Girl Power Done Well

Normally I am turned off by girl power scripts where the women are all winners and the men are all losers. Had I watched the finale first I might not have watched the series in the first place, as the girl power underpinnings (and gay rights) are finally laid bare in the last minutes of the series. Yet, having binged through the episodes, with frequent fast forwarding, I felt that these women had earned their results and weren't just given them capriciously. It was only after reading some reviews that I bothered to look up the director and writer and saw they were both female. There were a few hints along the way that it was a feminine hand on the tiller, but not those hands were not as heavy as I might find in an American production.

Sure, the male characters were killers, adulterers, and generally inept human beings. But I didn't feel that the women in charge of the production were bent on indicting ALL men, merely highlighting the foibles of THESE particular men. There really wasn't much to applaud in regards to the male characters. The Young Master was let off the hook a bit and given a participation trophy for rising above the barriers of tradition in order to date and marry a maid whom he barely knew and who certainly didn't seem as much fun as his arranged fiance. (Or maybe the writer was dissing him for his unwise decision. Hmm)

And I'm not sure I would have watched the series if Lee Bo-young wasn't so darn attractive. I guess that's why they cast pretty people. I enjoyed the over-the-top presentation of Grandma and can't remember another series where they purposely allowed a main character to have food on their face while eating or showing an open mouth full of food. My own mother was quite dramatic and given to outbursts at times, but the cultural behavioral expectations of Americans and Koreans are much different. How would a Korean view Grandma's (or her daughter's) bombastic episodes?

Fortunately the ending of this series broke the string of unsatisfactory ones that I've experienced recently. Though I wouldn't categorize the ending as great or romantic. I would have enjoyed an epilogue set several years in the future instead of just 6 months. Let's see how well the young couple is doing. Bring in some new romantic interests. Alas, not enough there for a second season, so I'll just have to make up my own story lines.

And as always, the product placements were blatant, which I find a bit humorous.

Read More