We’re already on to episode 20 of Love Truly (aka I Really Really Like You) – how time flies when a show is on 5 days a week. What is it about this beyond ridiculous show that I can’t get enough of? Is it the catchy, repetitive music cues? The nonsensical plot? The endless mopey montages? The endless happy montages? The duck? At first it probably was the duck, but she hasn’t appeared in a while and for some reason I’m still watching. Could it be the lead actress, Korean pop sensation Eugene? I actually like her, even though I have a feeling her cornball accent would be unlistenable if I could discern it. She’s cute and healthy-looking – by healthy I mean not scrawny and anorexic-looking like some of these Korean actresses you see. Lee Min-ki, who plays the cocky Bong-gi, occasionally channels Danny Kaye at his most spastic, but mostly reminds me of a Bollywood comic actor, especially when he gets all huffy denying his feelings for Bong-soon (“Neva neva neva!”) Actually, I know what my favorite thing about this show is: it’s whatever slang expressions Bong-gi is using and their English translations. He keeps on calling Bong-soon a “vintage hillbilly” and can’t understand how he got all mixed up with all these “crazy vintages”. Vintages? He sometimes uses the phrase “for realz”. Also, this is the only show I’ve ever seen where the word “shit” will be in the subtitles but the middle “hi” will be censored. All right, so what’s going on? At this point, Bong-gi and Bong-soon both know that Joon-won is the President’s son. Bong-soon is (still) in love with Joon-won but is trying to repress her feelings because he’s married – to a woman who has suffered from “dementia” for the past three years. The family wants them to get a divorce so she can go live with her parents in America, but he insists on taking care of her. However, Mr. Wonderful is starting to feel a little resentful now that he’s gotten a taste of what life could be like with Bong-soon. A few episodes ago he broke her heart saying that she was like a little sister to him (ouch!) and that he never once thought of her as a woman (double ouch!!), but it looks like he’s starting to reconsider. Wait, aren’t they actually brother and sister? Nope, turns out that Mr . President found the infant Bong-soon, abandoned by her birth mother, when he was on the run from the police in the mountains, and took her in. He left her with her “grandma”, the woman they stayed with in the mountains, after he went back to Seoul (and for some odd reason, never stayed in touch with the little girl he helped raise). So he’s not her biological father - or a cheat, which I’m sure everyone is relieved about. Her mother, on the other hand, is right under her nose – Bong-soon comes face to face with her in the last episode’s cliffhanger. She’s a former “erotic” movie actress who now works as an extra, and seems to have lots of trouble with creditors and the law. She also has two daughters, one of whom is the same bad apple who stole all of Bong-soon’s money! Bong-soon, in the meantime, has gotten a job working at the Blue House cafeteria, and is buddies with the Presidential chef. Her boss, Jin-kyung, has a thing for Bong-gi, while the square Blue House photographer (whose name I forget) has a thing for Jin-kyung. Bong-gi has dated Jin-kyung a few times, but clearly has a thing for Bong-soon (he even bought her a cell phone while on a date with Jin-kyung, a sure sign that the relationship won’t last). I thought Jin-kyung was cute at first – she’s the only character on the show with an inner monologue, and is fond of the phrase “ooh la la!” – but now she seems kind of shallow and petty. She’s mean to Bong-soon and her co-workers, and is only starting to think about Mr. Photographer seriously because he seems to have more money than Bong-gi. Bong-gi continues to struggle with his feelings for Bong-soon, but can only express them through insults. There’s also kind of a sad (I guess it’s supposed to be hilarious) subplot where Bong-soon’s overweight co-worker becomes obsessed with a hunky Presidential guard, who is horrified. I’m rather curious to see how that one gets resolved.
Meanwhile, on Bride From Vietnam… Ji-young has gone crazy. Really, really crazy. She WILL NOT get a divorce, even though it’s the only logical thing for her to do. Her husband doesn’t want her lying ass anymore, her husband’s family desperately wants her out, they’re offering a ton of alimony – and she says no way. Even Scary Mom is giving sound advice and telling her to give it up. But for some reason, Ji-young still believes that she really loves Young-min and that she can turn this whole thing around if they wait six months. In a revealing scene with Scary Mom, Ji-young indicates that her biggest fear is becoming like her mother and that this is her real motivation for sticking it out – she doesn’t want to end up alone. Scary Mom tries to explain that she is setting herself up to do just that, but Ji-young won’t hear it. It seems that Ji-young’s motivation to become Mrs. Huh’s apprentice is twofold: revenge (you can tell when Mrs. Huh asks her why she’s so interested all of a sudden, the voice in her head is going “don’t say revenge, don’t say revenge…”) against Jun-wu, basically for existing, by replacing his wife as Mrs. Huh’s successor; and the hopes that by securing Mrs. Huh’s name for their company’s rice cake project, she will help Young-min succeed and win back his heart (what’s with all the women on this show thinking that the way to a man’s heart is to get him promoted? Besides which, his father owns the company – does he really need her help?) Mrs. Huh, in a rather mean ploy to test Jin-ju, agrees to take on Ji-young as an additional student, even though it’s apparent that she’s going through a messy separation involving Mrs. Huh’s family. Mrs. Huh tells her assistant Yeon-ki in private that you can tell a real gem by putting it next to a fake one, or something to that effect. Still, it’s pretty ridiculous that she would force her pregnant and faithful student (and blood relative) to compete with her husband’s nasty ex who does nothing but insult and threaten her. It’s funny – for a long time, even though Ji-young is clearly the antihero of the show, she wasn’t a bad guy you loved to hate. I actually felt sorry for her, having to live with her uptight husband and controlling, high-strung mother-in-law who didn’t want to let her hold a job or be on birth control (!). But now that Ji-young’s got nothing left to lose, she’s really turned the corner towards becoming a bona fide bee-yatch. Meanwhile, Young-su and Se-mi are living on their own and have gotten jobs waiting tables. Young-su, while cute, is really showing his immaturity – he whines about having to work and spends their rent money playing video games. I wonder if Se-mi will still want to marry this guy when they finally do go home, or if she’ll insist that he do some growing up first. This is why you live together first, people! Also, it’s totally out of the bag that Won-mi faked her pregnancy. Han-suk, of course, was furious, but she seems to be getting over it. And, wouldn’t you know it, people are starting to talk about how there must be “another reason” for Sung-il’s refusal to let Se-mi and Young-su marry. They should have just called this show “The Other Reason”. Now that everyone knows about Ji-young, there’s really just one more secret that has to come out… and it’s a biggie.
By the way, you can watch any episode of Bride From Vietnam (aka Golden Bride), Coffee Prince, and about a trillion other K-dramas via www.mysoju.com. You can also download them if you have the Veoh player, although I find the actual player annoying and prefer to watch them using VLC Player instead.
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