Wonderful Nightmare Movie Review

Title: Wonderful Nightmare
AKA: Miss Wife
Genre: Drama, Family
Origin: South Korea
Release Date: August 13, 2015
Cast: Uhm Jung Hwa, Song Seung Heon, Seo Shin Ae, Jung Ji Hoon, Kim Sang Ho, Ra Mi Ran, Lee Joon Hyuk, Ko Su Hee

Yeon Woo (Uhm Jung Hwa) is a successful lawyer who is killed in an automobile accident. She wakes in heaven to find that her death was a clerical error and it was actually an old woman with the same name who was meant to die. To hide the mistake, she is asked to live as another woman – a housewife who was also killed by mistake – for just one month. Married to a very ordinary civil servant named Sung-hwan with a difficult teenage daughter and a precocious six-year-old, Yeon-woo finds herself changing in unexpected ways.

A nice, heartwarming, encouraging movie, perfect for a nice sunday evening. Personally I didn’t expect anything, but I hoped that I wouldn’t waste time on this movie. Turned out when I realized the movie was over, I wanted even more, I just couldn’t accept where it finished. I wanted to see more of what happens to the family. True, the beginning was slow, but that’s typical for all movies, because you need time to get to know the characters and the situation. However this movie before you know it you are just drawn to the story, and the family members. I loved them all, from the harsh ‘mum’ (well-played Uhm Jung Hwa), and the easy-going dad to the very typical but irresistible kids. It was a little typical plot-wise, since it’s not the first time the ‘back-to-earth-after-dying’-theme is presented in a movie. There was a moment where the movie gets so emotional, it made me shed some tears, but it handled it so realistically (except for the part where she is given a second chance in life), it was not exaggerated in any way. Totally recommendable movie!

☆☆☆☆½ / 4½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥½ / 4½ out of 5 hearts

Thank You Review

Title: Thank You

AKA: We Were There / There We Were

Genre: Social, Melodrama, Comedy, Romance

Episodes: 16

Broadcast period: 2007-Mar to 2007-May

Cast: Jang Hyuk, Gong Hyo Jin, Seo Shin Ae, Shin Sung Rok and Choi Kang Hee.

Min Ki Seo (Jang Hyuk) is an arrogant and cocky surgeon, who also is the son of a rich CEO. He lives every day with only the goal of being the best, until he one day, gets told that his girlfriend Ji Min (Choi Kang Hee) is sick. While visiting her, he finds out that she has last stage cancer, and that she has agreed to accept her fate, but this only furies Ki Seo who decides to take her back home to do the surgery to save her. Unfortunately even he is not able to save her, and this makes Ji Min decide to go to a small island called Blue Island. There she wants to meet a little girl called Lee Bom (Seo Shin Ae), whom she by accident gave HIV, by giving her infected blood. Guilt-ridden she wants to visit Bom and her mother Lee Young Shin (Gong Hyo Jin), and apologize, but dies while riding with Ki Seo.

Unable to get over Ji Mins death, Ki Seo decides to quit his job as a doctor and decides to help his mother in business. Here he meets Choi Suk Hyun (Shin Sung Rok), a hardworking manager of his mother’s company. In order to make Ki Seo become good, his mother decides to have Suk Hyun show Ki Seo the ropes, and one of the first jobs is getting all the land from the inhabitants of Blue Island.

This leads to Young Shin and Ki Seo meeting again, even having Ki Seo living with them, but things get more complicated as the father of Young Shins child happens to be Suk Hyun…

This is one of the few gems hidden beneath all the idol/pretty actors, with a good storyline and good actors, though it has one big problem: it is way too conservative. I’m not talking bed scenes or kisses, but conservative in the typical Korean drama. And what I mean by typical is the early 20s late 90s Korean drama with the loud boyfriend, jealous ex, overprotective male personas and most of all the long annoying stars with the hints of happy smiles (that take over 2 minutes of the screen time). I was hoping by the end it would change a bit, but it didn’t, so a little disappointed me.

On the other hand it has some things that I really like: Young Shin (I know she seems typical but I really found her more amazing than the rest of the female cast), the second female lead actually being nice and likeable and lastly the entire theme of the drama - social discrimination. Me likey! They really go beyond the casual discrimination, by actually talking about fear of the unknown, which by the way is so awesome.

Jang Hyuk and Shin Sung Rok are kind of the dull elements here, not because of bad acting but because I dislike ridiculous “jealous in love” characters. So yeah, whatever. All in all a good drama.

☆☆☆½ / 3½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥½ / 3½ out of 5 hearts

The Queen's Classroom Review

Title: The Queen’s Classroom

AKA: Class of the Queen

Genre: Drama, Social, School, Comedy

Episodes: 16

Broadcast period: 2013-Jun to 2013-Aug

Cast: Ko Hyun Jung, Kim Hyang Gi, Chun Bo Geun, Kim Sae Ron, Seo Shin Ae and Lee Young Yoo.

This drama is the remake of the popular Japanese drama with the same name.

Shim Ha Na (Kim Hyang Gi) is a bright girl with a bit of a goofy personality, always smiling. Looking forward by sharing class with her best friend and it being her last year of elementary, she greets her class with joy and optimism. But when the class meets their new homeroom teacher Ma Yeo Jin (Ko Hyun Jung), the class is thrown into despair, and the one with the shortest straw is Ha Na.

Ma Yeo Jin is a cold and never smiling woman, who with her tyrannical ways makes her student gang up on one another, and favors the smartest students. She makes the class take tests every week so that the two bottom students become class presidents, having them do the cleanup jobs every week. The students with the worst results and the ones that are slowest in most things are ridiculed and made fun of by her. Any form of resistance is made futile by bulling them without any resistance from the teacher’s staff.

Since day one Ha Na’s personality makes her not only an easy target, but also very individual, so she doesn’t get manipulated as the rest.

Now she is stuck in a fight she didn’t sign up for, and Yeo Jins relationship with the principle seems understanding… What is going on?

I was really excited when I started watching this drama, because I was completely sucked in the amazing acting of these children. Even though people really liked Kim Sae Ron (because of her new drama High School Love On) but I really was captivated by Kim Hyang Gi. Yes she was the lead actress; however I found every scene she was in believable and honest – as if she really ends up in this situation. The rest were good too, another reason why I don’t find they should use idols as actors, unless they know how to act (TO CLEAR UP: many idols are used because of their fame even if they can’t act - this doesn’t apply on all idols though).  The actress playing the ‘witch’ was quite good, though I felt they kind of didn’t make her story that important (dunno if that is bad or good).

About the story, well I can’t say I hated it because it was almost identical with the Japanese one, except maybe the ending and some of the last episodes.

So to sum up: a good remake with great future potential.

☆☆☆☆ / 4 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥½ / 3½ out of 5 hearts