Tag Archive | Yoo Ah In

Secret Love Affair: A Work of Art

Sep11

It’s rare that one comes across a TV show that is a work of art. Artsy movies abound, as do some many series, but hours and hours of a TV show? Well, it’s just not that common. In fact, I don’t really know that I’ve ever watched a TV show I would consider a work of art–up until now, that is.

Something about affairs, whether it’s the illicitness or the adventure, something about affairs is often involved in the art of story. This is something you can find right across history, from The Bridges of Madison County to the Illiad and that whole thing with Helen of Troy. Maybe it’s just the fact that in an affair there are likely to be high emotions and also retributions from the injured or cuckolded party–plenty of dynamics and fireworks possible.

Although publicly society generally doesn’t condone affairs, in our entertainment and art, they are everywhere. Sadly, few of the fictional stories about affairs truly touch how wrong it is to break one’s vows of marriage. The Korean drama Secret Love Affair is no different in this, and that’s because the sin it focuses on is not the affair itself, but the reason for it: The main character is living in an awful environment and denying her true self any agency.

A trend in K-dramas in recent years has been pairing older women with younger men. I’m sure real young men would be a bit horrified at this, but it’s just a reversal of the standard in visual storytelling, which for decades has been older men with much younger women. In real life one sees age gap pairings, but they are not nearly as common as TV and movies would lead us to believe. In my own experience, couples, married or not are two people of roughly the same age or within a few years of each other. The older I get, I realize that age doesn’t really matter that much when it comes to a relationship, but biologically, it can. Older women, for example, have less childbearing years ahead of them. That in itself may give a young man who wants a lot of biological kids pause. In Secret Love Affair, this aspect is not even a consideration, though the age gap is 20 years.

As a women who is in her 40s, I can’t even fathom dating a man of twenty or even early twenties. That aspect of this story grated on me throughout, for the young man was way too much of a boy still. He hasn’t even had time to think if he wants kids in his future or not. He was, essentially, a way for the female lead to change her life, and she also helped him change his life, but beyond that, it was a bit creepy. I don’t know how big an age gap has to be to be creepy–everyone probably has a different threshold–but for me, 20 years is too much. So, why did I continue watching? Hands down, for the music and the sort-of redemption story.

Secret Love Affair (aka Secret Affair) stars Kim Hee Ae (Mrs. Cop) as Oh Hye Won, a director/personal assistant to the Seohan Arts Foundation. In her job she is wedded deeply and dangerously to the family who owns the foundation. These are not nice people. Her husband, played well by Park Hyuk Kwan (Six Flying Dragons) is a do-nothing hanger on who has no music or teaching whatsoever, but somehow got a spot at the music school the foundation owns. Their marriage is one of convenience, both wanted to be a part of the foundation and saw that they could if they were together. This was the biggest sin Hye Won made in her life, for it led to her entanglement with the foundation and a life of walking on glass. When we are first introduced to her, we see that Hye Won has great talent at her job, that she has tact and guile and has helped the foundation succeed. It seems unlikely that she herself has musical talent, but we soon discover she does.

During preparation for a big concert, a young, lowly delivery guy happens upon the scene. Lee Sun Jae, played very well by Yoo Ah In (Chicago Typewriter) is a quiet, hesitant man in his early twenties. He quickly gets into trouble stealing some piano time on the schools expensive grand. The kicker is, that his performance is recorded and immediately Hye Won’s husband sees the young man as his ticket to greatness at the school and beyond. He pesters his wife to give the kid a listen and declare him someone who should be admitted to the school right away.

The couple’s real first meeting is at this audition at Hye Won’s home, and as a first meeting, it’s amazing. Few couples get to spend this much time together, ever. Ok, I exaggerate, but it’s unusual one gets to spend so much time with a person upon first meeting them. Hye Won listens to Sun Jae play and is immediately hypnotized. You see, she has musical talent at the piano. Back in the day, she could have been a star, but she was convinced to work in administration instead. She listens to him for hours and then starts to play along with him. The two immediately connect emotionally, spiritually, and physically through playing together. Their style of playing is very similar, their appreciation of music, as if they are one heart. It’s instalove, but spread over a few hours.

Inevitably, they do have an affair, but though they sort of attempt to hide it, it’s really not a secret to anyone. Hye Won is really the only one surprised, but it’s hard to see oneself and how one changes and flowers under real love and real passion and emotion. That takes an outside view. Everyone else could see how obviously she was changing except herself. Through her relationship with Sun Jae, Hye Won starts to realize what a truly toxic environment she’s been living in. Her life isn’t really her own; her husband’s life is barely his own. To save herself and also Sun Jae’s future, Hye Won embarks on a path of intrigue in order to take down the family and the foundation.

This show is a great, intense watch. All of the actors are spot on, especially Park as the irritating husband. He is so perfectly loathsome, he brings Hye Won down with him. What kind of women is she really to have entered into a marriage of convenience with him? The writing and directing are also top notch. Each episode feels like a film, and it reminded me most in style to Heartless City (also a great watch, but hard to finish). The music is all consuming and nearly ever present in the background. This is classical music, but stepped up to ten in its emotional impact. Contrast that with the awful school and the owning family, and the parts where the characters experience real joy in their practice and performances become jewels to be treasured.

One aspect that was almost too much to handle, was the supporting cast of women in the show. Many of these characters were prone to scary violence, and it’s quite possible that Hye Won herself could’ve one day become like that had she not turned almost all her emotion off.

It’s interesting at the end how Sun Jae keeps calling Hye Won to be good, but she knows she has to callously take down the family first or neither of them will ever be free. In some ways, Sun Jae is content to stay as he is with Hye Won almost as a stand-in mother figure to him (yeah, creepy), but she nudges him, gets him to spread his wings, and soon he’s making new friends all on his own and leading secret jam sessions. By this point we barely miss the cuckolded husband, though we are maybe shocked at how upset about the affair he actually is, as they seem to have had a loveless, sexless marriage. More likely, he finally realizes just how much of a loser he is on all levels. So Hye Won gets her redemption story and Sun Jae has hope for a future. Will they stay together? By the end, it doesn’t really matter, for they’ve fulfilled whatever was needed for the other by the end of the show.

Sad the story revolves around an affair, but I suppose these types of plots are signs that at least some of modern society still takes marriage vows seriously. And that’s a really good thing. It was shocking to see how isolating a loveless marriage can be. If Hye Won hadn’t had a couple of good friends, she would likely have had a total breakdown at some point. Your spouse should be your best friend and lover, someone you can confide in and be yourself with. She found that with Sun Jae and he with her. The piano music sort of packaged everything together.

Secret Love Affair is a worthwhile watch, and there are moral lessons in the story, though probably not the ones you’d expect. This show is a work of art on all levels.

Chicago Typewriter: Kdrama review

Aug21

As a Christian, I don’t believe in reincarnation. However, it certainly makes for interesting plots. The first time I came across them was when I went through a major Bollywood obsession, and I’ve seen them a few times with Korean dramas as well. The Kdrama Chicago Typewriter is about a famous writer, a delivery girl, and a ghostwriter) who are all reliving past events of their former selves from the 1930s.

This was a really fun drama to watch even if it wasn’t always clear just where everything was going. Writer Han Se Joo (Yoo Ah In, Six Flying Dragons) is a bestselling author who is sent a possessed typewriter and simultaneously comes down with writer’s block. He’s also dealing with fans like Jeon Seol (Lim Soo Jung, Search: WWW), who are way too obsessed with him, and haters who think he stole their work and come and attack him in his house. Sometimes fame and talent is as much a curse as it is a blessing, but Han Se Joon takes it relatively in stride, considering.

With the typewriter, from Chicago and the 1930s, he starts to see images of a past life and even starts writing a story about it that is an instant success. At this same time ghostwriter Yoo Jin O (Ko Gyung Pyo, Strongest Deliveryman) shows up, and it’s unclear if he’s writing the story or if Han is. Han is having trouble remembering things. As the story unfolds, Han keeps encountering both Jeon Seol and Yoo Jin O, and we all soon find out they are all embodied by three friends from Japanese occupied Korea in the 1930s.

As the series continues, the scenes from the 1930s really started to take center stage, and in the latter episodes, at least one whole episode is devoted to that timeline, which was riveting. It reminded me a bit of Casablanca, and what an interesting thing it would be to have a Kdrama remake of that amazing movie. It would be cool. Also if they did one of The Princess Bride.

Back to the reincarnation stuff. Although this is a new thing for writer Han, Jeon Seol has been dealing with these visions her whole life and is afraid that in the past she killed someone. Yoo Jin O, who (SPOILERS!) we find is actually a ghost whose name is a play on playwright Eugene O’Neill, is also afraid of what happened back then. He can’t remember how he died, only that he loved Jeon Seol’s historical counterpart, and was friends with writer Han’s counterpart. Not sure what the rules are with reincarnation, but it seems odd that Han had has no problem regarding it until present day. Of course he ends of up falling for Jeon Seol at the same time he’s remembering falling in love with her club singer back in the 1930s.

The acting in Chicago Typewriter was solid. Not so sure about some of the clothes in the modern scenes, though. Writer Han looked like he’d stepped out of the 1990s much of the time, and Jeon Seol’s clothes were often not flattering. The outfits in the past scenes were all smashing, however. Ko Gyung Pyo essentially played the same character throughout, but he had a great screen presence that helped ground, the modern scenes. This worked especially well with the character of Han, as Han was larger than life, but not always in a good way. Yoo Jin O made him instantly more relatable and someone one could be friends with. As for the other two leads, well done acting. I ended up like their 1930s characters a lot more than the modern ones, but I kind of think that’s where the writers were going with this, anyway. The minor characters and actors were all okay, no big standouts. The shaman or fortune telling lady didn’t seem a big help at all, and for some reason couldn’t see ghosts, which didn’t really make sense to me, although it was rather funny.

Writing stuff: How fun to watch stories about writers and publishing. It almost never gets old. Both writer Han and his nemesis had writer’s rooms or offices that were to die for. Han’s house was a character in itself, with unique windows, sometimes looking like squares over the panes, and sometimes looking like white crosses peeking through a lattice. Something covered up, something revealed. The black stain of sin, the white light of redemption. Books were everywhere in this drama. Also, who could not love the cool Chicago typewriter that Jeon Seol’s past self tells writer Han’s past self is also the name of a certain gun that sound just like a typewriter.

The romance: Although this similar love triangle has been done a zillion times over, it totally worked. It was made all the more bittersweet by the fact that the love never really got to manifest: Freedom fighters can’t afford to fall in love, and that’s probably as true today as it was then. Yoo Ah In did an especially great job of using his expressive eyes, and although there was only really one great kiss, it was a great kiss. As for Lim Soo Jung, her Jeon Seol was a bit meh, but she shined as the woman from the 1930s and then it started to make sense just why the men were so taken with her.

Redemption: In the end everyone makes peace and is at peace, especially, Yoo Jin O. While that makes for a great story, it just reminded me again why I am a Christian. In reality, there’s only one person who can atone for sin, and that’s Jesus Christ. He only had to do it once for everyone. These freedom fighters live by a code in which they can’t forgive and have to meet out instant justice as they see it. It’s just kind of sad because the club singer and Yoo Jin O could have had a good life together, because she would have come to forgive him in time. She loved him, even if only as a friend. In the constraints of the story, however, that was not possible, and Yoo Jin O only gets a sense of peace and maybe forgiveness in the present day.

Still, he doesn’t go to heaven or Nirvana or wherever, but decides to stay and be reincarnated so that in his next life he will have his love story. The promise of another life in this sinful world, which might be better than your last, but will ultimately end in death in which you are sent back again to the world to do it all over again, just doesn’t do it for me. It’s not real, lasting comfort or hope. Christians get what some would call a second life in heaven with God, but the difference is, it’s a completely different life separate from this world of sorrow. Anyway, the redeeming or atoning done in association with reincarnation stories isn’t impressive, although the story itself might be.

Chicago Typewriter was one of the better Kdramas I’ve watched in the recent past. Wish there were more like it, as at times it really seemed like a work of art and not just another TV show. As I was curious how good an actor Yoo Ah In really is, I’m currently watching Secret Affair, and it’s unfortunately about adultery and even more unfortunately a masterpiece. He’s good, maybe even Seo In Guk good. If only this amazing artwork had a worthier plot, but the very sinful characters have much to do with why it’s so great. More on that another time.