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kdrama: The Master's Sun
Mar. 24th, 2014 11:04 pm17 episode series from 2013, and I believe the most recent series written by the Hong Sisters, which tend to be....very mixed. The "Sun" in the title is a reference to the heroine's family name, "Tae" which means "sun," and and "Master" refers to the fact that the hero owns most of the buildings that the bulk of the story takes place in.
The heroine, Tae Gong Sil, has been stalked by ghosts ever since she was in an accident several years pre-series. She used to be a top student and very popular, but is now an oddball who lives in a one bedroom apartment, can't hold down a job, and is frequently seen talking to herself. As ghosts tend to literally and constantly ump out at her, grab her, and follow her around, demanding that she fulfill their final wishes, she's also exceptionally jumpy and prone to cowering. We probably all would be if our daily life included multiple instances of rotting things that we can't do anything to make go away kept jumping out at us and following us around and poking us and trying to possess our bodies anytime we let our guards down.
While fulfilling one ghost's final wish, she ends up stranded on the side of a road during a rainstorm, and another ghost (sometimes they're nice!) forces a car to stop so she can hitch a ride. The car belong to Joo Joong Won, the very rich, very arrogant, and very selfish owner of a very popular mall. When they accidentally touch, she realizes that when they touch, she can't see or be affected by the ghosts. He makes them go away. She can sleep. She can walk around at night. She an relax without getting possessed. She must keep him forever and ever and ever.
Joong Won, of course, is not exactly thrilled about this, until he realizes that her being able to see ghosts means that she might be able to contact the ghost of his girlfriend, Hee Joo, who died 15 years ago when they were both kidnapped. Most people believe the abductors killed Hee Joo because she could identify them, but Joong Won believes there was something else entirely that was going on, and wants answers. (They managed to avoid a fridging plotline with this subplot, but only just.) So they come to an agreement: he'll be her "shield" and let her work at his mall, if she'll be his "radar" and find a way to contact Hee Joo's ghost. and as it's a kdrama and the leads are and arrogant rich man and a sweet poor woman, they are soon making giant googly eyes at each other but pretending they aren't.
Yes, someone worked very hard to come up with a series where the plot was an excuse for the female lead to be constantly trying to feel up the male lead without requiring a move to cable. Part of me is very impressed by this.
The first few episodes seem to be trying to make Gong Sil be a cutesy sweet and helpless child-woman who needs a protector (though the Hong Sisters seem to like making most of their female leads be cutesy child-women, even when it doesn't suit the character) but after a couple episodes, the actress, Gong Hyo-Jin, seems to decide she isn't going to do that and plays Gon Sil as a jumpy oddball, but intelligent and observant and fairly analytical, just stuck living in a situation that doesn't give her much room to show it. The show tries to pull the "cutesy child-woman" for a few episodes after that anyway, but thankfully ends up dropping it. They also tend to dress her in clothes that are...well...infantile. I think they were meant to make us think of pajamas (and there are scenes at her apartment building where I'm not sure if what she's wearing is supposed to be considered normal clothing or pajamas) and convey the sense that she's living in a dreamworld no one else can see, but the clothing she wears for a lot of the series (more the first half than the second) often looks more like things a little girl would wear. I was very happy with her character and growth overall, but did a lot of side-eying the writers in the early episodes.
Joong Won is...very much a rich kdrama romantic lead (though I think they also deliberately parody the type a bit), and like most male leads in the Hong Sisters dramas (as far as I can tell, at least) starts out a major jerk. He gets better and is genuinely amusing, but i didn't really like him until he started getting over himself. I think So Ji Sub was great in the role, though, and admire him for being able to maintain his dignity while being dressed like a clown. (No, really. There are points where he's wearing a pink blazer, a bowtie, and tweed pants. We are apparently meant to see this as fashionable. Not that The Master's Sun is the only kdrama with this kind of fashion.)
There's also Kang Woo, a security guard who lives in Gong Sil's building and is spying on Joong Won, Yi Ryung, a famous model who went to school with Gong Sil, but was then considered plain and dull in comparison ( her family name is also Tae, and they were called "Big Sun" and "Little Sun" by classmates), to be the obligatory romantic rivals, though it thankfully doesn't play out the way I'm used to in Hong Sisters dramas (or the contemporary romantic dramas from the early 2000s that I watched before moving to mostly sageuks for my kdramas). Joong Won also has an aunt, Sung-Ran, who is deeply suspicious of the strnge woman suddenly literally hanging off her nephew at all times, while her (much younger) husband, Seok-Chul, secretly ships it and sends spies out to get as much information about them as he can. Plus Gong Sil's sister, Gong Ri, who is determined to finding out who is ferreting out information about her sister and spreading rumors about Gong Sil. I believe she intends to stab the perpetrator with a spork or some such. (Naturally, the main culprit is a security guard who falls for her.)
It's a show that I like a lot, despite feeling very critical about certain aspects. Unfortunately, like many popular dramas, it got an extension at the last minute (Has any kdrama ever been improved by an extension? I'm pretty sure the answer is "no," but I could be wrong.) and the plot takes a turn in episode 13 that was basically Unnecessary Drama That Doesn't Do Anything Useful 101 and never fully recovers itself, though it did recover enough that I was able to enjoy the final episodes overall, and I feel the actual ending came together better than a lot of kdrama endings, though it may have come together a little TOO neatly.
( spoiler for a subplot in the last episode )
The heroine, Tae Gong Sil, has been stalked by ghosts ever since she was in an accident several years pre-series. She used to be a top student and very popular, but is now an oddball who lives in a one bedroom apartment, can't hold down a job, and is frequently seen talking to herself. As ghosts tend to literally and constantly ump out at her, grab her, and follow her around, demanding that she fulfill their final wishes, she's also exceptionally jumpy and prone to cowering. We probably all would be if our daily life included multiple instances of rotting things that we can't do anything to make go away kept jumping out at us and following us around and poking us and trying to possess our bodies anytime we let our guards down.
While fulfilling one ghost's final wish, she ends up stranded on the side of a road during a rainstorm, and another ghost (sometimes they're nice!) forces a car to stop so she can hitch a ride. The car belong to Joo Joong Won, the very rich, very arrogant, and very selfish owner of a very popular mall. When they accidentally touch, she realizes that when they touch, she can't see or be affected by the ghosts. He makes them go away. She can sleep. She can walk around at night. She an relax without getting possessed. She must keep him forever and ever and ever.
Joong Won, of course, is not exactly thrilled about this, until he realizes that her being able to see ghosts means that she might be able to contact the ghost of his girlfriend, Hee Joo, who died 15 years ago when they were both kidnapped. Most people believe the abductors killed Hee Joo because she could identify them, but Joong Won believes there was something else entirely that was going on, and wants answers. (They managed to avoid a fridging plotline with this subplot, but only just.) So they come to an agreement: he'll be her "shield" and let her work at his mall, if she'll be his "radar" and find a way to contact Hee Joo's ghost. and as it's a kdrama and the leads are and arrogant rich man and a sweet poor woman, they are soon making giant googly eyes at each other but pretending they aren't.
Yes, someone worked very hard to come up with a series where the plot was an excuse for the female lead to be constantly trying to feel up the male lead without requiring a move to cable. Part of me is very impressed by this.
The first few episodes seem to be trying to make Gong Sil be a cutesy sweet and helpless child-woman who needs a protector (though the Hong Sisters seem to like making most of their female leads be cutesy child-women, even when it doesn't suit the character) but after a couple episodes, the actress, Gong Hyo-Jin, seems to decide she isn't going to do that and plays Gon Sil as a jumpy oddball, but intelligent and observant and fairly analytical, just stuck living in a situation that doesn't give her much room to show it. The show tries to pull the "cutesy child-woman" for a few episodes after that anyway, but thankfully ends up dropping it. They also tend to dress her in clothes that are...well...infantile. I think they were meant to make us think of pajamas (and there are scenes at her apartment building where I'm not sure if what she's wearing is supposed to be considered normal clothing or pajamas) and convey the sense that she's living in a dreamworld no one else can see, but the clothing she wears for a lot of the series (more the first half than the second) often looks more like things a little girl would wear. I was very happy with her character and growth overall, but did a lot of side-eying the writers in the early episodes.
Joong Won is...very much a rich kdrama romantic lead (though I think they also deliberately parody the type a bit), and like most male leads in the Hong Sisters dramas (as far as I can tell, at least) starts out a major jerk. He gets better and is genuinely amusing, but i didn't really like him until he started getting over himself. I think So Ji Sub was great in the role, though, and admire him for being able to maintain his dignity while being dressed like a clown. (No, really. There are points where he's wearing a pink blazer, a bowtie, and tweed pants. We are apparently meant to see this as fashionable. Not that The Master's Sun is the only kdrama with this kind of fashion.)
There's also Kang Woo, a security guard who lives in Gong Sil's building and is spying on Joong Won, Yi Ryung, a famous model who went to school with Gong Sil, but was then considered plain and dull in comparison ( her family name is also Tae, and they were called "Big Sun" and "Little Sun" by classmates), to be the obligatory romantic rivals, though it thankfully doesn't play out the way I'm used to in Hong Sisters dramas (or the contemporary romantic dramas from the early 2000s that I watched before moving to mostly sageuks for my kdramas). Joong Won also has an aunt, Sung-Ran, who is deeply suspicious of the strnge woman suddenly literally hanging off her nephew at all times, while her (much younger) husband, Seok-Chul, secretly ships it and sends spies out to get as much information about them as he can. Plus Gong Sil's sister, Gong Ri, who is determined to finding out who is ferreting out information about her sister and spreading rumors about Gong Sil. I believe she intends to stab the perpetrator with a spork or some such. (Naturally, the main culprit is a security guard who falls for her.)
It's a show that I like a lot, despite feeling very critical about certain aspects. Unfortunately, like many popular dramas, it got an extension at the last minute (Has any kdrama ever been improved by an extension? I'm pretty sure the answer is "no," but I could be wrong.) and the plot takes a turn in episode 13 that was basically Unnecessary Drama That Doesn't Do Anything Useful 101 and never fully recovers itself, though it did recover enough that I was able to enjoy the final episodes overall, and I feel the actual ending came together better than a lot of kdrama endings, though it may have come together a little TOO neatly.
( spoiler for a subplot in the last episode )
