How Are You Bread

How Are You Bread

4/10

How Are You Bread

Genre:                                 Episodes: 5                     Year: 2020

Romance

Synopsis:

Noh Mi Rae, a variety show writer, is tasked with hiring pastry chef Han Do Woo as a guest on a new program. Han Do Woo is famous for his How Are You Bread, which is said to grant wishes.

Cast:

Suho (Han Do Woo)

Lee Se Young (Noh Mi Rae)

Moon Ji Yoon (Patrick)

Han So Young (Do Do Hae)

General Thoughts:

Yeah look, this drama wasn’t great, but it wasn’t super awful either. This drama is a bit of an odd one as it has actually been floating around for years. It was announced, casted, and even filmed right when I first started getting interested in Korean Dramas- all the way back in 2016!

It took a while, but it's aired at last!

For four years this little show has been hovering around and only this year was it able to secure a network to air on. It makes me a little sad for all the people who put so much love and effort into the show, as it really isn’t that bad for what it is, and I have seen far worse shows have no problem securing a network.

More baking, less writing please

So props to the team who worked to get this show aired. As for the content, it was an easy enough show to get through, but there wasn’t really anything special or unique to it. It had a lot of ideas going on, but they weren’t exactly new concepts. I love bakeries and patisseries so I was sucked in seeing a show that was centred around these concepts. I didn’t expect the drama to go into the baking side of things too much (which it didn’t), but I maybe would have liked a bit more focus on Do Woo’s magic bread- seeing as that was the whole catch of the show. Apart from the first episode which showed a line going down the street, Do Woo’s bakery was always empty. Instead, the drama chose to focus on the baking competition program. This had the upside of furthering the revenge plot between Do Woo’s father and President Bang, but the downside was that the show looked kinda lame. I don’t think I would tune in if that was airing on my TV.

Perhaps if I knew more about what their relationship was, I'd care more about who wins the competition

In the acting department, Lee Se Young did a great job as the leading lady. Suho was less convincing as the leading man, but I didn’t judge him too harshly considering that this was basically the first thing he filmed.

Their sad destiny can't be sadder than wasted pastries

The cold, cool charisma works well for being a K-Pop star, but when switched over to acting it can make his characters seem a bit too arrogant or emotionless. I’d like to see Suho try out a character that’s a bit more down to earth to see if that can help him relax into his acting a bit more. The chemistry between Suho and Lee Se Young was good enough, but to be honest they didn’t really have that many scenes together that had a romantic undertone. More often than not there was a sort of angsty vibe between the two of them (resulting from Mi Rae’s memory loss), so their relationship lacked the cute, bubbly feeling that most new romances have. I didn’t really buy the idea of Mi Rae and Do Woo being a love separated by destiny (what even is that- why would destiny bother?). The ending did a good enough job of wrapping the idea up and putting a cute flavour on it, but it was pretty random. I was a bit confused by Patrick’s presence throughout the show, and found the whole concept of the memory wiping due to constant accidents a bit cringey, but the show was able to resolve it in a nice enough way that kind of made up for the weirdness. 

Doesn't this guy have better things to do than go around telling people they shouldn't like each other?

What Was Great:

Lee Se Young:

I know that I have criticised her acting in the past, but she did a great job here. Unfortunately one of the best ways to recognise a good actor is to put them in a drama with some not so good actors,

Girl had a lot of crying scenes for a 3 hour show

and that’s what happened here. While it’s a shame that this drama didn’t have a lot of great actors in it, it did serve well to showcase Lee Se Young. She was able to bring both an innocent and a sadder vibe to her character, and was essentially the emotional gauge of the show. She did a good job at elevating Suho’s performance in scenes that they shared together, and I think if the show had opted for a less experienced/less competent actor, it would have suffered for it. Lee Se Young brought a sense of professionalism to this drama, and lessened the sense that this was an amateur show. She had to do a lot of crying while eating sweets, which must be pretty whacko to act out, but I thought she did it splendidly, which really sold the idea that there actually was something special in the bread that Do Woo was making. 

What Wasn’t:

Too Many Ideas:

There is such a thing as too much, and in this case it was too many ideas. There were a lot of interesting storylines going on in this show- a father and son having a fallout over traditional Korean vs Western cooking, a revenge plot, a destiny twist, an amnesia situation, a baking show, magic bread, and a hardworking love.

Just give me a cute love story and I'll be happy

The issue here is that ‘How Are You Bread’ had only 5 episodes (at about 45 minutes each) to tell aaaaaall of these different plotlines. And it just wasn’t enough. So what ended up happening is that each idea was dabbled in a little, but none of them were fleshed out to their full potential. Instead of one really great plot, we had several not so good ones. I think the show might have done a better job if it had picked just one or two of the stories it wanted to tell and really delved into that. 

Recommend?

Nah- it isn’t quite short enough to be one evening’s worth of quick story, and it isn’t quite good enough to be anything else.

Now I want pastries...