dangermousie | "If I wanted to live, I had to kill my beloved with my own hands." Opening narration FTW

Oh...Lobbyist is total LOVE. Just watched the first two eps...

I don't care if nobody else on my flist except for

miss_dian is interested...I will be sharing anyway.

The drama opens in medias res and then flashbacks, one of my favorite ways to start a drama, as you try to figure out who these people are, what their relationships are and what brought them to this situation.

The drama opens in Nowhereinparticularstan, a dusty place full of unpleasant men with guns who don't believe in through shaving or much of a haircut. We see a man and a woman in the back of a truck (I know they are our protagonists, Harry and Maria): they are blindfolded, bloody, and with their hands bound behind their back. It seems a hostage exchange is under way, with them as hostages. The hostage exchange goes horribly pear-shaped, of course, and Harry (who earlier told Maria to just run, and he will slow their pursuers down) is shot down, as he tries to protect her escape route. Everything goes silent as he collapses and she screams in horror, desperately trying to get to him.

CREDITS. And it gets even better! We flashback a bit, and see Maria tied to a post somewhere, staring straight ahead as Harry voice-overs: "If I wanted to live, I had to kill my beloved with my own hands. Or with the guns I had been planning on selling. While my heart was heating up and my head was cooling down...that's what weapons are like." Clearly, we are going to have the best of both worlds: the moral that weapons are bad AND a lot of explosions.

For sheer 'knowing and doing what Dangermousie likes' this opening is hard to beat.

And then we go into flashback proper.

Harry and Maria grow up on an idyllic small island that gets inflitrated by North Koreans. There is a submarine! Harry's Dad is killed in the ensuing battle, and he and his sister, total orphans, are to move with their aunt and uncle in Philadelphia. Harry and Maria had become fast friends and childhood love (any kdrama worth its salt has to have childhood love by hook or crook). Maria's family, meanwhile, decides to move to New York.

Did I mention that I love that the drama establishes straight from the bat that Maria is tough: she is the school trouble-maker and can outfight boys. Mmmmm. YES.

Anyway, Maria and her family find out that their immigration papers have been forged, get to live in a hovel and get crummy jobs, and be picked on at school for being Korean (WTF? If they moved to Ruralsville, Iowa, maybe, but New York? Oh well, it gives Maria a chance to be her awesome tough self, so OK). Eventually, her Dad gets shot by evil American robbers, as people usually are, when driving his bus...

Meanwhile Harry and his sister are not faring at all well. Their poor aunt married a drinking-moonshine-straight-out-of-the-jug, gun-toting, wife/child abusive horse farmer, as all Philadelphians so clearly must be. Obviously, Harry and Maria should have stayed in Korea.

I am willing to cut them slack on the Philly-as-rural thing, actually, as it can be one of the far away areas around it, and to a person in Korea, especially since Harry is what 10? 12? it would all be Philly. But still...moonshine-drinking, unshaven, abusive, gun-wielding redneck with a hatred of Korean food? LOL.

Anyway, Mr. Redneck not only makes poor Harry and his little sister work like slaves on his horse farm, he uses his fists and whip and whatever else comes to hand on Harry and his wife, and basically life generally sucks. A point to the writers for two things: (1) you see Harry eye his Uncle's gun, he clearly is beginning to associate it with power, which is something he desperately wants as he is totally powerless; and (2) if his life is so hellish now, no wonder he will later fixate on his happy time at the island...

Anyway, so far so good.

Apparently Lobbyist was rather a flop for SBS which poured scads of money into it, only end up with mid-teens rating, which might be respectable for an average drama, but not for a specially-nurtured ‘baby’ this was supposed to be.

Couple of eps in, my verdict? While not as mind-shatteringly awesome as other underperformers of last year, The Devil and Capital Scandal, this drama is pretty darn good and enjoyable. It’s a pity it didn’t do better, but clearly, viewers of Korea aren’t as fixated on seeing SIG suffer and fondle guns as I am.

OTOH, my tastes and the tastes of the intended Korean viewer don’t necessarily always align. I mean, millions and millions of Koreans adored Love Story in Harvard but I thought it could serve as a sleeping aid, so clearly, there is an ‘intended audience’ gap here…

I suppose Lobbyist proved that the viewers of Korea remain mesmerized by Song Il-Gook only if he has a sword. I, however, am not nearly so picky.