Top 5 Hilarious Cameos

Top 5

Hilarious Cameos 

Seeing as it’s just been Easter, I thought we’d all celebrate by remembering some of the sidesplittingly funny easter eggs K-Drama delivers in it’s shows. Cameos are something you remain rather oblivious to until you’ve got a few dramas under your belt, and suddenly you become aware of a whole new layer of comedy. It’s not uncommon for PDs to call on actors of past series to cameo in their new drama, or for past co-stars or friends of lead actors to show up in their new works. While there’s nothing wrong with an unexpected appearance of a loved star, the best types of cameos are those that go beyond ‘oh look who it is’ and give a sly wink and nod to viewers who are in the know. It’s a wonderful combining of K-Drama worlds that never fails to delight viewers. Although there are many fun cameos (both that I have and haven’t seen), here’s my Top 5 pick of my favourite funny cameo appearances.

5: Minho (Drinking Solo)

One of the three students who constantly fail their civil service exams in ‘Drinking Solo’ is Key from Shinee. The drama makes a couple of sly references to the boyband, particularly in regards to Minho. Key’s love interest in the show mentions that Minho was her first love, which brings on some wonderful hilarity as Key goes on to say how Minho was a thug and bully back in high school. Key claims to have taught Minho how to dance and even does a wonderfully terrible rendition of Shinee’s choreography to ‘Lucifer’. It’s in a high school flashback where Minho makes an actual appearance in the drama where he’s shown bullying his bandmate by making him dance in front of the class, and even preventing him from using the bathroom. Later on, Key’s character even sates that if he were in Shinee he would be a hundred times better than Minho. The cameo is a delightful wink at those who know of Shinee and show just how cute and close the boys are. And it’s really just SO funny.

4: Yoon Doo Joon (Let’s Fight, Ghost)

‘Let’s Fight, Ghost’ and the ‘Let’s Eat’ franchise share a PD. There was a smattering of cameos from the ‘Let’s Eat 2’ cast throughout ‘Let’s Fight, Ghost’- admittedly most went over my head as I’ve only seen ‘Let’s Eat’ and ‘Drinking Solo’ from that franchise. However, the cameo I did grasp, and probably the funniest of the lot was Yoon Doo Joon. He was the hero for both the ‘Let’s Eat’ dramas and appears in ‘Let’s Fight, Ghost’ as the same character- Goo Dae Young. Which is hilarious. He sits with the heroine during lunch, and describes the cafeteria food in the same drawn-out, mouth-watering, food porn way he did in ‘Let’s Eat’, and even invites the heroine to join his collage club. The name of the club? Let’s Eat. 

3: Kim Seul Gi (Moonlight Drawn by Clouds)

For those unacquainted with ‘Moonlight Drawn by Clouds’ (is there anyone?), it’s a drama about a young girl who pretends to be a eunuch (ie- a man) and ends up in a relationship with the crown prince. In the final episode of the show, the head eunuchs make note of a strange new eunuch- and it’s Kim Seul Gi from ‘Splash Splash Love’. It’s just a tiny cameo but loaded with humour. Kim Seul Gi played a girl transported to the past who disguises herself as a eunuch and falls in love with the King in ‘Splash Splash Love’. It’s a small nod at those who’ve seen the mini-series, but it’s not too weird and obvious for those who haven’t.

2: Bae Suzy (My Love from the Stars)

One of my favourite cameos of all time has to be Bae Suzy’s cameo in ‘My Love from the Stars’. I totally missed it the first time around (it was my first K-Drama so I didn’t know ANYONE), but the second time around it was a delightful, hilarious surprise. In the cameo Bae Suzy meets Kim Soo Hyun’s character and introducers herself as Go Hye Mi- her character from ‘Dream High’ in which she and Kim Soo Hyun were the leads. She even goes on to say that Do Min Joon looks like her first boyfriend Sam Dong, which is Kim Soo Hyun’s character from the show. It was a cute dose of meta humour and totally reminds us why we loved the two together in ‘Dream High’. The two are so cute, and the cameo was just charming.

1: Kang Gary (Emergency Couple)

My number one cameo of all cameos ever! ‘Running Man’ is the first Korean anything I ever watched, and is what got me into K-Drama in the first place. I adore both Kang Gary and Song Ji Hyo and I am a huge fan of Monday Couple. In the show, Song Ji Hyo’s character gets totally drunk and calls a driver- and it’s her other half on ‘Running Man’ Gary! Song Ji Hyo keeps calling him Gary and he replies that he’s actually daeri (driver). He grins while Song Ji Hyo flirts with him (‘you’re totally my style’) and he even throws in that he thinks he might see her on Monday (the shooting day for ‘Running Man’). It’s all kinds of hilarious, and fit in well with the show rather than just being forced in there. It was so cute and so delightful and the perfect use of a cameo appearance.

What are your favourite funny cameos?

Emergency Couple

Emergency Couple

7/10

Emergency Couple 

Genre:                                   Episodes: 21                                   Year: 2014

Romance

Comedy

Medical

Synopsis:

Oh Chang Min and Oh Jin Hee decide to marry young, despite opposition from their families. Oh Chang Min loses support from his family and is unable to continue being a medical student, and instead works as a salesman for a pharmaceutical company. As both start to become increasingly dissatisfied with their lives, their marriage begins to struggle, and they decide to divorce. Six years later, the two of them find themselves as medical interns at the same hospital. For three months they have to work in the ER as part of the same team, while keeping their past relationship and divorce a secret from their co-workers.

Cast:

Song Ji Hyo (Oh Jin Hee)

Choi Jin Hyuk (Oh Chang Min)

Lee Pil Mo (Gook Cheon Soo)

Choi Yeo Jin (Shim Ji Hye)

Clara (Han Ah Reum)

General Thoughts:

A funny, insightful drama that’s easy to watch. Song Ji Hyo and Choi Jin Hyuk both deliver convincing bitter, yet comfortable, divorcee performances aided by great chemistry. There was no other real plot-line aside from the divorced couple rekindling their past feelings and the impacted relationships around them, but the episodes were far from boring, with interesting ER shenanigans to fill in the time.

Sexy CPR

A good support cast kept the drama rumbling at a steady pace, and included some wonderful female characters- while successfully avoiding the common ‘jealous b*tch’ plot device. There was a period in the middle there where the 'com' was lacking from the rom-com, but the serious episodes were needed to propel our characters into making some changes. The plotline, while never dragging, was also never surprising- it was fairly easy to see where the drama was going, it was just a matter of getting there. 

What Was Great:

Our Emergency Couple:

I really enjoyed our leads in this drama. Both had unique, quirky characters that made for a unique, quirky relationship. Oh Chang Min’s pettiness and immaturity made for some amusing scenes, particularly when paired with Gook Cheon Soo’s awkward abruptness.

Because obviously Oh Jin Hee will date whoever can maintain eye contact longest

Song Ji Hyo played a fiery, determined woman- a refreshing difference from the usual K-Drama heroine. They had an abundance of cute, and definitely developed both individually and as a pair. It was interesting to observe the continued closeness of the couple after the divorce, even before their feelings started to emerge once again. It was enjoyable to watch the underlying closeness while the surface feelings slowly began to develop. Together, Song Ji Hyo and Choi Jin Hyuk portrayed a very believable duo of divorcees, who were unsure where they stood, and what the boundaries of their relationship were.

Potentially crossed a boundary

Female Support:

‘Emergency Couple’ has some of the best female support characters in any K-Drama I’ve watched. They were still presented as an obstacle for our leads, without ever falling into clichéd, unlikeable roles. Shim Ji Hye was a standout character, and so refreshing to watch.

Gives great advise to all but herself

It was touching to see how she cared for the man she loved- so much as even helping him move forward with another woman. This character had real depth and insight, always thinking about what was best for the one she loved, rather than herself. She was never pushy or dishonest about her feelings, and her own small plot-line was interesting enough. However, it did bug me a little when she was telling everyone else to go for what they wanted, while never doing so herself. I would have loved to see all her self-sacrifice and loyalty pay off at the end when she decided to really give 100%, but I was left a little disappointed in that regard.

Medical:

ER: You're either dying, or you're not

This is the first medical K-Drama I’ve ever watched, and I enjoyed that aspect immensely. While probably not the best, or most accurate medical drama out there, it was interesting and never became confusing with medical mumbo-jumbo. While there were some heavier scenes as a result of the ER setting, it managed to avoid bordering melodrama and keep a light-hearted undertone. As the relationship plot-lines were rather slow to develop, the medical side really helped keep the drama interesting- even if none of the patients were really important or had continuing plots.

Gookie:

That baby was adorable. That baby paired with Choi Jin Hyuk was adorable. Seriously, that baby had pretty spot-on reactions.

Song Ji Hyo always looked a little awkward around him though.

I want one.

Monday Couple forever ♥

Monday Couple Moment:

The cameo by Kang Gary was hilarious. It was a delightful Easter-egg for us who know about the Monday Couple, but wasn’t ridiculous enough for people who were unaware to question what was going on with the chatty cabbie. I adore Monday Couple, and I adored this cameo. Not gonna lie, a small part of me was hoping for a massive plot twist where Oh Jin Hee runs off with the Mr. Taxi driver.

What Wasn’t:

Evil Mother-in-Law:

Oh my god. I’m so sick of this. Are all mother-in-law’s in South Korea complete psychos? Because that’s sure what it looks like given all these K-Drama representations. I’m completely over the whole mother-in-law villain thing, and I’m completely over Park Joon Geum playing them. It’s so overused that it’s no longer a plot device- it’s just downright irritating. Why, why, why do you make me sit through this? It’s actual agony. While the turnaround of this character at the end was nice, it was also highly unbelievable. I won’t be sad if I never see Park Joon Geum in anything ever again. I’m so conditioned to seeing her as this type of character, I honestly don’t think I could believe her as anything else.

OMG GET OFF MY TV

Jin Hee’s Metamorphosis:

It was great that this character changed from the quiet, listless idiot, but it’s such a shame that most of these changes happened off-screen. There’s such a dramatic difference in the way Oh Jin Hee was presented during the marriage (and even in flashbacks) that I’m left wondering how it happened. While Oh Chang Min gets all this juicy on-screen development- gradually going from self-entitled asshat to endearing heart-winner, all we get from Oh Jin Hee is her slow acceptance that she shared part of the blame for their marriage falling apart. It was easy to accept that she had changed so much over six years, but I wanted to know WHY.

From this...

...to this

Divorce:

Okay, it’s easy to see why our leads got a divorce. The first episode makes it very clear. They were insanely frustrated and fought all the time. But why did they fight all the time? While there were some hints given, it was never explored adequately, and seeing as the break-up and reconciliation was the whole point of the drama, it really was necessary to give

Communication. How rare for a man.

us viewers a little more information. It’s vaguely suggested that a lot of problems arose from Chang Min’s disappointment at not becoming a doctor and financial stress, and Jin Hee’s feelings of inadequacy- but surely that wasn’t all. If that’s really all, then the writers here are asking us to believe that they will never have financial trouble, as they will never lose their jobs, and they will never have self-doubts again. While I appreciate that their communication improved dramatically, I still find their future together uncertain if these are the only reasons they broke up. It’s easy enough to look past this and enjoy the drama for what it is, but going into more depth about the reason behind the failed marriage would have added a lot more substance to the series and resulted in a stronger, more believable relationship the second time around.

How did we get here

Re-watch?

The chances of re-watching this drama are low. While it did have many cute moments and interesting plot-lines, it was a smidge forgettable. While most aspects of the drama were good, there was nothing that was truly exceptional or standout from other dramas. 

"My heart is beating for you."