Kdrama Spinoffs!

Sometimes while I watch Kdramas, I catch myself imagining spinoff television shows based on the characters. Does anyone else do this? Just me? Well, some of my imaginary spinoffs are more desirable than others, but here are a few (mostly joking) spinoffs that have crossed my mind of late:

1. Koreans in Sombreros: The Yeo Jin Story

Lost love! Lost limbs! Frantic wedding day car chases!

C'mon. A Cunning Single Lady/Sly and Single Again prequel featuring Yeo Jin's ill-fated first love would be like a telenovela having babies with a soapy, melo Kdrama. In other words, incredibly trashy, but totally addicting. Can we add in a birth secret for good measure? Sure! Why not dream big?

2. Mastah Chep

I envision this as a cooking reality show where Lee Chun Hee and Gong Hyo Jin each head up teams of competing chefs. The two actors would, of course, take on their previous roles from Dating Agency: Cyrano and Pasta, respectively.

3. Noodles for Young Do

My brother-in-law happened to see bits and pieces of Heirs, and he later asked me, "Why is that Young Do kid so obsessed with noodles? Is that code for going steady?"

Well, in this spinoff, Young Do would throw off the shackles of being a hotel heir and open his own noodle restaurant by the sea. In the process, he would discover inner peace, and, of course, love. A Korean noodle company could fund the project in exchange for delicious product placement. Kim Woo Bin ain't cheap, you know.

4. Barassi's Playhouse!

Why does this dog not have his own children's show? WHY? It's been a while since I learned how to count to ten, but I bet his furry face would have been great motivation.

Oh, and P.S., in this spinoff, Barassi can fly.

5. The Adventures of Geol Oh and Yeorim

This actually isn't a joke. This is a serious ongoing fantasy. Hurry up and get into the army, Yoo Ah In! The sooner you go, the sooner you and Song Joong Ki can be reunited in magnificent glory. 

Who do I have to pay to make this happen? Oh, wait, I'm too poor for that. Which chaebols are available for Coco to marry so that she can bankroll this project? Because I'm usually opposed to selling out my friends, but I might make an exception to see this wonder on the screen.

Exploring Second Lead Syndrome

After watching both Emergency Couple and Sly and Single Again this week, I've been thinking about Second Lead Syndrome again. Both shows feature a woman caught between two men, and in both cases, the female lead is clearly destined to go back to her ex-husband from episode 1. Neither ex-husband is exactly a shining paragon of awesome boyfriend-osity, but hey,  he's rich and he's on the promotional poster, so it has to be true love, right?

It's no secret that Emergency Couple is giving me what might be my worst case of Second Lead Syndrome yet (We're talking Young Do levels here, folks. Things are bad.). In the case of Sly and Single, I feel sad for the second lead, but he doesn't have me clutching my heart and sighing at the TV or anything, either. The comparison of two very similar shows has got me wondering what it is that sparks Second Lead Syndrome (SLS) and why it is that I catch it for some dramas and I just don't care for others. There seem to be a few different factors at play in my self-diagnosis of this ailment:

Go ahead. Just stab my heart with little daggers, why don't you?

What could have been...

Second leads are notoriously bad at spitting out their feelings. While the first leads are dragging women around by the arm and forcing kisses onto them, second leads are always stuck forming painstakingly cautious love declarations, only to be interrupted at the last minute by a phone or something equally infuriating. (Seriously. Stop answering the freaking phone.) 

If viewers are already favoring the second lead, an interrupted love declaration is basically the worst thing a writer can do. It ensures that we will spend the rest of the show wondering what could have been if only the man spoke at a pace slightly faster than one word every thirty seconds. How can we feel satisfied that the female lead made the right choice if she didn't even know she had another option until it was too late?

Oh, Geol Oh, if only you had overcome your girl-instigated hiccups...

On the other hand, there is such a thing as waiting too long, and second leads who beat around the bush for a million years tend to lose my sympathy at some point. Take You're Beautiful's Shin Woo, for example. Yeah, she got interrupted by a phone call on their pseudo-date, but he could have said something a little earlier instead of just staring at her and talking in thinly veiled "stories." 

Then again, if she was too stupid to figure out that the story describing her exact situation was really about her, maybe Shin Woo dodged a bullet on that one. 

It takes two to tango

Mutual interest is the next big factor in second lead syndrome. Sometimes, I want to give male leads a copy of the book He's Just Not That Into You and send them on their way. I'm thrilled when they confess their feelings, but if it's obvious from the start that there's no interest from the female lead, it makes it a teensy bit easier to let the relationship die in my mind. 

If the show develops the possibility of a relationship with the second male lead, though, all bets are off. I think that's what got so many Boys over Flowers fans. She was completely interested in Ji Hoo one minute, and then suddenly she's dating Jun Pyo. Why? Because he shouted about his feelings more adamantly? His family had slightly more money? It's a mystery. Add in a fortune teller announcing that Ji Hoo is her soul mate, but Jun Pyo is her husband, and you've got a herd of angry fans on your hands.

Lesson of the day: Don't trust random island fortune tellers.

Emergency Couple is another example. Jin Hee and Chief Gook had fantastic chemistry for most of the show, which made it that much harder to figure out why the writers wouldn't just cave to their obvious connection and kill Chang Min in a freak bench pressing accident or something. (I'm joking! Sort of.)

Variety is the spice of K-dramas

This one's a biggie. It wasn't until I watched the recycled mishmash that was Nail Shop Paris that I realized just how predictable male characters are in Dramaland (or at least the romcom segment of Dramaland). I know that we've talked a lot about female leads on this blog, but if we want complex, interesting women in our dramas, don't they also deserve complex, interesting men to date?

As it currently stands, many romantic dramas have two tropes: the chaebol lead and the supportive second lead. The male lead has two personality traits: haughty and rich. (Rich isn't even a personality trait, but that's the best we've got, so we'll take it.) As time goes on, he becomes less haughty, and he falls in love. But that's it. Beyond haughty, rich, in love, and maybe sad about daddy issues, you don't have much to work with, personality-wise. 

Then you have the second male lead, who is (slightly less) rich, kind, and supportive. His main characteristic is his willingness to follow the woman around and serve her with his invisible love. 

Now, I love a good old fashioned chaebol love story, but every once in a while, I wish Kdrama male characters had just a little more personality. Haughty vs. nice makes it tempting to root for the nice guy, but you have to admit that some second leads are just a teensy bit boring. How can you blame her for having no interest if he's kind of a snoozefest? 

Sorry, not sorry, Jaejoong fans. His character was like watching paint dry.

When Kdrama writers break the mold and offer complex, intriguing second leads who break the basic mold, that's when I really can't resist. In Dating Agency: Cyrano, the main lead was doing typical male lead shenanigans, while Master was having long, heartfelt conversations with the female lead. They laughed together, cooked together, talked together, and he was secretly a gangster in disguise. It was a refreshing break from the norm, which automatically prejudiced me against her boring grandpa of the boyfriend.

Similarly, in Heirs, Young Do might have been a violent maniac, but if your only other option is another violent maniac, why not at least root for the one with multiple facial expressions and a motorcycle? (Remind me not to become a life coach for teen girls. Something tells me that I would be bad at it. Teens, don't actually date violent maniacs with motorcycles, okay?)

Whatever the reason, Second Lead Syndrome is always lurking around the corner of every romantic K-drama. As far as I can tell, the only cure is to demand a higher quality of male lead to leave their competition in the dust.

Summertime Funnertime: Dating Agency: Cyrano Review

Dating Agency: Cyrano just finished its run in July of this year.  Looking for something light and fluffy to watch in what feels like billion-degree weather, I started watching it pretty soon after it ended.

Doesn't this poster just scream "SUMMER!" to you?
Source

The posters didn't lie.  This drama was like a little creamiscle: a light snack for the summer, but so light that it won't stay with you for long.

Your Typical Flower Boys

This show is actually part of tvN's larger Oh!Boy series (which also includes Flower Boy Ramyun Shop, Shut Up! Flower Boy Band, and Flower Boys Next Door).  In line with the other shows, this one was originally called Flower Boy Dating Agency before they settled on Dating Agency: Cyrano.  This change might have been a way to connect it to the 2010 film on which it was based (Cyrano Agency). Either that, or the producers realized that a title containing the term flower "boys" was a little misleading since both of the male leads are in their 30s (and Flower Boys Plus a Couple of Flower Ahjussis Dating Agency doesn't have quite the same ring to it).

Some Flower Boys is better than none!

Even though there aren't flower boys in the title, this series still captures the same spirit that fills the other Oh! Boy shows.  It's a breezy comedy bursting at the seams with quirky side characters and cute romance. In fact, fans of Jo Yoon Woo's "Angel Boy" in FBRS will be thrilled to see the same actor play Do Arang, who is basically the exact same character--nerdy sweaters and all. 

This series amps up the fun factor with a million different cameos from other kdrama stars. Since the series revolves around a dating agency, each new "case" features a new set of actors as the agency's romantic targets.  I didn't recognize all of the cameos, but the ones I picked up were pretty enjoyable.  My personal favorite had to be Gong Yoo because, well, it's Gong Yoo.  'Nuff said.

Boom.  Doesn't this basically make the whole series worthwhile?

The Leads

I was pleasantly surprised by Sooyoung's portrayal of Gong Min Young.  She has a smile that absolutely lights up the room, and Gong Min Young was delightfully confident and pleasant and normal--almost unheard-of in a kdrama female lead! She was comfortable in her own skin from episode 1 and didn't feel the need to apologize for her personality.  Even though I would probably be initially intimidated by her snazzy style and outgoing personality, she's definitely someone I would want as a friend in real life.

Wait, she knows basic personal hygiene?  What kind of kdrama lead does she think she is?

I also appreciate the way she initially handled the relationship. Yes, she confessed her feelings first, but instead of staring into space and crying after Byung Hoon ignored her, she told him to just man up and be more mature about the whole thing.  In fact, every time he used a trick that would make most kdrama females freeze up (firing her, asking if she likes him, etc.), she turned the tables on him.

As great as Sooyoung was, I had a hard time with the chemistry in this show.  Part of this is my own fault.  Yes, the drama recognizes the age gap between Min Young and Seo Byung Hoon (15 years between the actual actors, in case you're wondering), but they don't ever spell out the difference, and they try to balance the characters in terms of emotional maturity.  For me, though, the age gap was a little distracting.  It wasn't the actual age so much as the difference in life experience.  She is a bubbly youngster just out of college, and he is a jaded middle-aged man with an increasingly ridiculous bowl cut.  It didn't help that the last time I watched Lee Jong Hyuk was in A Gentleman's Dignity, where he played a cheating 40-something-year old (who, if I remember correctly, checks out Sooyoung's legs at some point in the show).  Even in the final scenes of the show, it just felt more like a teacher-student relationship than a sizzling partnership of people on equal levels.  They had some cute moments (like the play fighting below), but most of the chemistry just didn't fall into place for me.

Out of curiosity, I asked Coco what she thought about the pairing after watching the first episode.  She had never seen A Gentleman's Dignity, and she didn't really register the age difference, so I really might be the only one who felt this way.  I can't help it!

I'm also starting to realize that I will probably never get through a Flower Boy series without a serious case of Second Male Lead Syndrome. I don't know what it is about these shows, but it happens every time (except for maybe FBRS, where the second lead was nice, but the random narcolepsy threw me off).  How can I possibly appreciate Seo Byung Hoon when Master is around?

I think he should win just on the basis of all that delicious food he made.

Short answer?  I can't. 

The Plot

As I said before, the basic premise of this drama means that we get a new love story (with new star cameos) every 2-3 episodes.  These side stories were adorable, and they helped keep the show moving at a decent pace.  I didn't notice the time dragging in the middle like I sometimes do because I was excited to see what each new case would bring.

The big exception here is the last few episodes, where the show's writers made a beeline straight for Crazyville and didn't stop until it was time to wrap up the series. If you're writing a fun, lighthearted series about the hijinks in a dating agency, WHY would you think that tossing in a kidnapping with two episodes to go is a good way to wrap things up?  I can understand using kidnapping as a last-ditch plot device if you have to fill 50 episodes, but this series only has 16 episodes, and they're only 45 minutes long. Now that's just lazy!  

I sometimes wonder if kdrama writers have a giant wheel of plot twists sitting in their office, and every time someone gets writer's block, they just gather around and spin the wheel, a-la Wheel of Fortune. "Come onnnnnnnnnnn, amnesia! Awwwww, man! Not another illegitimate child!"

I also felt like the underlying conflict was a little underdeveloped for the amount of drama it caused in the show.  Seo Byung Hoon kept agonizing over things, and then Yi Seol would just be like, "Yeah, I knew that 15 years ago.  NBD."

Random Observations

• It's hard to choose a favorite side character in a drama filled with side characters, but I have to give a shout out to Master's bumbling henchmen and their attempts at matchmaking.

• What's with Seo Byung Hoon's trench coats?  Everyone else is wearing shorts and t-shirts, and he's decked out like Inspector Gadget. 

Is this supposed to help him blend in?  Because it's definitely not working.

• (Spoiler) Can we please talk about that scene with the bomb?  Master is BLEEDING ON THE FLOOR, and everyone else is just going all starry-eyed in love? SOMEBODY CALL KOREAN 911! But nooooooo, they go ahead and stab him in the heart right after he's been stabbed in the stomach.

Wait, remind me why she chose the other guy again?  Because I forgot.

• Another entry into the "things I shouted repeatedly at my computer" column: "NO! DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON HAWAIIAN SHIRT GUY!" If somebody is cray-cray and straps a bomb to the love of your life and then tries to hit you in the head with a board, how about you don't turn your back on him unless he's tied up somehow?  For being a gangsta, Master was an idiot with that one.

• I want someone to let me deejay a high school prom so that I can play this song.  Something about it just screams awkwardly shuffling teenagers.

If you love the Flower Boy shows, Dating Agency: Cyrano is a good choice!  It might not suck you in quite as much as other shows do, but it's some bright summertime fun.