My Lovely Sam-Soon review

[scottishlass]

My Lovely Sam-Soon aka My name is Kim Sam-Soon is a Korean drama and topped the top 10 dramas in South Korea in 2005. It is a different fare from the usual, not only because the main cast is older than the usual teen idol drama series.
summary:
Kim Sam-Soon (Kim Seon-Ah) is a 29 year old pastry chef on the chubby side (though she looks normal like a size 8 to me) who studied in France but is unemployed as she hasn't found her goal in life yet ... well in her professional life. Privately, she wants to fall in love and when we first meet her, she is stalking her boy-friend and following him into a hotel where he has an tete-a-tete with another woman. Sam-Soon whose name relates to a legend/urban legend and is considered very old-fashioned and a no-no in Korea, embarrasses herself by publicly confronting her cheating boy friend of three years and is overheard by Na Ji-Hun (Huyn Bin) who is on a blind date ordered by his mother.

Ji-Hun later finds her in the men's restroom where she fled to have a good cry. He taunts her about how stupid she had been and that she should stop looking for love. Sam-Soon gets angry at him and flees embarassed.
In order to get into work again, Sam-Soon applies for a patissier job in the very hotel, her boyfriend cheated on and dumped her. She doesn't get the job but encounters Ji-Hun again who is the hotel owner's son. He is looking for a pastry chef for his restaurant and when he sees Sam-Soon he immediately remembers her. They get into an argument again and Sam-Soon's carefully prepared orange meringue ends up in Ji-Hun's face.

After tasting it, he tries to persuade her to work for him, but she is really reluctant as she still feels embarrassed that she mistook the men's restroom for the ladies' and he caught her at that. But he is persistant and not only does Sam-Soon start to work for him (telling him he should address her as Hee-Jin as she hates her name Sam-Sook), he somehow offers her a dating contract to avoid his match making mother. She refuses him and after her first day of work, she goes to a blind date. Ji-Hun is at the hotel again and sees her, and furious she is willing to go through such an ordeal, bombs her date by pretending to be her enraged lover.

Soon it is found out that her family is in debt and in order to keep her house, Sam-Soon has to rethink Ji-Hun's offer and enters the dating contract while receiving 50.000.000 won in exchange.
Of course, they get into a fight the first evening and Ji-Hun takes a completely wasted Sam-Soon home to let her sleep off the booze. To get back at her and also to follow through with the contract, he openly acknowledges her to his restaurant staff when she comes in late (from his apartment) by casually telling them, she is late because she spent the night with him. Now the real fun starts.
Even though both profess to have no interest in the other, they find themselves in situations where they reveal their most vulnerable secrets to each other. From the first, Ji-Hun never really saw that she is on the chubby side or that she is 3 years his senior (he is only 27) but that he feels comfortable with her and is drawn by her warmth and fun. Sam-Soon, with all her bickering and making fun of him because he is from a rich family, soon falls for him.
But as with any good drama, the ex girl-friend turns up again after a 3 year abscence. Ji-Hun is confused. First he doesn't want to have anything to do with Hee-Jin (yep the very name Sam-Soon chose to want) but after the truth about her leaving him is revealed, he returns to Hee-Jin, leaving Sam-Soon alone with her broken heart. But little by little, Ji-Hun realizes that something is not right, after a big fight with Sam-Soon where she resigns, he tries everything in his mind to get her back, confusing himself and her that his motives are only for the sake of his restaurnt and not also for himself. Even Hee-Jin realizes that the relationship between Ji-hun and Sam-Soon wasn't a mere contract, but she stubbornly refuses to see that you cannot pick up a life and a relationship 3 years later.
Ji Hun doesn't even realize that he is the enraged lover when he gets into a big fight with Sam-Soon's ex or when he tells her straight out that she isn't allowed to see other men ... as long as their contract (she owes him the money from the contract) isn't over. Poor Sam-Soon tries her best to keep away from him and her ex, and finally she goes through with her name change. She applies to become Kim Hee-Jin and to completely focus on her career. She thinks that Ji-Hun was her last chance at marital happiness and refuses to see him.

But fate strikes again on the very day she decides that her new life is about to start (her 30th birthday), on a rainy day on a remote mountain top she meets Ji-Hun again who wants to extent their contract to a hundred years because he finally realized that he loves her. While spending the night at his mother's hotel, he tears up the name change application and tells her he really likes Sam-Soon as a name and that it suits her. For a few days, Sam-Soon really starts to believe in love again.
Unfortunately, the real Hee-Jin still tries to get Ji-Hun back and persuades him to return with her to the US, Ji-Hun asks his Sam-Soon to trust him one more time and that this is just a fare-well trip; he promises her he will be back in a week's time.

Two months pass without any word for him, and finally Sam-Soon finds the strength to give him up. She is about to go on a date with a man she encountered a couple of times and who happened to be on the receiving end of Ji-Hun's enraged lover routine. But Ji-Hun is back and although Sam-Soon does her damndest to ignore him, he tracks her down. She refuses to listen, telling him that he should have called or at least dropped a few lines. Ji-Jun tells her then that he wrote every day and cannot believe how his mail has gone missing, but Sam-Soon has had enough.
While Ji-Hun waits in his car in front of her house, a neighbour comes over and hands over a box full of letters and postcards, all from Ji-Hun. He sent them to the wrong address ...

cast:
Oh I love Kim Seon-Ah as Sam-Soon. She is down to earth, the woman from next door. She is not cute, she is not pretty, but she excudes charisma in bunches and gives a very sensitive performance. Kudos also to Hyun Bin who could be another model turned actor if it wasn't for the fact that he can act. Also to David Henney who played Hee-Jin's Korean-American doctor: His protrayal of a half-Korean discovering his mother's roots was convincing and real. His language barrier, his total misunderstanding of eating live animals is convincing and endearing.

my take:
I liked the series very much and watched the 16 ep series in two days. I laughed, I cried and I shouted at the monitor. Sam-Soon is so normal, and any chubby woman can identify with her.
The writing, acting and photography is very good and even though in the saddest moments it is hauntingly funny.
My Lovely Sam-Soon is more of a Western tale rather than an Asian dorama and seems to be inspired by Bridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding and Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie without actually copying from these books.
It's fun and fast paced, even though they could have finished the series with 20 episodes instead of the 16 and drawn out the conclusion more (which is a new one for me to say *g*).
Those of you who like the quirky concept of a marriage/dating contract will enjoy this little gem about two unusual characters who find love.

Comments

[miss-dian.livejournal.com]

Oh since you're a dorama fan, you're going in my flist ^^