cdrama: War of In-Laws

[meganbmoore]

So, I have VERY mixed feelings about this one.  On the one hand, I absolutely adore the two leads.  On the other hand, I hated most of the supporting cast, and the absolutely kindest way to describe the hero's mother without misleading anyone is "psychotic shrew."  "Heinous spoiled self-centered psychotic malicious bratty  control freak shrew" is much more accurate, though(but we're going with "Psycho Mom" for now.) Unfortunately, a lot of the show depends on our finding her and her confrontations with the heroine funny.  Didn't quite work for me, as about 4 episodes in I had to remind myself to not automatically hit the ff button every time I saw her or heard her voice.  The only time I found her scenes funny were in the scenes where the heroine came out on top.

WoIL is about Shap-Yat, the daughter of a bandit who pretends to be qa bride(the real one eloped and left a note) while fleeing the authorities.  She plans to escape before the wedding, but can't and finds herself married to Mau-Chun, a mama's boy who's mother, Psycho Mom, is the queen's cousin.  She finds Mau-Chun's sweet over-eager puppy-like demeanor annoying(though it does grow on her) and soon she meets No Name(no really, it's what he goes by) a Robin Hood-like masked hero and quickly falls in love with her.  No Name, of course, is Mau-Chun, who really does have a spine and just fakes it most of the time.

I love Shap-Yat...she's a bit grating at first but she's fun and spunky and, despite her harsh demeanor, very nice.  Mau-Chun may be faking his spineless-ness in the first few episodes, but he's an absolute sweetheart.  I love it when Shap-Yat is annoyed with Mau-Chun and mooning over No Name and Mau-Chun is rabidly jealous of himself (and having fights between Mau-Chun and No Name in his head) and trying to make Shap-Yat hate him as No Name by making up a fake horrid childhood that made him do bad things (which, of course, completely backfires and sends her into fullblown 'WOOBIE!!!!" mode) and I adore once she learns the truth and tries to become No Name 2 and join him on his adventures.  Basically, I adore everything about them.

Then there's Psycho Mom, who is currently(this may change) my most despised dorama character.  I can't really get into all that she does in the series or I'll never stop, but near the end she's accused of murder and almost gets the death sentence, and I can't help but think that it would be just deserts considering all the things she did and the ones she got away with, and the things she accused others of.  And, frankly, if she had been able to find a way to have Shap-Yat and her entire family executed, she would have.  In the end when she suffers(no where near enough) and reforms, I can't even bring myself to care(especially since it's a 100% change in character in just a couple of episodes.)  

Unfortunately, liking the bulk of Mau-Chun's family relies on finding her and her antics at least somewhat amusing, and since all they did was make me rant and reach for the FF button, I hated them all, except Mau-Chun's father and grandmother, who were both cool characters.  Shap-Yat had a nice family, though.

The OTP very much makes it worth watching, just make sure popcorn is the worst thing available to throw at the TV when you watch, just in case Psycho Mom makes you half as batty as she does me.

An OTP MV:  

 

Another one:

Comments

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

You had me at masked men with secret identities.

Must. Get.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

You should add this and Gentle Crackdown to your backlog just so you can have some fun, cracky period dramas to balance out the angstridden ones.

But yes, it's really fun and the otp(especially the darling hero) is great. Though I suspect you'll hate Psycho Mom even more than me.

I mean, even I can't find a way to justify or apply reason or logic to her behavior...

[kitkat-cat.livejournal.com]

LOL, 'psychotic shrew'!!! how very true... I loved Shap-Yat and Mau-Chun in this...i thought the OTP was very very cute, and the chemistry between those two helped things along. Mau-Chun, i think, does generally let Shap-Yat get away with blue murder but the bit where she's needling him to go out and be his No.2 and he looks at stern and tells her to 'SIT!' Lol, one of the funniest things in the drama.

i have to agree that his family is absolutely horrendous with the exception of his dad, nan and pet bird! The thing about his mom and her being such a psycho to her daughter in-law, unfortunately, something that we see a lot of, especially in old school dramas. and i think that they are actually quite a fair representation of the relationships that mothers-in-law have with their daughters-in-law. maybe not so much now, but definitely in my parents time!

erm, any hints on what Gentle Crackdown is about?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

If it had just been her being an overbearing mother in law, i would have been fine, but she was a horrible person in general and she didn't treat Shap-Yat any differently than anyone else.

Gentle Crackdown is about a clever official who comes to a town where all the officials and the entire police force except for one woman is corrupt. With her help, he basically tricks and outsmarts them all into being good people. She's all super kung-fu cop but not incredibly bright, while he's basically a genius but physically useless. He tends to faint a lot(a lot of it is fake so he can get out of a tight spot or see what people say when they think he can't hear) and the way he does it is just hilarious...he'll be on the screen, and then a second later he won't be...you see him slide down, but it doesn't register until someone wonders what happened. His main assistant is a man who couldn't become an official because he didn't have the money to buy his way in, so he was determined to be even more corrupt than the officials he served, so throughout the entire series he and the main guy are argueing over who's corrupt and who isn't and whether or not either one is corrupt, but it's always them trying to outwit each other, without either one ever actually saying what they're doing. Also, her mother is a former masked kung-fu hero, and is always going around savingthem all and the only one who has a cluer is the main guy.

[kitkat-cat.livejournal.com]

ooohhh...sounds interesting!