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Let's Play: K-drama Dream Brunch
Aside from "What superpower would you choose?" (anyone who says invisibility is creepy and automatically off my friendship list, FYI), my other favorite get-to-know-you question is "If you could have brunch with five famous people from any time in history, who would you choose?" It's so interesting to hear justifications for different answers.
But now that I've been blogging for several years, I want to adjust the question for my online K-drama-loving buddies. This one's a toughie, and I'm excited to hear your answers!
Which K-drama Characters Would You Invite to Brunch?
But first, some rules (because yes, I'm the kind of person who just really, really loves rules).
1. You can invite up to five characters to your brunch. A group bigger than six (including you) probably gets out of hand.
2. You're inviting characters, not actors. Of course you can consider who plays the character, but there won't be any breaking of the fourth wall here. If you invite Wang So from Moon Lovers, you're getting the dude who murdered lots of people at your brunch, not mild-mannered Lee Joon Ki.
3. You can assume none of the characters will pose a physical threat to you during the course of the brunch. Again, you could invite Wang So without worrying that he'll murder you, but I make no promises that he'll be a pleasant conversationalist.
I've thought about it long and hard, and here are my picks!
Brunch pick #1: Kim Shin (played by Gong Yoo), Goblin
I was going to pick a time traveler so I could learn about history with someone who also understands modern social cues and wouldn't flip over the table in the middle of brunch or something (again, Wang So is off my brunch list for sooooo many reasons), but why settle for someone who knows only about one time period when you could have someone who just stayed alive the whole time?
Dude has clearly seen some stuff, and I'd love to hear all about it. I'm afraid I will have to include a dress code on his invite. 1960s suits only, please. No turtlenecks allowed.
Brunch pick #2: Lee Do (played by Han Suk Kyu), Tree with Deep Roots
In a perfect world, Lee Do would just be played by Song Joong Ki all the time, and he would come regale me with nerdy tales of creating Hangul, but if I'm being 100% faithful to the show, I'll have to skip young Lee Do and his whiny Sudoko phase in favor of the older, more mature King Sejong.
Brunch pick #3: Arang (played by Shin Min Ah), Arang and the Magistrate
She's been a ghost, she's from another time period, and she's encountered the gods and faced the portals of hell and all that jazz. Yes, please. I want to hear all her secrets and maybe also talk about whether King of Heaven Yoon Seung Ho's hair is as magnificent as it looks once you get up close.
Plus, she spent half the show whining about how hungry she was, so maybe she'll be a grateful guest and take some of the pressure off of picking the perfect brunch spot for this crew.
Brunch pick #4: Healer (played by Ji Chang Wook), Healer
Definitely for some other very good reasons that are not just Ji Chang Wook.
Brunch pick #5: Choi Choon Hee (played by Eunji), Trot Lovers
This might seem like a throwaway pick if I only get four characters, but I'm a pragmatist at heart. If I'm going to be inviting some of the other people on my list, I need one person there who can help calm my social anxiety and keep the conversation going. Every time I watch a show with Eunji as the lead, I feel like we could be best friends in real life, so that's why I'm pulling in an Eunji character.
But why this Eunji character—arguably from the worst show she's ever been in? I'm not going to argue that Trot Lovers isn't a garbage show (because it definitely is), but Choi Choon Hee seems like she would be the best at wrangling a crowd for me and coaxing guests like my moody goblin into conversation. Plus, I have this mental image of all of us laughing and clapping along as she enthralls us by singing some trot songs, so there's that.
Who Would You Invite?
Ok, your turn! Ready, set, go! Tell me your brunch picks, but choose wisely!
New K-drama Alert: Strongest Deliveryman and Manhole Reviews
Can any of these break the recent drama curse?
Strongest Deliveryman
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| Food delivery is no laughing matter. |
What it's about: Choi Kang Soo (Go Kyung Pyo) and Lee Dan Ah (Choi Soo Bin) are hardworking delivery people who clash when they start working for the same restaurant. They also get tangled up with a couple of rich kids, Oh Jin Gyu (Kim Sun Ho) and Lee Ji Yoon (Go Won Hee).
Episodes watched: 4
First impressions: I like it, but I'm not in love with it. At this point, I'm sticking around for our central characters, all of whom have some interesting little quirk to keep me intrigued.
I came into the series assuming that Chae Soo Bin and Go Kyung Pyo would be fantastic, but I've found myself surprisingly engaged by the character of Oh Jin Gyu. Yes, he's a stupid rich kid who does terrible things and has a long road of redemption ahead, but Kim Sun Ho is playing him extremely well and balancing that line of making you feel sympathetic and rooting for him to turn things around even when you're furious at what he's done.
I've seen some fan comments complaining of "oppa favoritism" with Oh Jin Gyu, saying that viewers are overly tolerant of his character while unfairly criticizing Dan Ah. While I think there is a general tendency to go easier on male leads than female leads, I don't think that's necessarily the case here.
For the most part, I like Dan Ah. I can also 100% recognize that Jin Gyu's actions had far worse outcomes than Dan Ah kicking people in the nuts or blackmailing them. But the reason her behavior bothers me more is that the show itself recognizes his actions as bad and has clearly established that it's not okay, all while shrugging at everything Dan Ah does as "but she's a badass who takes care of herself!" Sorry, but blackmailing someone for cross dressing in the privacy of their own room isn't "badass" in my book, and it hinders my appreciation of a character I would otherwise support totally and completely.
Weirdly, at this point I'm having the hardest time connecting to Kang Soo out of everyone, which shouldn't be the case since, you know, he's the main character and all. I know we got his sad backstory and all, but I guess we haven't really seen enough of his actual personality to know much beyond "nice guy with lots of scooter buddies," which isn't enough to make me care. Of course, the perm doesn't exactly help me take him seriously, either.
In any case, I care enough about everyone else to stick around to see what happens with Kang Soo.
Manhole (Feel So Good)
What it's about: Sad, pathetic loser Bong Pil (Jaejoong) is devastated that his longtime friend and love of his life Kang Soo Jin (UEE) is getting married to another guy. Suddenly, he gets a chance to set things right when he travels through a magical burping manhole (Yup, as weird as it sounds) into the past.
Episodes watched: 2
First impressions: 30 minutes into episode 1, I almost quit. It was slapstick and cheesy in all the wrong ways, and Pil's constant flailing and whining made me think it was no wonder Soo Jin pretended to have no idea Pil was in love with her all that time.
It also seemed like a waste to assemble such a large cast of neighborhood regulars if those characters were all going to feel slick and empty instead of lived in and real like the very best neighborhood stories should.
After sticking it out for two episodes, I can't say that the slapstick is gone or that I really care about the neighborhood crew yet, but there were a few key moments that made me want to come back for this week's episodes:
- The moment where Pil tries to confess to Soo Jin (and she nods eeeeever so slightly to encourage him) had that emotional hook I was missing earlier in the episode. In that one moment, I was aching for both of them not being able to say what they wanted to say.
- When Pil comforts Soo Jin after the mirror falls, he seems like a totally different person. Suddenly, you see what he's like when all the self-consciousness is stripped away, and that makes me want to know how he got from that popular, helpful guy in high school to the whiny loser he became in the present day (and how he can switch back, of course).
- The prospect of the butterfly effect making Pil into a gangster is just too good to resist. I have to stick around for episode 3!
Honestly, I think I responded better to this series having read comments about how pathetic Pil is and how slapstick the comedy is ahead of time. It helped me push through all that nonsense and get to the hints of something better I might have missed otherwise.
What Do You Think?
Are you watching either show? Or something else entirely? Let's beat this drama slump together!
하백의 신부 13회 - The bride of habaek God Water Episode 13
The Water God Habaek visits earth to fulfill his mission with the help of his servant in the human world, named psychiatrist Yoon So Ah, whose ancestor have promised to serve The Water God for generations.
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