Wherein I fall in love with a heroine - a pusher's post on Pick the Stars

[dangermousie]

A little drama update now that the dramas actually started and I had a chance to check them out.



And the biggest surprise win (i.e. drama I thought I would not like but I do) of January goes to...Pick the Stars (a.k.a. Wish Upon A Star/Stars Falling from the Sky etc etc). It is the only kdrama apart from Chuno that I am following. I am not going to watch more/any of The Reputable Family and Jejoongwon because any period drama pales in comparison with Chuno so I want to wait and watch them later when I won't be as tempted to compare. I am saving Pasta for a fun later marathon, have given up Will It Snow on Christmas (the latest plot development was so ridiculous to me it broke my emotional connection to the drama) and am not interested in God of Study.

But Pick the Stars - Pick the Stars I really really like. I am up through all 4 existing eps already. Stars, in case you missed my previous post about it, revolves around Pal Kang (the unbelievably beautiful Choi Jung Won), who starts out the story as a flighty young woman dreaming of a Prince Charming but quickly learns she must put away daydreaming when an accident kills her parents and she is left with 5 (adopted) siblings, all under the age of 10 and terribly dependent on her.

The first episode was blah, I liked the second, but it was the third and fourth eps which made me fall in love. It's a 'fast-forward drama' - I ff with reading subs quite regularly, but I also adore it at the same time. It was billed as a wacky comedy but that is not accurate - I spent a decent chunk of eps 3 and 4 on the verge of tears. It's not a depressing melodrama or a sobfest - it has plenty of funny moments, but if you want a zany laugh-in, this is probably not for you.

The reason I adore the drama is Pal Kang - she starts out as silly and even annoying in the first episode, but by the second responsibility brings out the best in her and I adore her by 3rd and 4th. I am ridiculously heroine-invested with this drama. When she despairs, I feel like crying, when she grins, I want to grin too.

I admire her character - to be saddled with 5 small children in her mid-20s and no money left by the parents to take care of them - I cannot even contemplate that. And she takes care of them the best she can, sacrificing her own hopes and life - once she symbolicaly chops off her hair (of which she was so vain before) and becomes a 'mother', she is non-stop amazing. She may not be good at housework or the best employee but when she goes through contrivances to keep the children housed, when she puts the baby to breast to quiet his crying (I saw comments on viikii wondering about it btw - you don't need milk in there, you just need a nipple for the baby to use as a pacifier), when she tries to feed 5 children on a non-existent budget, when she decides to become a hostess to earn money for the baby's hospital fees - I just want to hug her and give her a wad of money and tell her everything will be OK.

My relationship to other characters in this drama comes through the lens of this heavy heroine investment. I have no strong interest in Hero. I am mildly curious as to why he believes himself unworthy of good things, but not as much as I am curious as to who thought it was a great idea to give a good-looking man such a bizarre hairdo. I don't ship him with Pal Kang one way or another, nor do I prefer his brother - for me, I just want Pal Kang happy and being able to take care of the kids. If that means hooking up with Icy Lawyer Hero (who can afford to feed all these kids), I am all for it. If it means hooking up with Younger Bro - I am all for it. If it means her discovering an amazing invention, getting filthy rich of it and sending her siblings to the best schools while remaining single and hiring a string of boytoys? I am all for it too.

I do find the relationship between Pal Kang and Hero interesting because I've never seen this in a drama before - in her 'silly' days she had a crush on him and chased after him for 5 years, while he never showed any interest. But after her parents' death, her crush is completely gone, killed by actual reality. She ends up as a housekeeper in his house but she has no interest to spare for him - for her it's smuggling the kids in so they'd have a place to sleep. It's not a 'ohh, I wish I had time to pine for him' either - she genuinely loses any interest - silly fantasy cannot stand her against grim situation and it's not as if her feelings were in any way deep. Her newly grown-up self now sees him unflinchingly for what he is - an ice-cold, selfish man who upon discovering the smuggled kids has no problem putting her and her 5 small children on the street to freeze with a week's notice. She is not even angry in her conversation with Hero's Younger Brother (who is much nicer). When Younger Brother tries to convince her that Hero is nice - she is matter-of-fact (and spot on) in her assessment of him as self-absorbed and without feelings she can touch on. Her almost-aside comment about how she used to chase him for 5 years and she really wishes she didn't waste her time back then and could get it back (and do something useful with it) isn't bitterness of disappointed love, it's just hard-headed pragmatism.

I love that. I love that so much. Oh, and I want Hero's Younger Brother to fall for Pal Kang at some point and for them to start dating and for Hero weep tears of blood and possibly get his legs broken as payback for being the kind of bastard who thinks it's OK to put out a woman and 5 small kids out in the middle of winter. Your emo (whatever it is), does not give you an excuse for being a flipping jerk. Pal Kang isn't a raving bitch and I am pretty sure unless you were molested by nuns when you were a kid, her trauma is worse than yours. (Note: yes, rationally I can see why someone isn't jumping all over himself to help a woman he barely knows - but if he doesn't want her in his house, he can at least put her in touch with an agency that helps in those cases or help her find an apartment etc).

Anyway, I recommend it, I recommend it a lot. Maybe it resonates with me a little bit extra because I am a mother - I don't know. But it's a good drama in any event.

Let me clarify this - is it as good as Chuno? (Which is my true drama love and just broke 30% ratings, more than twice than those of Stars). Of course not - Chuno is literally amazing, one of the best dramas I've seen. It's as close to a masterpiece as a drama can get while Stars is a pleasing entry, a 'routine' kdrama. But it's underrated and sweet and has heart. So do check it out!

Comments

[darkeyedwolf.livejournal.com]

have given up Will It Snow on Christmas (the latest plot development was so ridiculous to me it broke my emotional connection to the drama)

D: Do I want to know? Will I hate myself for asking?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It's not too freaky or whatever for a melodrama but it made me roll my eyes much too hard - hero and heroine get back together and then barmy mother of heroine sets herself/house on fire because her husband runs off with hero's mum.

Hero rescues barmy mother but the shock has screwed up her head and she now believes hero is her dead son (i.e. heroine's brother). So far so good except then we flash-forward to 3 yrs later and hero and heroine are living together with barmy mother and are pretending to be siblings and have been doing it for 3 years to keep barmy mother happy. And I don't mean - they pretend in front of her face but have hot sex behind closed doors, nah, I mean genuinely live in platonic angst for THREE FREAKING YEARS - what, they don't know how to lock doors or can't just tell barmy mom 'tough, crazy lady, here's your meds, we are not siblings'? It was just such a ridiculous contrivance for the sake of angst that I rolled my eyes out of my sockets and was done (am amused to note that dramabeans, who had problems with realism of IRIS and Chuno (her nitpicks for Chuno was especially 'entertaining') didn't find that problematic at all).

[darkeyedwolf.livejournal.com]

Oh... oh my god. I think that might be a dealbreaker for me too. What were they thinking?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It's like - 3 years? Whyyyyy? (Also, the writer is stealing from herself - in A Love to Kill, Rain and Shin Min Ah deny their feelings because SMA is a girlfriend of Rain's crippled brother - but that is different - that makes sense as an angsty self-sacrifice. But this? Pretending to be a dead person so a crazy old lady would be happy and not even secretly boinking - it's not like it would be cheating! *rolls eyes*)

[mishane.livejournal.com]

and then barmy mother of heroine sets herself/house on fire because her husband runs off with hero's mum. Hero rescues barmy mother but the shock has screwed up her head and she now believes hero is her dead son (i.e. heroine's brother).

. . .what? And they live together as brother and sister? That's ridiculous.

Well, I guess WISOC will be a drama I'll never watch. It's too bad, I wanted to see GS in something, I'll just have to watch Green Rose.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Green Rose is very good - reveeeeeenge.

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

So where did you see/download Pick the stars? :)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

withs2 is doing subs but they aren't out yet - however the whole thing is out on viikii

[calixa.livejournal.com]

This one sounds pretty good, but I will wait until it's finished airing. I don't have the patience to follow dramas as they air!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I thought I didn't either, but it's addictive so I got hooked.

[fivil.livejournal.com]

Wait, it was the Hero who drew her &the kids' asses out on the street? Hmmm doesn't bode well for the romance. XD

Interesting. Not sure if I'll watch it since I don't really enjoy ff'ing through dramas.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

No, not sure if I explained it well.

Once parents died, landlord kicked them out (due to machinations of characters not mentioned in my post). By that point she was already hired by hero as live-in housekeeper so she smuggled the kids to live with her. He found out and fired her, gave her a week's notice. Douchey but much more understandable :)

I ff through almost all dramas, to a degree.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

She sounds like my type from the beginning - but you know I can't abide the silly brainless herouines. I don't have anything against them as people but this is one of kdrama tropes that I feel to be really misogynistic. And it is such a big troppe as well - clever herouines make up for less than 20%. THIS IS CONSPIRACY.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Warning: she is super-silly in first ep. But then she gets awesome.

Re: brainless, I don't mind it much but I like seeing clever ones. This season is good - none of the heroines are cute dummies. (Btw, I think cute dummy ratio depends on the genre - you'd find a lot more of them in e.g. a romcom than a period drama. I wonder why).

[mishane.livejournal.com]

I absolutely hated, hated the first episode. I thought Pal Kang was the worst kind of heroine ever. But I gave it another chance and watched the second episode and she grew so so so much from the 1st episode to the 2nd episode. After her parents died she became a much much more interesting character. Which is good because I don't think I could have done with more than one episode of a spoiled brat Pal Kang.

(One comment, I hated when she cut her hair and said, "I'm no longer a woman, I'm a mother", it kind of grated on my nerves. A mother is no longer a woman? But I guess I can chalk it up to her saying that she no longer will look at herself only, she'll look at her kids. They could have phrased it better though).

I agree with you in that I don't care what happens with the brothers. For me, the story is all on Pal Kang. How she'll be able to take care of the kids, how she'll be able to live her own life also. This reminds me of those feel good American movies, where the focus isn't on love or romance, but on character growth.

The kids are heartbreaking. :( I still need to watch episode 4, she becomes a hostess??

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought she was an idiot in ep 1 but now I love her.

A mother is no longer a woman?

I think she meant that as a single mother with almost no income and 5 small kids, she doesn't have the luxury to date, flirt, buy nice clothes etc - everything gets subsumed in taking care of the kids.

Re: hostess. She becomes one to earn $$$ at the end of ep 4 (she got fired from her company job). :(

[popaddict.livejournal.com]

have given up Will It Snow on Christmas (the latest plot development was so ridiculous to me it broke my emotional connection to the drama)


I must agree with you. I wasn't watching the dramaa but was interested in pulling a marathon at the end but reading dramabeans' recap it was seriously 'WTF?'.
I find it ridiculous. And one of my biggest pet peeves is the martyr role, oh Kang-jin you may be the biggest martyr of them all. No compliment.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah - that was the stupidest thing I've heard in a while. There is ridiculous and then there is this.

[magiccard-1.livejournal.com]

The first episode was blah, I liked the second, but it was the third and fourth eps which made me fall in love. That is exactly what I feel. Because I really love this writer's last project Family's Honor (it's the most respectable kdrama I have seen in 2009), I feel hopeful that the script of Pick the Stars won't fall later. Though it may not become one great piece, it will be very enjoyable (at least for me)if it keep the same level as ep3&ep4.I have strangely high expectation of the interaction between Hero and Pal Kang and the five children. Maybe I really desire to see they act as One Family. Hero as the father-like brother-in-law protects and takes care of the whole family, of course, with mother-like sister Pal Kang, and the five children support their dear sister and brother-in-law. Oh, that can be so delicious. Even Pal Kang is strong enough to bring up the children, I still want to see hero become the man not only the lover of Pal Kang but also one member of that family. For Pal Kang and the children, they deserve to be supported and loved by someone. For hero, he needs to be inspired the ability of loving and family consciousness. Though he will not be the nice and sweet lover or brother-in-law (will he?), he has much potential to turn to be a strict, responsible and reliable one. It seemed I much less care the romance between Pal Kang and hero. NO, actually I keep an eye on that (I admit what I expect most is how hero appreciate Pal Kang and fall in love with her unconsciously.)One small thing, I don't bother with hero's hairstyle (Not that I like it).It can be done much better like general handsome/charming hairstyle in so many kdramas (the actor is absolutely not a ugly guy). The hero's hairstyle makes the character more 'real' and distinguishes him from those handsome-rich-cool-and whatever males in traditional kdramas. Ok, I know I am odd, but I do smell the sophisticated, rational and self-possessed characteristic from the hairstyle (!) Overall, I feel good for the hero. Can't wait for ep5&ep6.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I admit what I expect most is how hero appreciate Pal Kang and fall in love with her unconsciously.

I agree - I really hope this will happen.