Lee Soon Jae

Is Lee Soon Jae the best actor ever? I'm beginning to think so. I first noticed him in a Korean drama called Merchant of Choson. In this fascinating period piece about commerce where I learned more than I wanted to about Korean red ginseng, he played a mega evil CEO who'll do everything and anything to make a buck (he learns the error of his ways after being beaten to a pulp by Fate). He was pretty scary. So I couldn't believe it when I saw him in Mom's Dead Upset, playing the noble, gentle patriarch! At the moment I'm catching him on Yi San (playing a hard-ass king) and Beethoven Virus (playing a dapper oboist going through Alzheimer's).

He's pretty amazing in Beethoven Virus. The way he fights his illness, trying to find clarity by putting rough pebbles in his shoes, his denial and then slow descent into dementia, first traveling back in time, and then forgetting the self completely, even in the posture of his body.

It's not the kind of acting that's appreciated here in the US, where the cult of personality is everything. Famous actors play basically one character their whole careers and acting is just being able to pull out an emotion on cue. Cary Grant famously played Cary Grant, and you have to reach all the way into the early 1930s to see him as an actor. It's not really the actors' fault — after all, they're being paid to play that one act over and over again, with any variation rarely appreciated by a paying audience.* In other countries, actors are allowed to grow, cast sometimes in minor roles, allowed the freedom of acting on stage, film and TV. In Korea, it isn't surprising to see the same actor in two or three dramas a season. This is in part because most dramas end at a specified number of episodes. They don't keep going on and on and on, the duration dependent on ratings.

Below is a clip from the comedy High Kick, where Mr. Lee plays an irascible son-of-a-gun who makes life hell for his poor wife. Go to 6:20 for an example of his subtle comedic skills.




*One of my favorite US actors is Harriet Sansom Harris, most famous as Bebe in Frasier. She's so perfect as Bebe, you think that's just her. But then watch her as the blind president in the old Sci Fi series Space: Above and Beyond. I'll never forget the one speech she makes for why they must continue the war: absolutely chilling.

Summer Watchin'

At the moment, I'm not finding anything to love on terrestrial TV or cable. Well, except maybe Wipeout (I can't believe I just admitted that! — but nothing on TV makes me laugh as hard as seeing those poor people bounce from obstacle to obstacle in such an overly optimistic way — I mean, is this THE metaphor for life or what?). Okay, it is the summer season, but even at the height of ratings season, there wasn't much, was there?

So, what's a TV addict to do? Watch Asian dramas on the Internet! So far, here's what I can recommend.

Knock Knock Loving You (Taiwan): explores that perennial dilemma — do you chose the dull but cute guy who takes you for granted or the charismatic business shark who loves you for who you really are (even though you have like zero self-esteem)? Knock Knock is very cleverly written (if you don't count the last episode or two) with a great lead in Maggie Wu as Yao Zi Wang, a sharp-tongued business gal who just wants her daddy to love her!

Satomi Hakkenden (Japan): only for those of us who love stories about brotherhoods of knights and the black magic that tries to stop them. Lots of silly business about women who have to kill themselves for the greater good of mankind. And I do mean mankind. I just love the glamorous animae-inspired hairdos on the samurais though! Worth the whole movie. Spoiler alert! The great thing is that in the end, the villanesse of the story is rehabilitated in the afterworld and all her evil blamed on men! How about that, girls!

Hwang Jin Yi (Korea): fictionalized drama about the legendary courtesan, Hwang Jin Yi. The story itself is pretty silly, but I'm riveted by the performances of the head courtesans: Ha Ji Won (Hwang Jin Yi), Kim Young Ae (Yim Baek Moo), and especially Kim Bo Yun (Mae Hyang). And it's proving to be a good primer about Korean folk art. Also, for a TV series, it's absolutely gorgeously filmed. And the music is fantastic (what is it about Korean dramas? they have the best, most unforgettable theme music).

He Who Can't Marry (Korea): Korean remake of a highly popular Japanese series, it's the story about an obnoxious 40-something male who's finally humbled by love. I wasn't really sure about this one after the first episode, but it's really growing on me. I like the natural way all the relationships are forming, not just between lovers but female friends. The second episode was hilarious in the way it talked about the politics of eating alone at a restaurant (I've eaten alone at many a restaurant, in several different countries, and I have to agree with every one of their points! And I wish I was confident enough to eat alone at a grill!). And the setup is pretty funny too: slowly falling for the woman doctor who performed surgery on your hemorrhoids. I mean, after that, what more does a woman need to know about you, anyway?

BTW, Yang Ja Jeon plays mom — she also played granddad's sweet girlfriend on Mom's Dead Upset. The two performances are so spectacularly different, it took me four episodes to place her!

Joshi Deka (Japan): female detectives! I think that's what Joshi Deka means, and in the series, it's always used as a derogatory phrase. Anyway, it's all good fun, mostly because of Izumi Pinko. I could watch her in anything! (She's also in Satomi).

Antique Bakery (Korea): based on a Japanese manga and involves pastries, serial killers, kidnapping, blah, blah — just watch it! It's fun, with really cute camera and graphic work. Joo Ji Hoon, who played the sad prince in Goong, is the lead character — totally different performance — he's a bit louche with lots of physical comedy. Can't wait to see him in Love Kitchen.

Around 40 (Japan): 40-something women and their mid-life crises. This is a sweetheart of a series with so much heart! As a woman, whatever choice you make always seems to be the wrong one! Amami Yuki is so wonderful.


All of these shows are available on mysoju.com. I can't believe how good the subtitles are, too! Much, much better than what you get on KBS or MBC. And sometimes with really good explanatory footnotes about language or culture. And usually from viewers who took the time to translate. I love the Internet!

If, Dear Reader, you have any other recommendations, please share! I'm still hungry!

Can Korean Dramas Make an Impact in the US?

I was delighted to find out that the "Mom's Dead Upset" entry was recently mentioned in a book review at The Learned Fangirl blog. One of the books Fangirl reviewed was Mark James Russell's Pop Goes Korea and TV Kitty gets involved when Fangirl questions Russell's statement "Korean television also travels poorly to the West, coming across as histrionic soap operas. … But for people used to C.S.I. and The Sopranos, there are only so many stories of separated twins and dying lost loves that one can take."

Fangirl points out that more and more US audiences are being attracted to these "histrionic" shows. That got me thinking and I'd like to bring out some more points. Korean soaps and dramas do tend to strangle themselves with the same bag of tricks: orphans, incest issues (mainly the cultural ban on in-laws marrying in-laws), obsessive love, poor girls marrying rich boys, rich girls making poor girls miserable, the mother-in-law from hell, etc (did I mention orphans?). But US soaps and dramas have their own bag of tricks, so nothing new there. And, if you've been watching the latest wave of Korean shows, you'll see that even Koreans are getting sick of those cliches. One of the reasons I loved Mom's Dead Upset was precisely because it wasn't the usual Korean drama. And the same can be said of so many of the latest popular Korean dramas and comedies: Princess Diaries, a.k.a Goong (a wonderfully imaginative story that asks "what if the Korean royal family were still around?", adapted from a comic book), Women of the Sun, Couple or Trouble (a remake of the US movie Overboard, but so much better), Windy City, etc. There's even Worlds Within (a dramedy about the Korean TV drama factory) which basically pleads with all its heart for more innovative Korean dramas. The Korean TV industry is in the middle of a huge creative drive, probably inspired by the drive in the Korean film industry.

But going back to Mr. Russell's statement, I find there's something very basic that he's not getting. He mentions CSI and Sopranos and how that's changed the viewing tastes of Americans. I'd dispute that. I'm always surprised by how popular shows like Brothers and Sisters and Two and a Half Men are. Nothing innovative about these shows. Brothers and Sisters could have been made in the 70s — just replace the gay relationships with interfaith or something. And what about Privileged? Poor girl, abandoned when young by mom, gets job tutoring rich girls and falls in love with a rich guy. Gee, sounds like a Korean show. Her mom even defrauds the rich guy — a classic Korean plot device (what's a Korean show without someone running away with a chunk of cash). Also, aren't shows like CSI and Sopranos mostly watched by men? And as a man, isn't Russell completely dismissing the female demographic? Just like Hollywood has historically done to its detriment? Korean TV dramas and comedies attract women viewers. Winter Sonata was hugely popular with women all across Asia. And if you go into US message boards about Korean dramas, it'll be mostly women posting. Guns, blood, dead bodies and slick who-done-its are the kitsch of men. Long lost loves, torn families, Cinderella stories are the kitsch of women. Go figure.

And I'll tell you one thing I like about Korean shows versus American shows: there's this unabashed, uncynical love of sentimentality. These shows say there's nothing wrong with wearing your heart on your sleeve. And how wonderful is that?

Mom's Dead Upset

I'm finding it's impossible to write about a show I really love. It's too hard to pin down in a couple of sentences something that affects the heart. Like trying to reason why I love someone, teasing love apart when love only exists as an entirety.

That's the dilemma with Mom's Dead Upset. It's a Korean comedy that's phenomenally popular in Korea. I catch it on KBS World where they do lovely subtitles for almost all their shows. Literally, it translates into "Mom's On Fire". And boy, is she.

At first Mom's just a slowly smoking pile of old embers. And who wouldn't be after serving her family for over forty years as cook, cleaner, miscellaneous-errands do-er? But when her children embark on one disastrous marriage after another, long-suffering Mom explodes into a roaring fireball of fiendish proportions.

See, you're Mom and this realization is seeping into your head: year by year your life has become more and more dreary, more and more cheap and the only dim light to all this misery is your children and your children look at you like you're stupid and forget your birthday and only call you up when they need a babysitter (and what's your son doing knocking up some old maid anyway) -- that's when you explode, high and bright like the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. So what's left? Well, there's you. And that's the Zen moment of truth: Mom can't save her children but she can save herself.

On the face of it, this is a really simple comedy-drama. Unlike Desperate Housewives or Samantha Who? or Pushing Daisies, there are no clever turns of plots, no soft porn, no dramatic murders, no supernatural powers, no aliens. There isn't even any clever dialogue or witty repartees. It's just a simple family drama about simple people of no importance, no wealth, no extraordinary ambition. The only glamour in their lives is this vague hope that one day, a real estate developer will come in and swoop up the whole neighborhood, making them modestly rich. But otherwise, as long as they have a few bucks left at the end of the month, they're modestly content.

But saying this show is a simple comedy-drama is like saying War and Peace is a nice book-of-the-month selection. I'm simply in awe of the writer, Kim Su Hyeon. Her touch is sharp, compassionate, precise, touching: every life is a painful tragedy and a hilarious comedy, whether it's the life of a foolish son who knocks up his girlfriend and can't tell his family even though she's the love of his life, or the life of a dignified but poor patriarch who only finds love in his eighties, too late to marry and have children with his soul mate, but not too late to share a cup of tea every afternoon. Kim Su Hyeon gives children dignity and clarity. She gives women complexity. And she has this way of building and building, so quietly, you don't notice, until all she needs is that one word to convey a lifetime of hurt or longing.

The actors on Mom's Dead Upset are incredible, too. They look, dress and walk in total truth with Kim's words. Every detail is right, from the silly head band the son wears to the grand, quick gestures of the acerbic sister-in-law. I could probably do a thesis paper analyzing each actor, but I think my favorite is Jang Mi Hee. She plays the youngest daughter's brutal mother-in-law. Beautiful and elegant only in appearance, Jang Mi Hee's character has the maturity of a three-year old and terrorizes her family with compulsive mood swings and self-induced insomnia fits. She's even trained a bird to scream out orders so that the bird is a live manifestation of her id. And yet, like her victimized daughter-in-law, you can't help feeling sorry for her, finding compassion in all your outrage. That's how brilliant Jang Mi Hee is. Towards the end of the series, she does become a bit too clownish in her Taming of the Shrew act -- but that's really a small fault.

Did I say Mom's Dead Upset makes you appreciate your own life? Your own family? I suppose in so many words I did.