Legend of the Blue Sea

Legend of the Blue Sea

6/10

Legend of the Blue Sea

Genre:                                     Episodes: 20                           Year: 2016

Romance

Comedy

Fantasy

Synopsis:

In the Joseon era, a man named Dam Ryung rescues a captive mermaid. In the present day, Heo Joon Jae is a con-man who swindles money off those who have become rich through illegal means. While abroad, a strange girl ends up in his room, and Joon Jae takes pity on her and looks after her. Unknown to Joon Jae, the girl is actually a mermaid who was washed ashore in a recent storm.

Cast:

Jeon Ji Hyun (Shim Chung/Se Hwa)

Lee Min Ho (Heo Joon Jae/Dam Ryung)

Lee Hee Joon (Jo Nam Doo)

Shin Won Ho (Tae Oh)

Lee Ji Hoon (Heo Chi Hyun)

Shin Hye Sun (Cha Shi Ah)

Sung Dong Il (Ma Da Young)

Hwang Shin Hye (Kang Seo Hee)

Shin Rin Ah (Yoo Na)

General Thoughts

When the drama was good, it was very, very good- but when it was bad it was dead boring. It took me a good 8 or so episodes before I really started feeling any sort of affection towards the series, and I mark that up to nothing really happening. Sometimes I can enjoy a drama that has nothing going on beyond the characters and their relationships (Weightlifting Fairy), but other times it just bores me to tears. Or cussing.

This drama is like an attractive man who's cr*p in bed- nice to look at, but frankly a bit disappointing

I will admit, the endless stream of stills, posters and promos got me insanely excited, not to mention the actors and writer- Park Ji Eun of ‘The Producers’ and ‘My Love from the Stars’- both of which I loved. Obviously it was hard not to go in and compare ‘Blue Sea’ with ‘My Love from the Stars’ as they had so many other things in common beyond the writer- same lead actress, same mythical creature twist (alien/mermaid), same blend of a Joseon timeline and a modern timeline.

Jeon Ji Hyun is a total star

I foolishly expected a drama of the same sort of quality, and while ‘Blue Sea’ isn’t a bad drama, it has none of the wonder, sparkle or addictiveness that ‘My Love’ had. While Jeon Ji Hyun delivered an incredible performance as our mermaid on land, I wasn’t a huge fan of the character herself. She was innocent and a bit daft- which added a lot to the comedy, but sadly lessened the impact of the love-line. Chung’s childish adoration, or even obsession, with Joon Jae felt less like deep, emotional love, and more like a teenager crush. She didn’t know Joon Jae- she just instantly fell for him and he could do no wrong. It was a lot like the fluffy love in ‘My Girlfriend is a Gumiho’, and I was just expecting something with a bit more substance. On the other hand, Joon Jae’s love for Chung was lovely to watch develop. We were always shown that Joon Jae had a pretty soft interior and didn’t like turning away from Chung when she so obviously had no idea how to live on land. Joon Jae has a sweet progression from annoyance to protector to love, and his sincerity is always felt- even in the more comedic moments.

Lee Min Ho looks like one hell of a snuggler

I find Lee Min Ho to be a little overhyped, but he portrayed his character well, and did much better with the comedy than I thought he would. While I didn’t really fall in love with Joon Jae, I believed his emotions and understood his actions, and could even sympathise with him most of the time- and a lot of that comes from Lee Min Ho’s ernest portrayal of the character. The side characters were criminally underdeveloped.

Um, hello- where's my bromance?

The three con-men were pretty much the first people we saw (both in advertising the drama and in the actual drama), yet they don’t really get any development or screen-time. I absolutely loved the conflict that was brought in at the end that questioned Nam Doo’s loyalty to Joon Jae, and Chung by extension- but that really only came into play in the last few episodes. And poor Tae Oh probably gets less than 20 lines. That’s like one line an episode. If that. Why is everyone so against giving Shin lines? He’s a great little actor with an adorable pout and I wish people would just let him do something. Also, his love-line with Shi Ah was one of the most unwanted things I’ve encountered in a long time. It felt weird, and we’d established that Shi Ah is nasty and two-faced (by her treatment of her housemaid before and after she found out she was Joon Jae’s mum) so why force poor Tae Oh to have her? Sigh.

Shtaaaaappp iiiittttt

I generally like Lee Ji Hoon, and I loved him in his role here. He has a wonderful ambiguity about him where you can never quite tell if he’s good or evil. As it was, Chi Hyun didn’t know himself whether he was good or evil, and Lee Ji Hoon showed amazing ability in portraying Chi Hyun’s conflicted feelings of love and abandonment.

But changing his hairstyle was a bit of a giveaway that he was now a 'bad dude'

The main villain, Evil Stepmom, was a bit of a stock standard K-Drama villain, but at least she made things happen. To be honest, I didn’t really care about Joon Jae’s father and whether he lived or died, but at least his death (and thus Joon Jae’s revenge) made something happen in the story that went beyond ‘the mermaid likes Joon Jae’. I kind of wish the relationship between Stepmom and Da Young had been explained a bit better, as it was mostly just up to our own imaginations to fill in the blanks. They were children at an orphanage, then murderous adults, and we weren't really shown how the two got there. I would happily swap some silly Spain episodes for a bit more backstory on our villains. The Joseon part of the drama was endlessly interesting, and I thoroughly enjoyed whatever time we spent in that timeline. It was an interesting twist to have Dam Ryung just as aware of Joon Jae as Joon Jae was of him. The past timeline ensured we had the beautiful, bittersweet, tragic love story that K-Drama seems to love so much, and the present timeline gave us the happy ending we were all wanting. Also, the way the timelines worked together to reveal whether Nam Doo was a bad guy or not was just absolutely perfect.

Pure brilliance

What Was Great:

No Noble Idiocy:

There was the chance for noble idiocy at every turn, and thankfully no one in this drama took it.

This is so much better than forced separation

The idea was tossed around a bit, and we could see both Joon Jae and Chung considering it, but at the end of the day no one buggered off under the delusion that they were protecting the other. Sure, Chung did bugger off- but that was because she was going to die (more on this later). Having a set-up like this one (mermaid’s heart only beats if the man continues to love her) is basically every noble idiot’s dream. Chung could have left saying Joon Jae would be too sad when she died, and Joon Jae could have pretended not to love Chung in some stupid attempt to send her back into the ocean and stop her heart from hardening. But instead, they choose to stay together and do cute couple things and just generally be adorable. Yay. 

It’s Pretty:

Everything is lovely to look at. The scenery is stunning- particularly in their overseas shoot, and the cinematography is just beautiful. The Joseon era was particularly lovely, and had a real magical air about it. Jeon Ji Hyun is of course very beautiful, and makes for one gorgeous mermaid. She did a fantastic job of looking at home in the water- rather than being uncoordinated, she moved through the water very gracefully. The soundtrack was nice and complemented the prettiness that was on screen well.

So nice to look at

What Wasn’t:

The Beginning:

For the first half of this drama I was pretty darn angry. Because nothing seemed to have a point, even though the drama seemed to think it did.

Sure, it was a little fun- but by Ep. 3 I was expecting some sort of plot

We had a whole bunch of episodes in Spain- but then these all get erased from Joon Jae’s memory, and the only part of it that actually mattered was Joon Jae meeting Chung and telling her to come to Seoul. Like, c’mon. You could have put that in one or two episodes- do I really need to see them escaping from random hoodlums for a whole episode? And even when Chung gets to Seoul, beyond a few fish-out-of-water jokes there wasn’t much going on. Sure, Joon Jae was starting to like Chung and whatever- but we’ve all seen it before. In Spain. He just doesn’t remember. But I sure do. Really, until it was revealed that there was an actual threat out there (not just Chung’s heart maybe not working anymore), I had zero investment in the series. I mean it was all pretty and cute, but it was the life-and-death, get-the-ending-we-didn’t-get-the-first-time stakes that I was really interested in.

The End:

The last episode stank. What a stanky episode. I liked everything about it, but the fact that she erased everyone’s memory just made it stupid.

'Please don't take my memory.' Proceeds in taking memory.

It basically rendered the whole drama pointless. Sure, she met Joon Jae and he hadn’t forgotten her (somehow), but every other relationship I watched Chung forge and enjoyed watching develop was completely erased.

Joseon ending was far more dramatic

What. The. Hell. And it wasn’t even for a good reason. Not to mention that it totally negates the earlier message the drama was sending. In Joseon, Dam Ryung criticised Se Hwa for taking his memory without permission and says he would have much rather been alone with the memory of loving her than have no recollection of it. It’s the whole old ’tis better to have loved and lost the never to have loved at all’ thing all over again. And Chung seems to finally have got the message when she refused to erase Joon Jae’s memories of his dead father even though he asks. Then right at the end Joon Jae specifically asks Chung not to take his memories and she tries to do it anyway! Why? Whyyyyy?! And then she seems all upset that no one remembers her when she returns three years later- like, what did you expect? Ohhhhhh, so frustrating. I can live with Chung returning to the ocean for her body to recover (even if it would have been nice to know that was why she went back before she went), but taking the memories of her friends without their knowledge was just stupid, and quite frankly selfish.

Re-watch?

Goodness me, no. The beginning and the last episode thoroughly irritated me.

You guys totally just could have bought a house by the sea at the start and skipped all the angst in between