Of Swords and Parasols

I somehow forgot this drama existed (probably because "vampire romance" balances out "Lee Seo Jin" for me...) and then remembered this week. And since I like both leads, I have had it for who knows how long.


Anyway!


Lee Seo Jin is a semi-suicidal 350-year-old vampire named Jung Won. While vampires in this series basically live forever (unless they burn up) and need a couple pints of blood every week or so (no burning up in the sun, loss of soul, evil urges, etc.) he views himself as an evil evil monster and is always trying to starve himself to death, but always caves in and either asks his platonic life partner (being a kdrama, it's not so platonic on her end), Yi Wha, to get him lunch, or shows up half dead at her place so that she'll coax him into eating. Then cries a single emo tear. Yi Wha has been dealing with his depression for 350 years, so it's kind of hard to hold anything she does against her. Anyway, every few decades or so, Jung Won apparently runs off and falls in love with some nice young human girl, then has an "I am an unworthy monster!" attack and runs away. When his last human girlfriend is dying of cancer, she writes him a letter asking him to take care of her daughter, Ji Woo (Park Han Byul).


Yes, this is the story of a 350-year-old-vampire falling in love with his ex-girlfrined's barely-legal daughter. I am rather concerned that this actually did not squick me out in the least. Though, like his spiritual brother, Stefan Salvatore, I didn't get the feeling that he was comparing them or using her as a substitute at any point, and she's the main instigator who intiates and pushes most of their relationship so that probably accounts for a lot of it. Also, it's possible that Lee Seo Jin's dimples have supernatural powers.


Anyway, you know that one bit in Legally Blonde when Elle just got the internship and Emmett andthe skeevy professor are watching her leave and all "Do you think she just woke up one day and said "I want to be a lawyer!'?" That's Ji Woo. She sees a tattoo parlor and...decides she wants to be a tattoo artist! And is rather shameless about getting a job there, too. (She said she was kicked out of her home due to her accidental incestuous love for the brother she never knew she had and was dying of leukemia! No one believed it, but the effort was appreciated.) She decides the emo angstmuffin who says he's a distant relative needs to unbend and...invades his home and launches a one girl campaign! Much of which centers around making a picture crooked. She's also incredibly stubborn about not bonding with her father. Given that he abandoned her and her mother when her mother got cancer and reappeared 3 years later at the funeral expecting Ji Woo to forgive and forget instantly, I can't really blame her.


There's also a vampire serial killer running around. Unfortunately, it's largely disconnected from the rest of the plot for most of the series, and kind of dull. And given that it's the beta plot, it contributed to the general slowness of the series.


I basically watched expecting to laugh and see how many ways they found to provide Lee Seo Jin fanservice (Answer: Many. The man is devoted to being eye-candy, which you don't often get with actual good, charismatic actors.) and to see if they found a co-star he didn't have ridiculous amounts of chemistry with (Answer: They did not.) but aside from being on the slow side, it was actually, uhm, decent-to-good (depending on what part you’re watching at the moment) and pretty entertaining, at least until the last five minutes.


( spoilers )