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dangermousieIt's official, My Girl is my new dorama crack.
I have found my new marathonning-into-the-wee-hours object of obsession.
What is My Girl? It's a delicious, madcap, romantic 16-episode Korean dorama. I am about an ep and a half in and I am in love.
The story of My Girl is like something out of a classic Hollywood screwball comedy.
The cast of characters. l-r: Jung-woo, Gong-Chan's ex, Yu-Rin and Gong-Chan:
Our heroine, Yu-Rin, is plucky and resourceful. She has to be. While Yu-Rin earns her living being a tour-guide on Jeje Island, she is burdened with a father whom she loves but who suffers from an amazingly disruptive gambling problem. How disruptive? Well, the story really kicks off when Yu-Rin is forced to find a place to hide because the Mobsters to whom her father owns money decide to have her as collateral instead.
It's a good thing that Yu-Rin is blessed with a creative mind, a screwball heroine's disregard for conventions, and a bendable view on ownership. Because that leads her to hide in the disused summer house of our hero, Gong-Chan (played by the staggeringly hot Lee Dong-Wook. Now I see what the fuss was about), the manager of the super lux hotel, and the member of the upper crust. Gong-Chan is serious, driven, reserved and a bit of a workaholic. He is nice but also nobody's fool and the highlights of the dorama so far are his interactions with Yu-Rin. Their first meeting, though neither remembers it, is when Yu-Rin was up to her creative tricks holding up a plane so that her tourists could make it and pretended to faint near Gong-Chan's seat, so that the air crew couldn't drag her out and take off. Gong-Chan, realizing she was scamming, peeled her fingers with his pen (I can't explain it very well, but it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen) but since the tourists were already on board, no harm no foul.
Their second meeting is a lot more eventful as she jumps into the path of his car when she is on the run from the Mob. Gong-Chan takes her to the hospital but when she tries to scam him for 'emotional damages' (she is desperate for money as one can imagine) he refuses to pay her anything. But he does hire her to interpret for a group of Chinese businessmen he is entertaining and it's in the course of that Yu-Rin finds out the summer-house is empty. She moves in because she cannot go home and has no money for a hotel, and there are scenes involving tangerines which are too good to ruin.
And then Gong-Chan comes to the house unexpectedly...And it goes from there.
Did I mention that Gong-Chan is also the only grandson of a dying grandfather, whom he loves and whose last days he is trying to make happy by locating the Old Gentleman's long lost granddaughter (Gong-Chan's cousin), daughter of Gong-Chan's aunt whom Grandpa disowned on her hasty marriage. The aunt and her husband died in the Osaka quake but the whereabouts of the granddaughter are unknown. Grandpa is desperate to find her before he dies, and Gong-Chan is feeling hopeless with no leads at all, desperate enough to maybe hire someone for the role...
Did I add that Yu-Rin, due to her bum of a father and his run-ins with criminal elements, lived in Osaka for a while and is fluent in Japanese? Do you see where this is going?
I just love all the interactions between Yu-Rin and Gong-Chan. The actors have great chemistry, but what really kills me is just how he is so quietly amused by her and her crazy antics. And how he has this efficient businessman facade but Yu-Rin is right, inside he's just a softie. When he discovers she is the one living in his house, he tells her if she is afraid of the mob she'll be safe in jail (in a totally funny, tongue in cheek sarcastic comment) and he takes all the $$$ she made for selling his tangerines, but he does let her go. And then he finds out she was telling the truth about only needing plane fare and having nowhere to go, and he discovers jam she left for him in the fridge and you see him drive out of the house and he sees her limping down the road and you see him pause and then he picks her up and drops her off at a clinic for her foot and when she wants to thank him, tells her 'my car just happened to stop there.' ROFL.
And later he hires her as a tour guide again.
Love him.
Oh, and how could I not mention Jung-Woo (played by the scarily pretty Lee Jun-Ki. Seriously. I should not be crushing on a guy who'd make a better looking girl than I am, but I can't help it). Gong-Chan's best friend since childhood, Jung-woo is as wild and carefree as Gong-Chan is serious and driven. Jung-woo seems to go through the world wooing wholly unsuitable women (for short periods of time), getting involved in crazy imbroglios for the heck of it, and looking uber-hot (earrings! white shirts! super hot convertible!) while doing so. Do you think he is going to be the rival for Yu-Rin? Do tangerines fall from the trees?
Even though I am glad he won't get Yu-Rin because Yu-Rin/Gong-Chan=LOVE, I am anticipatorily sad for Jung-woo because much as I adore Gong-Chan (and I do), so far I am madly crushing on Jung-woo too. Think Ling from Mars only upperclass and without the issues. The scene where Yu-Rin has been finally caught by the thugs and Jung-woo sees that and interferes and gets into a fight and beats them all up (ROFL at the look on Yu-Rin's face) without ruffling his uber-hot hair is priceless. And then he grabs Yu-Rin by the arm and runs to his car, and even when they are escaping from mobsters, he opens the car door for her and then puts the top up and gets into a high-speed chase? I am a goner even as I giggle at all the (intentional) funny.
The thing that I love about that is his reasons for saving Yu-Rin aren't because he is some deeply noble guy. I think it a combo of the secondary F4 attitude to women (he genuinely loves them and thinks they should be treated extravagantly well, just not kept for more than a week or so) and clearly because he thinks this would be fun. He really enjoys all this craziness. In some ways, he is a male Yu-Rin.
Yu-Rin and Gong-Chan:
First meeting:
Jung-woo:
A bunch of banners found at soompi:
Love triangle:
Gon-Chan:
Yu-Rin:
I have found my new marathonning-into-the-wee-hours object of obsession.
What is My Girl? It's a delicious, madcap, romantic 16-episode Korean dorama. I am about an ep and a half in and I am in love.
The story of My Girl is like something out of a classic Hollywood screwball comedy.
The cast of characters. l-r: Jung-woo, Gong-Chan's ex, Yu-Rin and Gong-Chan:
Our heroine, Yu-Rin, is plucky and resourceful. She has to be. While Yu-Rin earns her living being a tour-guide on Jeje Island, she is burdened with a father whom she loves but who suffers from an amazingly disruptive gambling problem. How disruptive? Well, the story really kicks off when Yu-Rin is forced to find a place to hide because the Mobsters to whom her father owns money decide to have her as collateral instead.
It's a good thing that Yu-Rin is blessed with a creative mind, a screwball heroine's disregard for conventions, and a bendable view on ownership. Because that leads her to hide in the disused summer house of our hero, Gong-Chan (played by the staggeringly hot Lee Dong-Wook. Now I see what the fuss was about), the manager of the super lux hotel, and the member of the upper crust. Gong-Chan is serious, driven, reserved and a bit of a workaholic. He is nice but also nobody's fool and the highlights of the dorama so far are his interactions with Yu-Rin. Their first meeting, though neither remembers it, is when Yu-Rin was up to her creative tricks holding up a plane so that her tourists could make it and pretended to faint near Gong-Chan's seat, so that the air crew couldn't drag her out and take off. Gong-Chan, realizing she was scamming, peeled her fingers with his pen (I can't explain it very well, but it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen) but since the tourists were already on board, no harm no foul.
Their second meeting is a lot more eventful as she jumps into the path of his car when she is on the run from the Mob. Gong-Chan takes her to the hospital but when she tries to scam him for 'emotional damages' (she is desperate for money as one can imagine) he refuses to pay her anything. But he does hire her to interpret for a group of Chinese businessmen he is entertaining and it's in the course of that Yu-Rin finds out the summer-house is empty. She moves in because she cannot go home and has no money for a hotel, and there are scenes involving tangerines which are too good to ruin.
And then Gong-Chan comes to the house unexpectedly...And it goes from there.
Did I mention that Gong-Chan is also the only grandson of a dying grandfather, whom he loves and whose last days he is trying to make happy by locating the Old Gentleman's long lost granddaughter (Gong-Chan's cousin), daughter of Gong-Chan's aunt whom Grandpa disowned on her hasty marriage. The aunt and her husband died in the Osaka quake but the whereabouts of the granddaughter are unknown. Grandpa is desperate to find her before he dies, and Gong-Chan is feeling hopeless with no leads at all, desperate enough to maybe hire someone for the role...
Did I add that Yu-Rin, due to her bum of a father and his run-ins with criminal elements, lived in Osaka for a while and is fluent in Japanese? Do you see where this is going?
I just love all the interactions between Yu-Rin and Gong-Chan. The actors have great chemistry, but what really kills me is just how he is so quietly amused by her and her crazy antics. And how he has this efficient businessman facade but Yu-Rin is right, inside he's just a softie. When he discovers she is the one living in his house, he tells her if she is afraid of the mob she'll be safe in jail (in a totally funny, tongue in cheek sarcastic comment) and he takes all the $$$ she made for selling his tangerines, but he does let her go. And then he finds out she was telling the truth about only needing plane fare and having nowhere to go, and he discovers jam she left for him in the fridge and you see him drive out of the house and he sees her limping down the road and you see him pause and then he picks her up and drops her off at a clinic for her foot and when she wants to thank him, tells her 'my car just happened to stop there.' ROFL.
And later he hires her as a tour guide again.
Love him.
Oh, and how could I not mention Jung-Woo (played by the scarily pretty Lee Jun-Ki. Seriously. I should not be crushing on a guy who'd make a better looking girl than I am, but I can't help it). Gong-Chan's best friend since childhood, Jung-woo is as wild and carefree as Gong-Chan is serious and driven. Jung-woo seems to go through the world wooing wholly unsuitable women (for short periods of time), getting involved in crazy imbroglios for the heck of it, and looking uber-hot (earrings! white shirts! super hot convertible!) while doing so. Do you think he is going to be the rival for Yu-Rin? Do tangerines fall from the trees?
Even though I am glad he won't get Yu-Rin because Yu-Rin/Gong-Chan=LOVE, I am anticipatorily sad for Jung-woo because much as I adore Gong-Chan (and I do), so far I am madly crushing on Jung-woo too. Think Ling from Mars only upperclass and without the issues. The scene where Yu-Rin has been finally caught by the thugs and Jung-woo sees that and interferes and gets into a fight and beats them all up (ROFL at the look on Yu-Rin's face) without ruffling his uber-hot hair is priceless. And then he grabs Yu-Rin by the arm and runs to his car, and even when they are escaping from mobsters, he opens the car door for her and then puts the top up and gets into a high-speed chase? I am a goner even as I giggle at all the (intentional) funny.
The thing that I love about that is his reasons for saving Yu-Rin aren't because he is some deeply noble guy. I think it a combo of the secondary F4 attitude to women (he genuinely loves them and thinks they should be treated extravagantly well, just not kept for more than a week or so) and clearly because he thinks this would be fun. He really enjoys all this craziness. In some ways, he is a male Yu-Rin.
Yu-Rin and Gong-Chan:
First meeting:
Jung-woo:
A bunch of banners found at soompi:
Love triangle:
Gon-Chan:
Yu-Rin:
