meganbmoore | cdrama: Gateau Affairs

I have binged on Gateau Affairs. What is Gateau Affairs you ask?

Like one of my favorite TVB series, The Gentle Crackdown, GA is a wonderfully funny parody of wuxia. Except, while GC is a parody set in ancient times, GA is a parody set in modern times. To compensate for the lack of swords, they throw in parodying kdramas, too.

It's about Ko Kan, a master baker who neglects his family in favor of his career and entering cake baking contests(so they'll be proud of him, but he never stops to explain...) On his son's 4th birthday, he comes home to learn that she's left him. He rushes to the airport but has a car accident on the way, and when the police try to detain him, he claims his son's birthday cake is a bomb. This, of course, is a VERY stupid move that gets him tossed in jail for 3 years. When he gets out he finds that his wife has placed a restraining order on him(can't really blame her) and he makes up for it by becoming Cake Robin Hood, the modern equivalent of a masked hero, who makes exquisite cakes for lonely and sad little kids.

He's almost immediately approached(as Ko Kan, not Cake Robin Hood) by the owner of Gateux, an elite bakery, to become their head chef and replace the Evil Foreigner, Paul, as the head chef. On the way to a contest with Paul, he stops at the failing bakery of Tong Sheung, a young woman who wants to be a baker but, frankly, sucks. He stops there because Sheung has a pirate boat shaped cake in her window, and he was going to use a similar design in the contest. Sheung's cousin, Coco, works at Gateux and sneaks Sheung into the contest. When Sheung sees his cake, she thinks he stole her design.

Soon after, Kan's former cellmate, Yu Lok burns down her bakery because of her accusing Kan (accidentally...he only meant to leave dead mice, but he put a pie in the microwave and when Kan found out what he was doing, he came and made Yu Lok leave.) Sheung thinks Kan was the one who did it and tries to become a trainee at Gateux so she can plot revenge. Kan hires her out of guilt, and hires Yu Lok because he apparently saved Kan's life in prison.

There is romance.

There is comedy.

There is amnesia.

There is snow.

There are lies.

There are betrayals.

There is near hobo-ness after being beaten and dumped.

There are rich girls and betrayals.

There are more ROCH referrences than you can shake a barn at(master/student romance...)

There is insanity.

There are many, many wuxia cake battles.

There are ex-cons relentlessly pursueing girls well out of their class(but winning her over, because he is a persistent. And cute.)

There are kidnappings. Followed by rescues.

There are insane romantic rivals.

There are dastardly villains.

But best of all...Sheung is STRUCK BY LIGHTNING which causes her to bleed internally in the brain, which causes brain cancer. I feel this matches, if not trumps, getting eye cancer because you were in a car accident years later. Only, you know, better, because it's deliberately absurd.

My favorite character, though, is Sarah, the owner's bitchy daughter who runs the cafe and hates Kan because she chose Paul four years earlier. She was just so rabid in her hatred. Think Cordelia Chase from Buffy and Angel gone off the deep end. Sadly, she did not give Paul a proper comeuppance after he was nasty to her and made her father have a stroke.

I now feel prepped for a kdrama. Where people don't die. I'm not THAT recovered from Young Warriors yet.