[Episodes 1 & 2]
Produced by Appletree Pictures - 16 Episodes
Aired on Mon/Tue 10:00pm [KBS]
PD 김정규 (Kim Jung-Gyu)
SCRIPT 여지나 (Yeo Ji-Na)
CAST
Jo Jae-Hee [지진희 (Ji Jin-Hee)], Jang Mun-Jeong [엄정화 (Eom Jung-Hwa)], Jung Yu-Jin [김소은 (Kim So-Eun)], Park Hyeon-Gyu [유아인 (Yoo Ah-In)], Yoon Gi-Ran [양정아 (Yang Jeong-Ah)], Jang Bong-Su [김병기 (Kim Byeong-Gi)], Kang Hye-Ja [전양자 (Jeon Yang-Ja)], Park Gwang-Nam [임호 (Im Ho)], Jo Yoon-Hee [배민희 (Bae Min-Hee)], Moon Seok-Hwan [유태웅 (Yoo Tae-Woong)], Sanggu [개 (Somewhat Endearing Quadrupedal Beast)] CAMEO: 김건모 (Kim Geon-Mo)
STAFF
PLANNING 윤신애 (Yoon Shin-Ae), DP 엄태만 (Eom Tae-Man) LIGHTING 박중기 (Park Jung-Gi) MUSIC 엄기엽 최인희 (Choi In-Hee), 윤희성 (Yoon Hee-Seong) EDITING 이동현 (Lee Dong-Hyun) ART DIRECTION 양창석 (Yang Chang-Seok)/박용석 (Park Yong-Seok), COSTUMES 홍성신 (Hong Seong-Shin), 임태경 (Im Tae-Gyeon) ACTION CHOREOGRAPHY 박주천 (Park Ju-Cheon)
RATINGS (TNS Media)
01 08.2%
02 07.5%
GRUMPY DISCLAIMER "The following is not a recap, but rather a critical discourse on the drama. Spoilers are avoided like the plague, and general grumpiness pervades its delirant prose. For summaries of the show, head to the forum thread using the link at the bottom. Hugs(?)~"
IN SHORT: Welcome to Korean sentiment. Same as Japanese sentiment. Or... Is it?!
Roger Ebert said it best, when reviewing Gus Van Sant's Psycho. That is, the idea that "genius apparently resides between or beneath the shots, or in chemistry that cannot be (replicated)" -- which is, in layman's terms, another way of defining the Achille's heel of just about every remake. What is it you truly wish to accomplish with a remake, after all? If we're talking of Van Sant's aforementioned 1998 remake of Hitchcock's classic, then something purely technical might come to mind, the experiment of visually upgrading a film shot in the 60s through a nearly shot-by-shot transfusion of cinematic blood. The result, sure enough, was laughable. If you're the Roy Lee type, you use the remake as a bypass to stimulate the comatose heart of a patient called Hollywood, with the added bonus of securing a solid amount of interest abroad costing not a single cent of advertising. Being a merely financial decision, the only results that matter are box office receipts -- and I guess they're more or less satisfactory, considering that cinema's own Death Star can't seem to produce much of anything unless Mr. Lee and his clones first shop around for ideas in Korea, Japan, Norway or wherever their creative bankruptcy brings them. But then you have something like 꽃보다 남자 (Boys Over Flowers), and particularly the last in line, KBS' 결혼못하는 남자 (He Who Can't Marry).
Had the former really been made with a soul and not just Song Byung-Joon's ruthless lowest-common-denominator sensibilities, then improving upon Kamio Yoko's 花より男子 (Hana Yori Dango)'s original wouldn't have required much of a tour de force, considering it's merely a ridiculously cliched shoujo manga with pedestrian characterization and seriously dubious ethical mores. That was actually one of the ever so few fascinating points regarding this recent manga-to-Kdrama trend's first offspring: we're mostly dealing with original material that's mediocre to begin with, so there was always a possibility to improve the source, to add a certain unique flavor to the proceedings. That itself could be a viable, meaningful way to enter the remake arena -- one of the reasons why 하얀거탑 (The White Tower)'s greatness is still somewhat contested in certain Korean circles is because of a sort of cultural inferiority complex, frowning upon Ahn Pan-Seok's miracle on the tune of "you had already a great foundation to work with from the start, and it was Japanese!" In the case of HanaDan's remake, it was a whole different story. But when you're dealing with an original story that is as brilliant as Ozaki Masaya's 結婚できない男 (Kekkon Dekinai Otoko), then you begin wondering: what exactly were they trying to accomplish, beyond the obvious?
So, yes, on the surface, it might feel like a Roy Lee approach: you immediately gain the interest of those who loved the original (yours truly included) without having to worry about problematic issues like story development and characterization. But set aside ratings and market demographics, the true key here is exactly what the producers wanted to accomplish with a remake of a classic which was nearly impossible to improve upon. Impossible because Kuwano-san seemed to have been born to be played by someone like Abe Hiroshi; impossible because certain aspects of Japanese comedy are very hard to replicate in the K-drama world, unless you want to be graced with 얼렁뚱땅 흥신소 (Evasive Inquiry Agency)-like 2-3% ratings; impossible, and this is no trifling matter, because the social dynamics at play in the two countries might feel somewhat similar to a western eye, but are in fact quite different upon a more in depth observation. That Korean sentiment the producer hinted at during the press conference, it is not merely about love triangles of doom, killer veggie trucks suddenly rampaging the streets or hot-blooded ajumma going for each other's throats at the first sign of a dispute. It is a much more profound cultural question, and the answer given throughout this drama's first two episodes is just as interesting as the virtual visual xerox copy of the original's content which graced these somewhat hackneyed but nonetheless diverting 130 minutes.
The title of Fuji TV's 2006 original might mean "The Man Who Can't Marry," but Kuwano really was closer to "The Man Who Doesn't Need to Marry," and therein lies the real core of the show. Kuwano's journey of growth was not really a progression back to normality (just like a hikikomori's return to society would prove to be), but a discovery of a viable alternative, a certain icing on the cake he gradually discovered. The point is, the cake was already there to begin with, it wasn't created out of nowhere - something called a (potential) relationship just happened to make the proceedings a little more memorable. Kuwano didn't create this planet for a single solitary man to live in because of social traumas stemming from his youth, he merely found it the ideal world to live in, what with its daily orgasms made of carefully prepared cookery, of "air Karajan" routines on his favorite chair, and big ass kitchen spaces dominating his work. Anything which deviated from Kuwano's bliss proved to be annoying and troublesome, from the carpenter he seemed to pick a fight with every odd day and twice on Sunday, to the seemingly annoying neighbor he suddenly inherits, along with the curiously looking quadrupedal beast she carried around. Would this man possibly have any major issue prohibiting his marriage, other than his disarming frankness and torrents of grump? He had a secure and rewarding job, was somewhat healthy despite his obsessive craving for meat, and looked quite okay, despite his disastrous fashion sense. So why is he the "man who can't marry"? Because marrying would, in his mind, take away the bliss he was living in. It's not a sociological matter, but more an issue of practicality. If you're already perfectly happy with the life you have, why compromise it with a relationship? Like Kafka said, "I must be alone a great deal. What I accomplished was only the result of being alone."
This, in short, is the reason why Kuwano was still a charming character despite all the warts and chicanery: he was confident about his life, he lived it to the fullest, and you never really sensed he ever regretted being single. The reason why he and Hayasaka grow a grumpy, unique and somewhat unfathomable liking to each other is because 1) Kuwano learns that the compromises he'd have to make by building a relationship with her wouldn't majorly affect his choice of lifestyle, and 2) Hayasaka grows out of her shoujo manga obsessions of the ideal romance she will never find, and settles for someone she can live with. Because when you're forty, "life" can mean a lot more than simple "romance." And here is where our Kimchi Kekkon's characters come into play, with subtle yet significant differences. 130 minutes of Jo Jae-Hee, and more than the strangely charming Kuwano, something along the lines of "sour grapes" came to mind. That is, Jo is the quintessential image of the single man a Korean woman in her 30s to 40s might have, which might actually prove to be the pivotal selling point of this show: whereas the Japanese original mostly targeted single male professionals (although the female equivalent would clearly find common traits they could relate to), this remake might not entirely become a sort of belated coming of age for our grumpy architect, but an indirect way of legitimizing the value of marriage from a female standpoint. And why is that? This drama's first episode scoring 17% in the female 30 to 40 demographics should give you an answer.
Sure, visually speaking we're treated to an eerily similar concept, complete with air Karajan, Jae-Hee's exercises in apartment climbing and all the unique ways in which he spends his day. But then if you get past that and start analyzing his psyche, a huge difference emerges: this guy is not happy with his life. AT ALL. It's as if he's projecting a mask of self-sufficient aloofness, but deep down he already feels the need for a serious change of pace. Look at the way he spends his solitary birthday party, or how he reacts to Yu-Jin (almost forcibly) inviting Hyeon-Gyu to her apartment, and leaving him out. Those are the hallmarks of someone who is trying to somewhat deny his outcast status by trying to act superior, and that is a big difference compared with Kuwano's nonchalant indifference. Another obvious clue is Jae-Hee's fashion style. Kuwano's hopelessly eccentric fashion added another layer to his personality: we were dealing with someone completely clueless when it came to dressing up exactly because.... he never felt the need to dress up in the first place.
Going out cocked up like an extra from Gilligan's Island didn't feel completely out of place, since all he needed was to please himself, wear something comfortable and which wouldn't get in the way while working. Jae-Hee, instead, dresses in perfectly acceptable ways, and shows the kind of attention to details someone who doesn't care about appearance would never show. If you care about appearance, it can never be just a personal state of mind. You somewhat want to share it with someone else, even if it is only through eye contact. Seriously, would anyone completely indifferent to the "minions" inevitably populating his one man's land be so concerned about his appearance? Sure enough, Mun-Jeong is not much different. Whereas Natsukawa Yui's Hayasaka was more concerned with practicality and oozed her age through a somewhat lazy fashion sense (part of her charm, I might argue), Mun-Jeong more or less follows the "Gold Miss" canon to a T. And she no doubt shows personality traits which subscribe to the same notions -- notice her reaction when she first sees Gi-Ran at the hospital.
So you immediately ask yourself a question: is this a mere misrepresentation of the original's themes, or something a bit more complex, something pointing to a thematic consciousness which will severely differ from the original? We'll certainly get our answer throughout the next 14 episodes, but it is nonetheless a fascinating aspect to consider, in evaluating the difference between the two shows. Is living Kuwano's life in Korea so completely out of the question that it needs to be painted through the hopeless 왕따 (outcast) canon? Japan's post-bubble individualism slowly breaking the group spirit traditions which influenced the country for centuries might be the issue. Otaku and people like Kuwano might have an ever so limited space in Japan, hence the "feasible alternative to the ideal life" slant of the original story. But in Korea, where 집단주의 (group mentality) is still a terribly important social facet, Jae-Hee's grumpy bachelor status and Mun-Jeong's old broad lifestyle are not exactly looked upon as viable alternatives -- hence the "reforming outcast" vibes of Kimchi Kekkon far outweighing the johnny-come-lately coming of age tropes of the original.
That's peculiar, isn't it? Net reaction has somewhat been polarized, with many fans of the original complaining it looks way too similar, while at the same time betraying many of its charms, whereas those going in fresh are praising it for bringing something more or less original (in a Korean context) to the table. They're both understandable reactions, and appraisals I would certainly agree with. He Who Can't Marry is definitely a nice change of pace from the histrionics-laden potboilers which had been assaulting the airwaves throughout the first half of this year: it can count on a breezy, somewhat eclectic atmosphere which always seems to capture you with very little effort, while at the same time never boring you. Also, just like the original (although in smaller doses), Kim Jung-Gyu's direction lets the situations breathe out, he focuses more on the beauty of blank spaces and silence; and the music, albeit terribly inferior compared to the original (starting from Every Little Thing's lovely and energetic theme song gracing the 2006 show), is still quite passable. After all, are those who watched the original a significant enough percentile -- and I'm only including Korean viewers -- to worry about the repercussions of remaking a classic? Not really.
But, then again, it was pretty obvious that the shit would hit the fan. This is a lose-lose situation, as Peter Jackson found out on his own a few years ago. Remake a beloved classic, and you're going to end up being criticized no matter what: stick to the original to the point of obsession, and you're going to be laughed at for producing something inferior; go in another direction by only respecting the basics, and you'll be the subject of ridicule, for betraying the source. I confess that watching some eerily similar scenes populating these two episodes (the one where Jae-Hee goes out eating by himself while Yu-Jin and Mun-Jeong look at him from outside the steak house is almost shot-by-shot), I did feel similar vibes. More than a homage or tribute to the greatness of PD Miyage's direction, it felt like a somewhat half assed rehash of something I watched a few years ago. You'd suddenly feel like the protagonist of a syrupy Yoon Seok-Ho drama, enjoying the company of a somewhat charming lady because... wait for it... she looked and sounded just like your first love. Then, what? Are you really in love with her, or is nostalgia for a long lost love blinding you with delusions? Tricky questions.
Tricky because this is not the kind of drama you can easily throw away. It's fun, very much so. Ji Jin-Hee is trying a little too hard to look like Abe-san, but that's a 50/50 situation: it's nice that he worked hard to research his character, but then again nobody will do Abe Hiroshi better than Abe himself. Eom Jung-Hwa is not surprisingly very charming, Yoo Ah-In and Kim So-Eun predictably improve upon the original characters, and even little Sanggu, all things considered, is making a mark of his own, completely different from what Ken-chan showed us in the original. The fun is still there, the atmosphere works like a charm, and Yeo Ji-Na's script -- albeit a tad on the insipid side -- is admittedly quite decent. Everything about the way this drama has been served makes you want to love it, but there's always that 2% that is lacking, that brings you back to the original. That might very well be an innate curse every remake has to go through, whether it likes it or not. Because genius does seem to be hiding somewhere beneath the shots, oozing in the air like a smell of a long lost past......
