

Rich Man

Genre:                                                  Episodes: 16                                    Year: 2018

Romance

Comedy

Synopsis:

Lee Yoo Chan is the CEO of an IT company, but is arrogant and rude. He suffers from an inability to recognise faces, only being able to recognise the face of Kim Boon Hong, a girl he met years ago. Despite being smart, Kim Bo Ra struggles to get a job after graduating collage, but manages to get a job at Yoo Chan’s company by using the name Kim Boon Hong.

Cast:

Suho (Lee Yoo Chan)

Ha Yeon Soo (Kim Bo Ra)

Oh Chang Suk (Min Tae Joo)

Kim Ye Won (Min Tae Ra)

Park Sung Hoon (Cha Do Jin)

Yoon Da Young (Park Mi So)

Han Jung Hoon (Lee Dong Ha)

Lee Jae Jin (Kang Chan Soo)

Choi Kang Il (Nam Chul Woo)

Kim Min Ji (Kim Boon Hong)

General Thoughts:

This drama was in no way shape or form a good drama. As a person who likes to complain, I tend to enjoy having a good rant after watching a bad show, but ‘Rich Man’ has left me kind of exhausted and lifeless.

Sad to say, but I just wasn't a fan

I had a hard time categorising what this show was supposed to be. Comedy? But it’s not funny. Melodrama? But it’s not dramatic. Romance? But there’s no actual romance (until the last episode). It was just in this weird no-mans land were it wasn’t one thing or the other. It was just…nothing. Which sounds harsh, but it’s true.

Do I care about the company? Not at all.

Even though I have sat down and watched all 16 of these episodes, I fail to see the point of this drama. Because it wasn’t a cute romance that made me happy and giddy, it wasn’t a hilarious comedy that made me laugh out loud, and the plot really had…well…no plot. Tae Joo just turns against Yoo Chan for kinda unclear reasons, and then Yoo Chan has to rebuild his company. And then he does. And where back to where we started and Tae Joo and Yoo Chan are friends, and Next In is back up and running and…why did I have to watch this happen? Why did this show make me sit through 16 hours to get right back to where we started? Sure, Yoo Chan is less of an asshole, but he’s still kind of an asshole. Not to mention his dramatic personality change happens in the span of about two seconds in the second to last episode. It’s not like we got a slow, steady character development here. I haven’t seen the original Japanese drama but I heard that the Korean version changed up the plot and characters a bit to stop it from being a direct copy. I won’t lie- a part of me wishes they’d kept it a direct copy, because despite not having seen the original, I highly doubt the Korean version is an improvement. The plot just struggled along, not quite sure what it was trying to do, and not really giving satisfactory answers to any of its plot points.

Our 'hero' was even dating a different girl for 90% of the show 

The drama tended to hyper focus on a mystery or plot and then wrap it up really quickly with very minimal explanation. First it focused on the Boon Hong thing, then on Yoo Chan’s relationship with Tae Ra, then on Next In falling apart. There was very little to actually fill up the drama’s 16 episodes, and so I found myself rapidly losing interest in the story and its characters.

Sorry, but no

It always felt like the show was spinning its wheels and taking too long to solve issues, and there was just no spark that kept me engaged. The cherry on the top of this rather disappointing cake is that the acting was pretty crummy. The only comments I saw commending Suho’s acting (in fact it seemed the only people watching this drama) were from hardcore EXO-Ls. Which is fine- an idol you like is starring in a drama, fangirl away! Lord knows I do when it's an idol I adore. But from an unbiased perspective, Suho’s acting wasn’t good. It wasn’t insanely bad either, but it definitely didn’t make the drama any better. Suho has the charisma and the presence of an idol, but as a lead in a drama with rather shoddy plot, that just isn’t enough. His arrogant acting was believable enough, but I really struggled whenever Yoo Chan had to show either an extremely happy or extremely sad reaction, as Suho just didn’t have the ability to make the scenes feel authentic. He has great potential, but acting in a drama is very different to a music video or musical, and I really wish he’d taken on smaller roles to build his confidence and experience before jumping right into a leading role. To be honest Ha Yeon Soo wasn’t much better.

These leads suit a bubbly, frictionless rom-com. Not...whatever this drama was trying to be

For an actress I’m aware of and recognise, she actually has very little experience. She was good at being cute and charming, but similarly to Suho, any scene that required any real emotion from her felt very lacking. The chemistry between the two leads was pretty much non-existent, which probably contributed to how unentertaining I found he drama to be overall.

She was pushy and possessive, but at least she wasn't hateful

Kim Ye Won was probably the best actor in this series, but her character was rather dislikable and had little substance. However, unlike other actors, I found Kim Ye Won was at least able to add something a little bit of her own to her character that made Tae Ra feel more layered and detailed than other characters in the show. Oh Chang Suk wasn’t bad, and I liked hm when he was playing the mild-mannered good-guy, but his character had such a randomly sporadic shift in dynamic that I don’t think anyone could have acted it believably. The directing I found to be pretty okay, but not outstanding, but the problem here is definitely with the writing. The two writers behind this drama have almost no experience with dramas (as far as I’m aware), with one being involved mostly with movies, and one being pretty much new blood with no credentials. And it shows. There was not enough plot to span 16 episodes, and the characters were written as flat, 2-dimensional beings. The relationships between the characters felt awkward and insincere, and nothing in the events of the plot or the personalities of the characters felt remotely authentic.

An accurate depiction of chemistry levels

And while I’m sure the soundtrack had more than two songs on it, ‘Hard for Me’ and ‘Real Love’ felt like they were just playing on repeat, and I got real sick of them real fast. They weren’t even bad songs, they just played them way, way, way, way, waaaaaaay too often.

What Was Great:

Side Characters:

I don’t even mean the side characters here. I mean the side, side characters. As in the more or less nameless employees at Next In- particularly the three boys on the Big File team. Chan Soo was an absolute delight, 

Do Jin was pretty fun too

and I adore Lee Jae Jin in these cute and fun roles. He has an energy that grabs me right away and makes me want to know more about his character. Steve was also a character I found myself wanting to know more about, and these two characters provided most of the successful comedy in this show. Steve’s ‘confusion’ with using formal and informal speech was a hoot, and the guys on this small team just added a lot of warmth and heart into an otherwise dull workplace setting. I wish the writers had expanded their characters more, and that we’d seen more of what made these smaller characters tick. Lord knows we had the time for it. I mean, that romance for Chan Soo in the last episode came out of absolute nowhere- I would have adored seeing that relationship hinted at and then start to grow. Or maybe the writers would have just spoiled that too, and we should just be glad that these dynamic, smaller roles weren’t completely ruined.

What Wasn’t:

Basically All the Main Characters:

Pretty much everybody sucked. Yoo Chan was a self-absorbed, entitled asshat who cared about no one but himself. When he was kicked out from Next In so unceremoniously I think the writers were trying to evoke a sense of sadness and sympathy. But all I felt was a vicious sense of justice.

Looks like karma to me, buttwipe

I mean, this guy has been firing his employees out of the blue with no explanation for how long now? It only felt like he was getting what he deserved when he got fired himself. No sympathy from over here. And while Bo Ra was quite likeable at the start, she was on a steady downwards trajectory. Yoo Chan is in a fairly serious relationship with Tae Ra, but Bo Ra never sees that as a sign that he’s off limits.

You are literally the 'other woman'

I think the drama was trying to push that she and Yoo Chan had such a strong connection that no one could come between them, but honestly it just felt like she was being a bit of a b*tch and using her knowledge of Yoo Chan’s past experiences with her friend Boon Hong to steal him. Yeah, yeah, I know you can’t ‘steal’ a person, but Bo Ra’s decision to not acknowledge or respect Tae Ra’s relationship with Yoo Chan felt extremely conniving and really lowered my opinion of her. That’s classic b*tchy second-lead material right there, only this time it’s in our lead. Not cool. Tae Ra herself was actually not bad, but she was pretty annoying at times. Her insistence on trying to monopolise Yoo Chan felt competitive and controlling, and while I agree that Bo Ra was way out of line, Tae Ra could be pretty snitchy about it. I liked her way more when she was focused on trying to bring out the best in a young, undiscovered artist. Even if that whole plot line was a bit random. Her brother and Yoo Chan’s best friend, Tae Joo, was sweet and sensible and kind. Until he wasn’t.

Care factor- Zero

The drama really threw his character under the bus in order to create some ‘tension’. I say tension sarcastically as by the time Tae Joo’s character turned on Yoo Chan and revealed his harbouring animosity I’d already pretty much clocked out of this drama and was just watching it to get through it. By the end of the show I suppose we can say that they’re all better, kinder people. But their development was so sporadic and unbelievable that I didn’t buy these character changes. Nor did I care. And Mi So, the money-obsessed roommate that git knocked up was just materialistic and shallow from start to finish. Were we supposed to find her endearing? She wasn’t.

Ah yes, marriage, the obvious answer to a failing relationship

And for the love of all things good, I really wish dramas would stop touting marriage as the solution to accidental pregnancies. Yes, I’m aware that it’s more South Korea’s stance rather than a particular show, but when two people who fight a lot get married for the sake of a baby it’s just a divorce waiting to happen. And a messy one too.

Unoriginal:

Wealthy man is a rude jerk until he meets a nice girl.

Childhood trauma does not give you the right to be  jerk to literally everyone

Seriously, how many dramas could I be describing with that synopsis. Probably slightly more than half. There was absolutely nothing original in this show. Nothing. Rich guy falls for poor girl- been done. Boss falls for employee- been done. Love-triangle- is done in like, every drama ever. Workplace conflict that no one really cares about- I can’t even tell you how many times it’s been done. It’s not that every drama needs to be completely ground-breaking, but there does need to be something that sets it apart from other shows. Unfortunately for ‘Rich Man’ pretty much every aspect of it I had seen in a drama I’d watched before. And done better too. It just made the show feel like a cheap knockoff. Or a drama that was designed by a teenage fangirl with no writing talent trying to live out her K-Drama dreams by mashing every romance show she’d ever seen into one big, awkward mess.

Recommend?

Never in a million years.

Evidently 2018 is not the year for rom-coms in K-Dramaland