I
really liked I Really Really Like You.
You can well imagine that someone with
"post-encephalitic dementia" doesn't have much of an
optimistic prognosis. The wife of Jang Jun Won was
suddenly struck with the disease a few years ago and now
has little or no memory nor much of an ability to care
for herself. She is likely to hurt herself or others out
of pure carelessness, and she is given to bouts of
fearful anxiety when she might run away into the dangers
of the outside world. She requires constant care.
You might well ask what is such a dismal state of
affairs doing in what is being marketed as a romantic
comedy? In some Korean dramas – I'm thinking of One Fine
Day at the moment - where the intensely dramatic and
comedy parts are not in proper balance, the one or the
other feels false. Such is not the case here where there
are all manner of gradations of the one blended into the
other like a rainbow. The comedy isn't offered as relief
to the drama, it's the natural consequence of how the
characters interact. Most, but not all, the characters
have their comic and dramatic sides, though one side is
usually more developed for that character than another.
The main characters mature at decidedly different rates,
which keeps the dynamics nicely off-balance. If we
didn't know that the
series was 34 episodes we would be hard pressed to tell
when it might end.
Here's the basic setup: There are three main characters
who crash into each others lives unexpectedly in the
first two episodes. Bong Sun (Kim Yu Jin – aka, Eugene)
lives in the mountains with her grandmother. She knows
something about gardening and cooking and rural living,
but knows nothing of the city. She complains that she's
already 20 and is aching to see the rest of the world.
Jang Jun Won (Ryu Jin) is a man with secrets, and they
just keep piling up as the series progresses. He is a
medical doctor intern at a hospital in Seoul, and has
gone off into the mountains kind of AWOL, so that when
he suffers a hiking accident, it takes a while for
people to locate him. He is also the son of the
president of the country, a fact that he takes pains to
keep from his colleagues at the hospital. And he has a
wife with dementia, a fact that he keeps from his 4-year
old daughter who doesn't see her mother in this state.
Nam Bong Ki (Lee Min Ki) is a secret service intern with
his mind on the girls – an attention that is mutually
enjoyed. Goofball that he is, he is picked by his
superiors to locate the president's son and escort him
back to the city for any needed medical attention.
Meanwhile, Bong Sun comes upon Jun Won and nurses him
back to health. Think: Tammy and the Doctor except that
Debbie Reynolds' character has considerably more common
sense, which Bong Sun lacks in abundance, despite her
good intentions. Koreans tend to
confuse naivite and ignorance with purity of spirit
(which makes a certain sense, in a way), so Bong Sun is
never brought to task by the writer when she invariably
and frequently behaves like the emotional juggernaut she
is.
It is at about this moment that the grandmother dies
after confessing to Bong Sun that she is not really Bong
Sun's grandmother. (She admits to having as much as
having kidnapped her as a young child, knowing that her
mother was searching for her – an admission that doesn't
sink in for many episodes to come.) Before she dies
Granny tells Bong Sun to find her real parents, with not
much of a clue for her to go on.
The good doctor sees in Bong Sun the sweet soul that his
wife once was, and he begins to develop feelings for
her, however inappropriate. He has a strong need to be
protective of Bong Sun, once she arrives in Seoul -
something he feels he does not do well enough in respect
to his wife – and he'd be right. His feelings develop
apparently without his realizing the obvious. By the
way, he may be good doctor, but he is a terrible
psychologist. The way he deals with his wife's illness
in terms of therapy is a scandal.
Bong Ki, for his part, certainly knows his way around
the city, and pop culture in particular, but he is only
marginally more mature than Bong Sun, whom he finds any
and every opportunity to make fun of. As in a fairy
tale, Seoul shrinks to a size only large enough for Bong
Sun and Bong Ki to reconnect at her grandmother's
mortuary, where Bong Ki's mother was placed years ago.
In her drunken grief, Bong Sun imposes herself on Bong
Ki for a room for the night.
For all of his monkey chatter, Bong Ki seems a nice guy
and we can tell he's heading for a fall in regards Bong
Sun, just as she is in regards Jun Won, just as he is in
regards his several responsibilities, not least to his
wife. . . thus the next 30 episodes.
One thing I enjoy in many a Korean TV series is how much
I scream at the characters from my secure living room
chair. If it isn't the character him - or herself who is
distressing my sense of the rightness of things, it is
others who should be giving them a piece of their mind
on my behalf. . .
. . .which brings us to casting, usually a strong
recommendation for Korean television and cinema. I
Really Really Like You is no exception. Even not taking
into account the breadth of the number of characters,
this drama shows off one of the stronger cast ensembles
of any series in memory. Every actor, from the youngest
– 4 year old Jung Da Bin as Jang Hyo Won (Jun Won's
daughter) - to the oldest – 61 year old Jang Yong as Nam
Dae Shik (Bong Ki's father) seem so right for their
parts it's hard to imagine anyone else in them. Of the
supporting cast, I should give special mention to Jung
So Young in a heartbreaking portrayal of a wife and
mother only barely able to understand her impairment and
the potential and real dangers it holds for her family.
Kim Yu Jin (aka, Eugene) was 25 at when this series was
in production. She had a great career going for herself
as a pop star, but began to do television material in
2002 (movies only later starting in '07). As Bong Sun
she affects a Stan Laurel pitiful pout and a childish
whine for much of the first half of the series, and even
though we might not understand Korean it is perfectly
clear she doesn't speak like anyone else in the cast – a
fact that the city folk are always ready to deride.
Bong Sun finds herself in the middle of a very awkward
triangle between two very different men: the
relentlessly miserable Jun Won played by Ryu Jin, an
actor who has been doing television series since forever
(notably War of the Roses), and the energized and often
enervating Bong Ki, played by Lee Min Ki, who has had a
successful career on both the big and little screen.
With a series of such length, we shouldn't expect
consistent progression of plot and character
development. In fact, while Volume 2 contains the most
exquisite moments of dramatic tension, it also meanders
into territory seemingly for the sake of extension,
which leads me to observe something that has become a
staple of Korean drama series of late: the kitchen. I'm
thinking this is all the fault of the phenomenal success
of Dae Jang Geum (2004). My Lovely Sam-Soon (2005), The
Grand Chef (2008) and now IRRLY (2006) have all been
released by YAE-Entertainment in North America and
reviewed on this site. Another similarly set series,
Delicious Proposal, aired in 2001 but didn't reach the
light of Region 1 DVD until last year. It's not just the
kitchen and the contests that accompany them, but the
claim that Korean cuisine is a national treasure that
can or should address all things zen and medicinal.
I don't object to the concept. Quite the contrary: After
the first rip off, I put it down to a lack of
imagination. Take episode 26 in IRRLY as an example:
where the presidential kitchen's reputation and, more
important, Bong-sun's future, is at stake as she takes
responsibility for the menu that expects to cater to the
tastes and health needs of a visiting dignitary. Change
the names and the time period and you have a replay of
an exactly similar scene from episode 18 in Dae Jang
Geum.
The series had a consistent, if not especially strong,
following on Korean television, averaging about 12%,
trailing off towards the end of its run. But what do
they know!
-
Leonard Norwitz
