My Mister (2018)

My favorite scenes which was really heartwarming (and sorrowful at the same time)

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Ep 7 56.20
Ep 8 05.00
Ep 12 30.10 51.50 01.14.40
Ep 13 10.45
Ep 15 01.17.55
Ep 16 07.20

A series that tell people's "failure" which would made us think twice about failure definition itself. At the start the story bonding up the viewers to each of the characters so the viewers would sympathise them, even for the loan shark (played awesome by Jang Ki Yong--strangely, I truly loved him in this role). My heart was painful by watching what they're dealing with and started to understanding every choices each character takes. Eventho the ending gave us "a happy ending" vibes (and I feel happy for that), it can't stop me from thinking this. Life's a marathon, not a sprint. As long as we're living in this world, there is always problems coming out to our face asking for a solution. But all we need is living our sucks life and find our comfort. Just like the Ahjussi's last dialog, "Ji An, have you found your comfort?"

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What do I even say? What can even be said about the greatest piece of media I've ever watched? Obviously it has its flaws but wow... Park Haeyoung I love you so much can you please write every show from now on? I just. Wow. Just one of those shows that makes you want to burst into tears just thinking about it. It's so heavy and real honestly one of the best glimpses of just humanity. Lots of mainstream Kdramas are made to be glitzy and glamorous and show you the beauty of the country and the hustle and bustle of the city and then you have My Mister. A show that's not afraid to be show you the gritty reality of humanity and life. It's literally about two extremely depressed people being platonic soulmates and idk it's the best thing I've ever watched. It's sluggish, it's purposefully slow, it's show mostly at night and in the winter so you can just FEEL the seasonal depression and how awful and depressing it is. And it's just so well directed like its INSANE. The way that most of the show takes place at the night so the shots are dark and depressing and the only scenes that are light and feel warm and slightly hearty are when the characters are together in the neighborhood bar. The community coming together is the only time we as an audience or the characters feel any sort of relief or warmth. It's actually insanely brilliant and that's not even considering the PERFECT characters, incredible acting, and lines that make me want to sob for the rest of my life. Jian and Donghoon are in two completely different places but they fit each other well like they really do need each other. Like who knew a depressed 21yo woman with a huge debt and amazing street skills could become besties with the most pathetic 40yo you've ever met. IU gives the performance of a lifetime and everyone else is just great ofc. But that's just what happens when you cast the woman of all time Oh Nara in your show. Also this was Jang Kiyong's best role I said what I said!! And the OST is brilliantly haunting and sets the mood perfectly.

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UNPOPULAR OPINION: I did not like it

I started this because I love IU, but I stayed for Park Dong Hoon. I wanted him to get everything that he deserves. The man is gold and full of wisdom.

What I liked:
1. Obviously Park Dong Hoon.
2. The friendship the soccer club has.
3. Ji-an's grandmother and Dong-Hoon's mom.

What I dislike: Everything else. First off, IU's acting was topnotch as always, but I found her character annoying and she seems like deciding unwisely at times, making things worst.

Second, the love affair that they've been trying to portray just did not work for me. I mean, the story would still have been great even if they did not add the romance part between Dong Hoon and Jian. It was far stretched. It was also clear that Dong Hoon was not interested with Jian, he just cared for him. But towards the end, they've been trying to push for the romance part further.

Third, I hated the actress. The romance between the brother and the actress was so unnecessary and annoying. Their dialogues were cringy. Tbh, I fast forwarded their screen times. The character of the actress was, I'm sorry for the word, but it was pathetic and empty.

I wanted to stop halfway because maybe this is just not my cup of tea, but I wanted to see Joon Young and the wife get wrecked.

Maybe I expected too much from this because it has a great rating of 9.1, but overall, I did not like it. But thank God, they promoted Dong Hoon.

To each his own.

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Can't deny how good it is

So to be honest I have dropped this drama at ep13, not because it was bad but because personally, it made me quite depressed thinking about life and I may pick it up again another time.
My mister is one of those dramas you either love or hate, and even if you hate it it's not because it's not good but because it doesn't fit your genre style well. If your a hopeless romantic or into high action this may bore you. But if you love deep meanings or genres that reflect everyday life with character depth then it would be a perfect fit.
I love that the ML isn't this perfect guy who has life all figured out but he is a normal working man with a crazy family, struggles and hardships and he makes mistakes but is so good compared to those around him. The FL takes no crap and fights for herself but also allows herself to open up to him. There's no romance and if there was it would have ruined it.
Just people finding friendships and learning that life sucks but it's a little easier with others around you.

I am not gonna say much more about the rest of it. I wouldn't re-watch because It's one of those dramas you carry in your memories.

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My mister is an odd drama with an interesting, unique plot. The first two episodes were so confusing, that I had to put it off and actually concidere dropping it. Fortunatelly, I didn't. The plot grows thick and everything falls in place after episode three, when we get to see the characters, their struggles and their real personalities and figure out what everyone seeks for. Ji Ahn was a nice character. She was poor, and she had given up on escaping her situation any time soon. Her mister, the boss of her department where she works part time, seems a simple guy with family issues but eventually, everyone around him plot for his fall. All the characters of the drama were unique and interesting, though that actress was kind of annoying at some point. I also enjoyed the fact that the story didn't follow any romantic twist, but stayed true to its dark, slice of life focus. So, great performances, great story and great characters.

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Depressingly comforting - a real take on life’s ups and downs

Story
A story of mediocrity, suffering and human weakness - sure to tug at your deepest fears.

My Mister explores the layers of everyday people. The slow pace was deliberate and meticulous forcing you to feel the frustration and complexity of human decisions. It is uncomfortable in its real-ness where the viewer cannot simply draw the line between good, bad, admiration or abomination.

This drama explores themes such as:

1. An adverse childhood and how it shapes adult demeanour and decision-making
2. The hopelessness of a stale marriage and decisions it drives
3. Love and piety to family
4. Seeing yourself in another disguised as compassion for their suffering
5. Finding meaning in living and being content
6. A mother’s unconditional love and support

Acting:
I enjoyed Lee Sun-Kyun’s restrained portrayal of Park Dong Hoon. Best scene - confronting his wife with his bottled up anger and despair on full display.

Also intrigued by IU’s take on her character. The coldness and steeliness one would need to survive the harsh realities having nothing.

Reflections and learning:
In the greyest moments of your life, there is hope, solidarity and love. You only need to take a closer look.

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The life of a construction engineer who had no direction in life, a pile of dead bones inside his system waiting to be ravished by crows, his junior in University who smiles wickedly at him as his now ever-so dignified and arrogant senior. And the story of him untangling his life as messed up as a swirl of infinitely extruding japchae noodles, and making peace with it and finding something good out of it. A poor girl who grew up too fast, who was forever indebted to and harassed by a loan shark she could not cut ties with.

That was what I saw from this drama on the first time.

The life of a man who would go miles and walk over even the River of Styx, just to help the people around him that he loved: his family, his friends, his coworkers. Anyone who comes to an impasse at his loved ones, he wouldn't hesitate to shatter and kill with the might of his claw hammer. A man who would find happiness and be content because of another woman, not out of a romantic relationship, but out of a truly genuine relationship. Genuine doesn't even come close to describing how genuine their relationship is.

That was what I saw from this drama the second time.

The life of a girl who saw no hope in life, who met a construction engineer, who also saw no hope in in life. They became each other's backbones, cared about each other. Then it no longer seemed like they only had to fight for themselves in life, they could help each other.

This was the third time.

Whenever I learn something new about people in my life, around me. I would always be able to come back to this drama and find things I learned from real life.

My Mister is truly amazing. Any word in dictionary doesn't come close to depicting its beauty.

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THE BEST

I'm not gonna say much. Just watch it pls because it has everything you need. except for romance but it has love. You can feel the love between both the main leads not in a romantic way but pure. I always watched kdramas because of the romance but i never knew I could watch such a mature series and still love it. Just watch this drama you wont regret it. At first you may feel its going to slow. But eventually youll love it. Thats what it is for me. And as far as IU all i have to say is damnnnnn. I always thought why do ppl hype her but guess what she deserves all the hype. she served in this series.

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A Korean Gem and Masterpiece for the times

When I first watched this drama, I couldn't even finish the 1st episode because I thought it was really boring. I wasn't much of an IU fan back then.

However, somehow I decided to watch Hotel del Luna (another masterpiece from IU) and that brought me back to this drama.

It was then I started asking myself "how the heck did I almost miss this greatness of a show?".

To think a couple of years back I used to dislike IU because I thought she was too overrated and only sings those teen songs. How wrong I was. Now I'm her biggest fan. I practically went searching for all her songs , downloaded all her tv shows and films.

Going back to this drama, it's just utterly touching and amazing. It's so realistic and full of life lessons. Don't even get me started on the awesome soundtrack by Sondia.

A drama turned me from an IU doubter to a huge fan. Seriously this girl can do everything entertainment wise. Her acting is just out of this world here. You will hate her at the start, sympathize with her in the middle and love her in the end.

Having a hard time in life? Maybe you should just try telling yourself "it's no big deal, it's really not a big deal". It might do wonders at times. Watch this. You definitely won't regret it.

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Reality is hell

"I want to try living my life as a different person. I want to go to a place where nobody knows me, and live as if I have no history at all" - Ji-An (IU). Imagine, a 21-year-old woman saying this, isn't hard to imagine her situation and saying this things? A mature 21 years old, living her life in vain and debts.

A perfect kdrama to everyone who wanted a slice of life genre with a little bit of dark theme on it. Not necessarily dark but a reality portraying the reality itself. I also cried a bucket of tears while watching this series. All the actors did a great job portraying their characters to life. I also wanted to salute Park Donghoon's character of not taking advantage of Ji-An's vulnerability. He is indeed a man we should seek for in this world, how I wish, people are like him. I also commend the stunning OST of this series especially "Grown Up" and "Dear Moon". <3

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if you haven't watched this what are you doing with your life, exactly?

⚠️ this review contains vague spoilers in terms of plot and heavy spoilers in quotes and character dynamics. read at your own risk. ⚠️

(those on my friends feed will know that i watched the last three episodes twice the day i finished it and cried like a bitch. i rewatched them this morning again, bc they contain some of the best moments in this show, and still cried like a bitch. i have no excuse)

i said i would take some time to collect my thoughts after finishing this, but i still don't know exactly how collected i am rn? @Shiro and @AnQuat put out their most recent editorial on screenwriter Park Hae Young (the mastermind behind this masterpiece) and i looked at my notes and decided that if i didn't post this i would be 1. missing out on the opportunity and 2. this might never see the light of day bc i just like to procrastinate
should probably preface the actual word dump by saying that i have a ptw list that is suffering atm and before this ran me over like a train wreck, last week Sunday i was THIS close to starting Stranger. was literally on Dramacool about to click on the first episode when i got a YouTube notification, went to check it, saw a FMV for this drama in my recommended, suddenly recalled that the Lee Sun Kyun was in it, and abandoned all plans with Cho Seung Woo and Bae Doo Na for the weekend. i will make it up to the both of you, somehow, after i explain how my heart was ripped out of my chest with this

Lee Sun Kyun. (i watched Coffee Prince recently and was slapped with the SLS so hard i think something broke inside of me—this show aired almost exactly nine years after that and the fact that his voice is still as,,,,,, how should i put this without sounding jealous of his wife,,,,,,,, f*ckable as it was back then? is illegal, should be illegal, constitutes grounds for a legal suit—this is why they call him The Voice ™ in Korea and that is entirely valid, imo, so why tf do on-screen women keep cheating on him ? no one in this cinematic universe appreciates the blessing that is having this man as a committed life partner with a stable job and that's a crime) IU. (i have yet to watch Scarlet Heart which, in the drama community, is akin to murder so idk about her previous skills but here? she acted her ass off with this role and we have no choice but to stan. immediately added to the list of artists/idols who actually know wtf they're doing when they crossover to the film industry) Park Ho San. Song Sae Byuk. Lee Ji Ah. Kim Young Min. (kind of an assh*le here but he's hot! and apparently older than LSK which sent me for a f*cking loop bc he does not look like it) i was going to wait until Viki stopped being homophobic and gave me back my QC benefits to support my fellow subbers but the call of 750p and no ads was too strong—watch me rewatching this in December in HD just to see how different the subs are so i can get away with a trip to therapy

“some girl told me the other day that she's 30,000 years old. she says that if she counts up all the times she's been reincarnated and all the birthdays she's had, it will probably add up to that. and she says she doesn't know why she keeps being born. but i know. it's because this world, here, isn't her home, but she keeps making a mistake and thinking it is. so she keeps coming back. and then she keeps thinking of how to return to her home, and just keeps being reborn.”

no one in this show had the right to be this talented. no one, not the screenwriter, not the director, not Lee Sun Kyun, not IU, not the supporting cast, i'm going to lay that out on the table rn. the delivery of the lines in here have destroyed my storage bc i kept pausing every five minutes to write it down,,,,,, and the body language? (every time a man's hands shake i simultaneously gain and lose fifteen years off of my life. when they throw up i tack five more years onto that total. Dong Hoon did both in the last episode and idk what to do with myself after this) the way things are said without being said, partially utilized in the impeccable addition of sign language? the parallels? the subtle references to previous scenes, previous dynamics, previous dramas, even?
it's “she's here. the girl with the pretty face.” / “he's here.” and “just say sorry. say ‘i was wrong’ ten times. say it. hurry up and say it.” / “i was wrong. i was wrong. i was wrong.” and “you think it's because of my willpower that i haven't had anything happen? ani. there's been no temptation. there's nothing to be wary of, so i'm not sure if i have any willpower at all.” / “don't do it. don't do it, are you listening to me?” (ft. the Coffee Prince vibes almost immediately after This Scene ™, bc Park Dong Hoon brushing back his hair from his forehead looking like he's just fought a war is the 2010s equivalent of “i was just shaken, that's all. i don't feel anything for her, truly, i don't—” “how would you know? you've never been shaken before. i have.”) and (Dong Hoon to Ji Ahn) “live by the name that you were given” / (Gyum Deok to Dong Hoon) “be selfish and take care of yourself. be happy. you're allowed to do that” = “i do not want you to suffer bc of the things you have had to do to survive,” along with my personal favorite, which is so good it needs its own line in this block of text despite the fact that Ji Ahn is blatantly lying in the first half,

“... why do you like him? tell me. i'm curious.” “i don't like him. i want to ruin him.” ... “you must have come to this neighborhood just to save me. i was on the verge of dying, but you were the one who saved me.” = “my savior Han Joo Won, who came to destroy my life.” = “the savior who came to destroy me. my Tamako. my Sookee.” (ignore the fact that i have not watched The Handmaiden. focus on the vibes) *screeches*

on that point (and building off of the Handmaiden quote) i have seen some people say that Dong Hoon and Ji Ann's relationship is purely platonic and i'm sorry but i have to disagree, i really do, bc i literally saw a comment on Dramacool that said “imagine loving someone so much you love to hear him breathe” in reference to this quote (“i liked hearing all of the sounds you made, ahjeossi. and all of your words, and thoughts, and the sound of your footsteps… all of it. it felt as if i saw what a human being was for the first time.”) and this,,,,,,, coupled with the way she knows him better than his own wife,,,,,,, with the way she eventually leaves bc she does not want him to have to understand that,,,,,, with the way he still goes looking for her, bc it is too late for him not to understand (“if you get to know a person… nothing they do bothers you. and i know you.”) ,,,,,,, all of this,,,,,,,, i cannot NOT see this as a love story
and bc of that, My Mister is very forgettable but then it isn't, in a way? there's a specifically rewatchable aspect to it that allows for the opportunity to never get tired of the plot and that imo is its strength, but i can guarantee that three months from now i will be minding my own business and then my brain will choose to pull the almost-kiss scene side-by-side with thoughts like “how far can you go before love is not just love but ferality, all teeth, all claws, all hunger, all untouchable with longing, an i-did-not-expect-you-but-you-are-here-and-i-am-learning-to-understand-that type ache” and “he is a deer caught in the headlights and still he tries to understand why he will not move in the face of it, why there is so much death he is willing to court for one girl” and “they are human, they are human, they are human, and they starve,” bc they do, they do—

in a nutshell this show is basically just *motions* a bunch of literary excerpts and feelings! i can quote so many from both in show (like i have already) and outside, like that one excerpt from Ilya Kaminsky's poem "After Bombardment, Sonya" that goes “you can f*ck anyone / but with whom can you sit in the water?” but without the actual, physical f*ckery, and Mary Shelley and Mary Oliver (and the latter's lesbian soul) coming out here and saying that they would invent the foundation of the second half of this show on the basis that every good plot needs some kind of genuine sorrow and despair bc “you must not permit sorrow to destroy you” and “you do not have to be good. / you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. / tell me about despair, yours, and i will tell you mine. / meanwhile the world goes on,” and Hanif Abdurraqib going off on the one-sided Kwang Il/Ji Ahn dynamic and saying “there is intimacy in the moment where the eyes of two enemies meet. there is a tenderness in knowing what desire ties you to a person, even if you spent your dreaming hours cutting them a casket from the tree in their mother's front yard. it is a blessing to know someone wants a funeral for you,” and—
*inhales* it was consistently “six feet under the f*cking floorboards” time for the entirety of this series but it's a 10/10, pry that good sh*t out of my cold dead hands

(something that another person in the Dramacool comments pointed out in the last episode and that eventually wrecked me as a result of being more good sh*t is that the meaning of the hanja for “Ji,” “之” (or alternately “至”), is to “arrive, to reach, to get.” the meaning of the hanja for “Ahn,” “安,” is to “comfort, to live comfortably, to be at peace.” Dong Hoon's last line, then, is this—“have you reached comfort, Ji Ahn?”)

but all of this—all of this—would not have been possible without the OST, and the OST will live rent-free with me for the rest of my life. what i initially thought was Sun Kyun's voice as a surprise (and possibly unreleased?) OST in the middle of episode 8—but what eventually turned out to be One Million Roses sung by Ko Woo Rim of Forestella (who was only 22 at the time [!!!] and is also getting married to figure skating legend Kim Yuna this year in October)—is a blessing to my eardrums either way while managing to sound almost exactly like Sun Kyun in terms of enunciation and i need more of it. Adults by Sondia puts me on the operating table, flatlines me and sends me to the autopsy department.
this sh*t has obtained “Pavlovs me into crying every f*cking time the OST comes on” status and the only other things i can think of that rank the same are Goblin, The Red Sleeve, a very specific section of The Devil Judge, Goodbye, My Princess, The Untamed and Sado. Love Me by Nafla is also the unofficial theme song for Dong Hoon and Yoon Hee and Hello, Stranger by KAI is the theme song for Dong Hoon and Ji Ahn, am not taking questions at this time

the length of this review is scaring me but TL;DR: get your ass over to Netflix, Viki, Dramacool, whatever tf people use to watch dramas these days, and if you're like me and are 4 years late to the phenomenon, watch this. watch it, and cry, and then suffer through a drama slump for the foreseeable future bc there is nothing—nothing—in this particular genre that can top this.

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