Nickolaidas
Member
I must admit I never had noticed Korean pop culture, but the recent years of disappointing offerings from the West have caused me to turn elsewhere for my entertainment and while I, like many others, had decided to see what the fuss was all about with the Squid Games years ago, I always considered it a one-time thing and never bothered with anything else Korean. Due to me getting Netflix after so long for free with my internet provider in Greece, I decided to check a few more Korean TV Shows and I started with All of Us are Dead, which I loved and thought it was great entertainment. One of the characters I ended up being very impressed with was Lee Na-Yeon, a Macbethian character played flawlessly by the young actress Lee Yoo-Mi. So I decided to check out more of her work and as luck would have it, a fresh from the oven show appeared on Netflix, Mr Plankton. So I began watching it. And I do not regret it one bit.
The show is a short ten episode series, a dramatic comedy (more focused on drama, especially in the latter half of the show) which is about the huge ramifications which can occur by the smallest of things, the tiniest of actions.
Our first main character is Hae Jo, a charming vagabond played by Woo Do-Hwan with effortless swagger and a tendency by the director to show off his body for the viewers who are thirsty for masculinity. Hae Jo has a complicated childhood, with a very happy first ten (more or less) years where he idolizes his father and spends many loving and caring moments with him and his mother. But a terrible discovery turns his life upside down.
You see, before Hae Jo was born, his father had health problems which could cause him to be infertile in the future, so he and his wife decided to have his sperm frozen in a fertility clinic in order to be able to safely have their child when they wanted to in the future. But the fertility clinic made a mistake and implanted Hae Jo's mother with the sperm of another donor, meaning that Hae Jo is not his father's biological son. When his father is informed ten years later of the mistake, his attitude towards Hae Jo changes and becomes cold and distant, while Hae Jo is not fully aware of why he's been pushed away by the man he loved and idolized since his birth. In the end, he decides to leave his father and run away, becoming little more than a stray dog in his teen years until he's taken in by Lee El (played by Bong Suk), a middle-aged woman who half-jokingly tells her friends that this boy will either become her son or her lover.
In the years that pass, Hae Jo becomes a lot more cynical and accepts the world for the unjust place that it is. However, his life changes for a second time when he meets a woman named Jo Jae Mi, played flawlessly by Lee Yoo-Mi. Jae Mi was orphaned since birth and has never felt the love of a mother and father and (like Hae Jo) can fully understand what it means to not have a parent figure as you grow up. As a result, she wants to become the mother she never had. She wants to have children and shower them with love, the love she was denied since birth. The two of them fall in love and have a passionate romance. But as time goes by and Jae Mi's intentions for a happy family become clear to Hae Jo, he decides to cut the romance short. People like them, he says, never experienced the wholesome love of a parent and as a result he believes that he and Jae Mi are incapable of giving something that they never had. They cannot give food to the hungry when they are literally starving themselves. Jae Mi is crushed and tells Hae Jo that he sentences himself to a life of pain and loneliness, while Hae Jo cynically retorts by claiming he's more than happy to die alone and loveless, and that she's 'not fun anymore'. The two lovers break up and take their separate ways.
Hae Jo has become a do-any-shady-job individual (except murder or looking for missing children) in order to live in the moment and make a buck as long as the job isn't boring. The fiancee of a mobster known as 'The Prince' hires him to kidnap her in their wedding ceremony while she has her thugs rob him blind, which basically acts as a plot point to have a looming menace over Hae Jo as the episodes go on. But as Hae Jo rides his motorbike alongside the 'kidnapped' bride, make their escape and vanish into the landscape, he has some sort of seizure, loses consciousness and crashes his bike. Later, he is informed at the hospital that his brain is starting to create numerous inoperable blood clots, making his brain a 'ticking time bomb', which gives him about three months left to live. Hae Jo chuckles with his life being a constant tornado of misfortune and decides to find his biological father before he dies in order to know to whom he owes this lottery, but the reality is that he hopes to see a sparkle of the life he was denied through him meeting his real father.
Jae Mi has also moved on and has found a suitable man to fulfill her dream of having a family in Eo Heung, played by Oh Jung-se. While Heung does not possess any of Hae Jo masculinity and charisma and has been raised under his stern mother's gaze which caused him to become a manchild, he is nonetheless full of compassion, refuses to give up even if he knows he cannot win a fight, has a strong desire to commit to a relationship, is willing to offer Jae Mi a family and wants to give her as many children as she can possibly have. He doesn't have anything that Hae Jo has, but he can give her everything that Hae Jo refused her. But just like Hae Jo, Jae Mi's world is turned upside down when she's told she has premature menopause, making it impossible to bear children. This strikes Jae Mi to the core, as she realizes that not only she cannot have her dream of becoming the mother she never had, she also cannot make Heung's dream of a family come true. And to make matters worse, in order to convince Heung's hag of a mother to accept Jae Mi as her bride, Heung had to lie and tell her that Jae Mi is already pregnant, which makes the situation incredibly complicated for the couple once Heung inevitably learns the truth.
By pure coincidence, Hae Jo and Jae Mi learn their respective news (the blood clots and the menopause) in the same hospital at the same time. Jae Mi has a mental breakdown in the lounge and screams that she doesn't want to have menopause from this age, and Hae Jo observes her rant without making his presence known to her. He decides to find her later on, a few minutes before she walks the isle and asks her to accompany him since he thinks her marriage is doomed to failure and misfortune and follow him instead on a short fun journey (which he refrains from telling her what it's really about). Jae Mi is unwilling to betray Heung, even though it is a lost cause in Hae Jo's point of view, which causes him to kidnap her. Heung is devastated when he finds out what happened, by a recorded voice message from Jae Mi reminds him of his promise to seek her out if she's taken away from him and sends Heung on a wild chase to save his betrothed. Those are the events which set up the basis of the show's story, and everything that happens thereafter is the aftershock of said events.
The three main characters of the show, Hae Jo, Jae Mi and Eo Heung left me very impressed with the performances of the actors and the writing of those characters. Hae Jo acts like a douchebag most of the time due to his selfish actions and harsh words, but the show does a decent job showing you where he comes from. He feels unjustly betrayed after experiencing love and compassion for a short while then have it completely snatched from his hands without him having done anything to deserve it. And while near the end of the series there is a revelation that it was him who started this chain of events due to him asking for a sibling - which caused his mother to return to the fertility clinic and caused the doctors to discover about their mistake, it's still not his fault since the intention was completely irrelevant and came out of love. His death sentence is also something which he had no control over and you sympathize over his life being assaulted by one misfortune after the other. The only thing he's responsible for is cutting off Jae Mi from his life, due to his inability and reluctance to commit to her and realize that she was his best chance for happiness but chose to ignore that fact. Woo Do-Hwan does a more than satisfying job in portraying a man who smiles and chuckles on the outside while inside there's only pain, disdain, bitterness, tears and apathy. As a result, the few occasions where characters like Jae Mi, Heung and his potential fathers crack through his armor are some of the most powerful to watch if you care for his character. His relationship with Jae Mi is also one which you can't help but notice how it evolves through her attitude towards him, since it begins with her being angry, resentful and bitter at first, but warms up to him as she learns - and remembers - more about the man who was instrumental in her current feelings and predicament. Two scenes of Hae Jo shook me to the core: him crying after leaving Jae Mi at the end of episode 9, and him reuniting with his father in the last episode, with both actors giving a phenomenal performance - a scene overflowing with regret, sorrow and love. Another incredible scene he shares with Lee Yoo-Mi is when he catches her in episode 2 as she runs away, and she tries to hit him, claiming that her life is awful due to Hae Jo's actions and cries as she tries to hit him between sobs. "You are the reason for everything wrong in my life", she cries as she curses him over and over, even though she is using it as an excuse to vent for the horrible misfortune of having premature menopause, and Hae Jo's expression throughout all this is just phenomenal.
While Hae Jo is treated as the male lead and most of the narration is seen through his perspective, it is Jae Mi who carries the biggest load in the show as she is tasked with living two separate stories, one being the one she had with Hae Jo and the other the one she has and is supposed to have with Heung. As time passes by, you can see the scale slowly tip from the new life to the old, as Jae Mi realizes that the feelings she had for Hae Jo are still strong and burn as hot as ever. But that's not to say that she feels nothing for Heung. When her life was in ruins, he was there to wipe her tears. And through his commitment to give her the family she longed for and caring for her in a way that Hae Jo seemed incapable of doing so, Jae Mi was exposed to a world she could never have with Hae Jo. "It's as if I walked out of a thick forest, and now I see where I am going. I feel a sense of calm and steadiness. It's wonderful." It's the world she wanted and she deeply appreciates Heung for offering it to her. The fact that Jae Mi wants to fight for her marriage despite it being doomed before it even starts (since she learns she cannot bear children for Heung) is a testament to how much this relationship means to her. And through Jae Mi's inability to decide where her loyalties lie, the viewer is also not really sure which man to root for. Lee Yoo-Mi doesn't waste a single frame in the screen to convince us of Jae Mi's thirst for love, family and acceptance, the three things she never found as she grew up in the orphanage. My favorite scenes with Jae Mi are the one where she's been given her wedding shoes by Heung, her crying over him as he lies unconscious and realizes she cannot give him the life he expects them to have, telling Lee El to slap her because she feels she deserves it over the horrible things she told Hae Jo in her anger and bitterness, and her meeting a surprise character in the end of episode 9.
But I made my choice with Eo Heung - who turned out to be my favorite character - and I ended up supporting his plight instead of Hae Jo's. While in the first episode I was quick to deduce he was going to be used as a meddlesome obstacle for the duo to jump over, the show did an excellent job in portraying him as much of a character as the other two were. While quite a few may say that the main cast is Hae Jo and Jae Mi, I consider Heung to be just as important to the story. Heung is everything that He Jo isn't. Where Hae Jo is manly, full of swag and charisma, Heung is clumsy, weak, shy to the point of not being able to hold Jae Mi in his arms and his reactions in a situation where he needs to be a man are cringe to watch in the beginning. However, where Hae Jo is quick to bail on Jae Mi and run, Heung is determined to stay and fight for her, even if he can never win. Where Hae Jo thinks that he has no love to give to Jae Mi, Heung wants to bathe her in his. Where Hae doesn't want to commit to a family, Heung wants to beat the Guinness book world record of the number of children in a family. And while he has been raised to fear the wrath of his domineering mother (played by Kim Hae-sook), his love for Jae Mi causes him to become more independent (turning him from a whimpering dog to a snarling tiger) and less afraid of the elder ruler of his household. But this also comes at a cost as he slowly realizes that the feelings that Jae Mi is harboring for Hae Jo may be a lot stronger than he thought. The scene at the beach where he thinks that Jae Mi is about to break up with him and refuses to listen to her to the point of shouting as he covers his ears and tears run down his cheeks is just heartbreaking. Oh Jung-se's portrayal of a man of weak body but strong heart is entirely convincing and you cannot help but sympathize with the underdog that he is. Unlike Hae Jo and Jae Mi, Heung's actions have the purest of motivations, and it is a shame to see that his intentions are simply not enough. Even if he goes through his personal rebellion for Jae Mi's sake, it's just not enough. He is the man that Jae Mi wants to want, but her feelings for Hae Jo are simply too strong to ignore after a point.
The way the relationships between those three main characters evolve more and more, the lines between friends and lovers, rivals and bros become blurry as the story progresses. I loved how Hae Jo initially thinks nothing of Heung, but as the show progresses, he ends up respecting him and even teaches him the philosophy of the wandering spirit, which Heung embraces in the end. Heung also teaches Hae Jo to be more honest with his feelings and helps him realize that true love means committing and sticking around to those you care about, consequences be damned. Near the end, Hae Jo is shown to be actually jealous of Heung and considers him a true rival to Jae Mi's heart, which is the biggest compliment he can give to the clumsy groom with a heart of gold. Jae Mi realizes she cannot have her dream of having a family, but she can spend as much time as she can with Hae Jo, the love of her life, treasuring every single moment and refusing to waste a second of it once she learns of his condition. I also found it touching that Jae Mi honestly believes that Heung and his family are too good for her and closes the book between them with sincere love and regret. Lee Yoo-Mi plays Jae Mi phenomenally well, and has some of the most expressive eyes I've seen in a Korean actress. The subtle change in the way she looks at Heung when he tells her he searched the whole country to find her the best possible pair of shoes in order to not stumble in the wedding as she becomes teary-eyed and looks at him in complete silence is the case of a picture being worth a thousand words. If you appreciated her acting in All of Us are Dead, you'll love her here.
In less pivotal (but still entertaining) roles are John Na, an enforcer of Heung's mother's will who is tasked of retrieving her son and bringing him back to the household, played by Alex Landi, whose scenes are entertaining and impactful enough for me to almost consider him naming him the 4th main character, though I decided against it due to his screentime becoming shorter as the show went on. Kim Min-Seok plays Yoo Ki Ho, Hae Jo's comical sidekick in their shady-business, although he's forced to work against him when he's threatened by the Prince, the mobster who is constantly after Hae Jo to kill him for embarrassing him in his wedding. Lee El is the woman who took Hae Jo in when he left his home in his late teens, played by Bong Suk and nails the part of a woman who is Hae Jo's mother/girlfriend/mentor/teacher/landlady, which is no small feet to do - I consider her a true chameleon of an actor, shifting her vibes and aura numerous times in her scenes with Hae Jo making you question what exactly she and him share. There is also a surprise appearance by Lee Sang-hee, creating an Easter egg of sorts for those who watched All of Us are Dead and seeing her and Lee Yoo-mi share another powerful scene together was very nice to see.
Throughout the show there are a lot of concepts - some subtle, others less so - which we experience. The planktons seem to be an allegory for sperm, tiniest of organisms which are what helps create and perpetuate life, despite being so small to the point of almost becoming inconsequential. Heung asks for Jae Mi to 'never let go of his hand' which acts as a symbolism for commitment, and near the end you see her doing that with Hae Jo, making sure she's next to him or after him, refusing to let go even if he attempts to disappear - which means to show that it is him Jae Mi has decided to commit to. Jae Mi tenderly stroking Heung's head at the beach while his head looks down resembles the same way an owner pets their dog (a running concept for Heung's whimpering and docile nature), implying that the affection that Jae Mi felt towards Heung was one of sincere kindness, compassion and care, but not true love. Hae Jo wants to find some meaning in his death, but decides that the last thing he wants to see in his life is the person he loved the most. Heung's mother's shadow appears strong and tall as a mountain, a seemingly impervious obstacle which he always hides from and hesitates to pass through.
The music is also very good, with a relatively short number of clips which if you have an ear for OSTs you will definitely find yourself catching every now and then. My favorites ended up being Snow, My Wish Is, Stay (Away) and Without a Single Word. And of course, California Dreamin' was a solid choice for end credits.
If I have a complaint from the show, it's the convenient way some characters appear in locations in a way that makes little sense. Sometimes it literally feels like the writer was playing Skyrim and was using the console command to spawn NPCs or vehicles in front of him - like the Prince appearing at the island, or Heung appearing next to Hae Jo's car in the end of episode 9. While it doesn't deter one from enjoying those characters, it makes you question the validity of the script in terms of pacing and editing. But that's a minor nitpick for an otherwise splendid dramatic comedy.
All the characters in this show have their lives turned upside down, some for the better, others for the worst, their goals and desires shifting as they recalibrate with the events that transpired as they realize at some point it is meaningless to seek meaning; you just need to deal with the cards that life threw at you and make the best of it. And you, the viewer, witness the journeys of so many people mingle, change course and forever alter their lives.
And all that because of one minuscule misplaced drop of sperm.
The show is a short ten episode series, a dramatic comedy (more focused on drama, especially in the latter half of the show) which is about the huge ramifications which can occur by the smallest of things, the tiniest of actions.
Our first main character is Hae Jo, a charming vagabond played by Woo Do-Hwan with effortless swagger and a tendency by the director to show off his body for the viewers who are thirsty for masculinity. Hae Jo has a complicated childhood, with a very happy first ten (more or less) years where he idolizes his father and spends many loving and caring moments with him and his mother. But a terrible discovery turns his life upside down.
You see, before Hae Jo was born, his father had health problems which could cause him to be infertile in the future, so he and his wife decided to have his sperm frozen in a fertility clinic in order to be able to safely have their child when they wanted to in the future. But the fertility clinic made a mistake and implanted Hae Jo's mother with the sperm of another donor, meaning that Hae Jo is not his father's biological son. When his father is informed ten years later of the mistake, his attitude towards Hae Jo changes and becomes cold and distant, while Hae Jo is not fully aware of why he's been pushed away by the man he loved and idolized since his birth. In the end, he decides to leave his father and run away, becoming little more than a stray dog in his teen years until he's taken in by Lee El (played by Bong Suk), a middle-aged woman who half-jokingly tells her friends that this boy will either become her son or her lover.
In the years that pass, Hae Jo becomes a lot more cynical and accepts the world for the unjust place that it is. However, his life changes for a second time when he meets a woman named Jo Jae Mi, played flawlessly by Lee Yoo-Mi. Jae Mi was orphaned since birth and has never felt the love of a mother and father and (like Hae Jo) can fully understand what it means to not have a parent figure as you grow up. As a result, she wants to become the mother she never had. She wants to have children and shower them with love, the love she was denied since birth. The two of them fall in love and have a passionate romance. But as time goes by and Jae Mi's intentions for a happy family become clear to Hae Jo, he decides to cut the romance short. People like them, he says, never experienced the wholesome love of a parent and as a result he believes that he and Jae Mi are incapable of giving something that they never had. They cannot give food to the hungry when they are literally starving themselves. Jae Mi is crushed and tells Hae Jo that he sentences himself to a life of pain and loneliness, while Hae Jo cynically retorts by claiming he's more than happy to die alone and loveless, and that she's 'not fun anymore'. The two lovers break up and take their separate ways.
Hae Jo has become a do-any-shady-job individual (except murder or looking for missing children) in order to live in the moment and make a buck as long as the job isn't boring. The fiancee of a mobster known as 'The Prince' hires him to kidnap her in their wedding ceremony while she has her thugs rob him blind, which basically acts as a plot point to have a looming menace over Hae Jo as the episodes go on. But as Hae Jo rides his motorbike alongside the 'kidnapped' bride, make their escape and vanish into the landscape, he has some sort of seizure, loses consciousness and crashes his bike. Later, he is informed at the hospital that his brain is starting to create numerous inoperable blood clots, making his brain a 'ticking time bomb', which gives him about three months left to live. Hae Jo chuckles with his life being a constant tornado of misfortune and decides to find his biological father before he dies in order to know to whom he owes this lottery, but the reality is that he hopes to see a sparkle of the life he was denied through him meeting his real father.
Jae Mi has also moved on and has found a suitable man to fulfill her dream of having a family in Eo Heung, played by Oh Jung-se. While Heung does not possess any of Hae Jo masculinity and charisma and has been raised under his stern mother's gaze which caused him to become a manchild, he is nonetheless full of compassion, refuses to give up even if he knows he cannot win a fight, has a strong desire to commit to a relationship, is willing to offer Jae Mi a family and wants to give her as many children as she can possibly have. He doesn't have anything that Hae Jo has, but he can give her everything that Hae Jo refused her. But just like Hae Jo, Jae Mi's world is turned upside down when she's told she has premature menopause, making it impossible to bear children. This strikes Jae Mi to the core, as she realizes that not only she cannot have her dream of becoming the mother she never had, she also cannot make Heung's dream of a family come true. And to make matters worse, in order to convince Heung's hag of a mother to accept Jae Mi as her bride, Heung had to lie and tell her that Jae Mi is already pregnant, which makes the situation incredibly complicated for the couple once Heung inevitably learns the truth.
By pure coincidence, Hae Jo and Jae Mi learn their respective news (the blood clots and the menopause) in the same hospital at the same time. Jae Mi has a mental breakdown in the lounge and screams that she doesn't want to have menopause from this age, and Hae Jo observes her rant without making his presence known to her. He decides to find her later on, a few minutes before she walks the isle and asks her to accompany him since he thinks her marriage is doomed to failure and misfortune and follow him instead on a short fun journey (which he refrains from telling her what it's really about). Jae Mi is unwilling to betray Heung, even though it is a lost cause in Hae Jo's point of view, which causes him to kidnap her. Heung is devastated when he finds out what happened, by a recorded voice message from Jae Mi reminds him of his promise to seek her out if she's taken away from him and sends Heung on a wild chase to save his betrothed. Those are the events which set up the basis of the show's story, and everything that happens thereafter is the aftershock of said events.
The three main characters of the show, Hae Jo, Jae Mi and Eo Heung left me very impressed with the performances of the actors and the writing of those characters. Hae Jo acts like a douchebag most of the time due to his selfish actions and harsh words, but the show does a decent job showing you where he comes from. He feels unjustly betrayed after experiencing love and compassion for a short while then have it completely snatched from his hands without him having done anything to deserve it. And while near the end of the series there is a revelation that it was him who started this chain of events due to him asking for a sibling - which caused his mother to return to the fertility clinic and caused the doctors to discover about their mistake, it's still not his fault since the intention was completely irrelevant and came out of love. His death sentence is also something which he had no control over and you sympathize over his life being assaulted by one misfortune after the other. The only thing he's responsible for is cutting off Jae Mi from his life, due to his inability and reluctance to commit to her and realize that she was his best chance for happiness but chose to ignore that fact. Woo Do-Hwan does a more than satisfying job in portraying a man who smiles and chuckles on the outside while inside there's only pain, disdain, bitterness, tears and apathy. As a result, the few occasions where characters like Jae Mi, Heung and his potential fathers crack through his armor are some of the most powerful to watch if you care for his character. His relationship with Jae Mi is also one which you can't help but notice how it evolves through her attitude towards him, since it begins with her being angry, resentful and bitter at first, but warms up to him as she learns - and remembers - more about the man who was instrumental in her current feelings and predicament. Two scenes of Hae Jo shook me to the core: him crying after leaving Jae Mi at the end of episode 9, and him reuniting with his father in the last episode, with both actors giving a phenomenal performance - a scene overflowing with regret, sorrow and love. Another incredible scene he shares with Lee Yoo-Mi is when he catches her in episode 2 as she runs away, and she tries to hit him, claiming that her life is awful due to Hae Jo's actions and cries as she tries to hit him between sobs. "You are the reason for everything wrong in my life", she cries as she curses him over and over, even though she is using it as an excuse to vent for the horrible misfortune of having premature menopause, and Hae Jo's expression throughout all this is just phenomenal.
While Hae Jo is treated as the male lead and most of the narration is seen through his perspective, it is Jae Mi who carries the biggest load in the show as she is tasked with living two separate stories, one being the one she had with Hae Jo and the other the one she has and is supposed to have with Heung. As time passes by, you can see the scale slowly tip from the new life to the old, as Jae Mi realizes that the feelings she had for Hae Jo are still strong and burn as hot as ever. But that's not to say that she feels nothing for Heung. When her life was in ruins, he was there to wipe her tears. And through his commitment to give her the family she longed for and caring for her in a way that Hae Jo seemed incapable of doing so, Jae Mi was exposed to a world she could never have with Hae Jo. "It's as if I walked out of a thick forest, and now I see where I am going. I feel a sense of calm and steadiness. It's wonderful." It's the world she wanted and she deeply appreciates Heung for offering it to her. The fact that Jae Mi wants to fight for her marriage despite it being doomed before it even starts (since she learns she cannot bear children for Heung) is a testament to how much this relationship means to her. And through Jae Mi's inability to decide where her loyalties lie, the viewer is also not really sure which man to root for. Lee Yoo-Mi doesn't waste a single frame in the screen to convince us of Jae Mi's thirst for love, family and acceptance, the three things she never found as she grew up in the orphanage. My favorite scenes with Jae Mi are the one where she's been given her wedding shoes by Heung, her crying over him as he lies unconscious and realizes she cannot give him the life he expects them to have, telling Lee El to slap her because she feels she deserves it over the horrible things she told Hae Jo in her anger and bitterness, and her meeting a surprise character in the end of episode 9.
But I made my choice with Eo Heung - who turned out to be my favorite character - and I ended up supporting his plight instead of Hae Jo's. While in the first episode I was quick to deduce he was going to be used as a meddlesome obstacle for the duo to jump over, the show did an excellent job in portraying him as much of a character as the other two were. While quite a few may say that the main cast is Hae Jo and Jae Mi, I consider Heung to be just as important to the story. Heung is everything that He Jo isn't. Where Hae Jo is manly, full of swag and charisma, Heung is clumsy, weak, shy to the point of not being able to hold Jae Mi in his arms and his reactions in a situation where he needs to be a man are cringe to watch in the beginning. However, where Hae Jo is quick to bail on Jae Mi and run, Heung is determined to stay and fight for her, even if he can never win. Where Hae Jo thinks that he has no love to give to Jae Mi, Heung wants to bathe her in his. Where Hae doesn't want to commit to a family, Heung wants to beat the Guinness book world record of the number of children in a family. And while he has been raised to fear the wrath of his domineering mother (played by Kim Hae-sook), his love for Jae Mi causes him to become more independent (turning him from a whimpering dog to a snarling tiger) and less afraid of the elder ruler of his household. But this also comes at a cost as he slowly realizes that the feelings that Jae Mi is harboring for Hae Jo may be a lot stronger than he thought. The scene at the beach where he thinks that Jae Mi is about to break up with him and refuses to listen to her to the point of shouting as he covers his ears and tears run down his cheeks is just heartbreaking. Oh Jung-se's portrayal of a man of weak body but strong heart is entirely convincing and you cannot help but sympathize with the underdog that he is. Unlike Hae Jo and Jae Mi, Heung's actions have the purest of motivations, and it is a shame to see that his intentions are simply not enough. Even if he goes through his personal rebellion for Jae Mi's sake, it's just not enough. He is the man that Jae Mi wants to want, but her feelings for Hae Jo are simply too strong to ignore after a point.
The way the relationships between those three main characters evolve more and more, the lines between friends and lovers, rivals and bros become blurry as the story progresses. I loved how Hae Jo initially thinks nothing of Heung, but as the show progresses, he ends up respecting him and even teaches him the philosophy of the wandering spirit, which Heung embraces in the end. Heung also teaches Hae Jo to be more honest with his feelings and helps him realize that true love means committing and sticking around to those you care about, consequences be damned. Near the end, Hae Jo is shown to be actually jealous of Heung and considers him a true rival to Jae Mi's heart, which is the biggest compliment he can give to the clumsy groom with a heart of gold. Jae Mi realizes she cannot have her dream of having a family, but she can spend as much time as she can with Hae Jo, the love of her life, treasuring every single moment and refusing to waste a second of it once she learns of his condition. I also found it touching that Jae Mi honestly believes that Heung and his family are too good for her and closes the book between them with sincere love and regret. Lee Yoo-Mi plays Jae Mi phenomenally well, and has some of the most expressive eyes I've seen in a Korean actress. The subtle change in the way she looks at Heung when he tells her he searched the whole country to find her the best possible pair of shoes in order to not stumble in the wedding as she becomes teary-eyed and looks at him in complete silence is the case of a picture being worth a thousand words. If you appreciated her acting in All of Us are Dead, you'll love her here.
In less pivotal (but still entertaining) roles are John Na, an enforcer of Heung's mother's will who is tasked of retrieving her son and bringing him back to the household, played by Alex Landi, whose scenes are entertaining and impactful enough for me to almost consider him naming him the 4th main character, though I decided against it due to his screentime becoming shorter as the show went on. Kim Min-Seok plays Yoo Ki Ho, Hae Jo's comical sidekick in their shady-business, although he's forced to work against him when he's threatened by the Prince, the mobster who is constantly after Hae Jo to kill him for embarrassing him in his wedding. Lee El is the woman who took Hae Jo in when he left his home in his late teens, played by Bong Suk and nails the part of a woman who is Hae Jo's mother/girlfriend/mentor/teacher/landlady, which is no small feet to do - I consider her a true chameleon of an actor, shifting her vibes and aura numerous times in her scenes with Hae Jo making you question what exactly she and him share. There is also a surprise appearance by Lee Sang-hee, creating an Easter egg of sorts for those who watched All of Us are Dead and seeing her and Lee Yoo-mi share another powerful scene together was very nice to see.
Throughout the show there are a lot of concepts - some subtle, others less so - which we experience. The planktons seem to be an allegory for sperm, tiniest of organisms which are what helps create and perpetuate life, despite being so small to the point of almost becoming inconsequential. Heung asks for Jae Mi to 'never let go of his hand' which acts as a symbolism for commitment, and near the end you see her doing that with Hae Jo, making sure she's next to him or after him, refusing to let go even if he attempts to disappear - which means to show that it is him Jae Mi has decided to commit to. Jae Mi tenderly stroking Heung's head at the beach while his head looks down resembles the same way an owner pets their dog (a running concept for Heung's whimpering and docile nature), implying that the affection that Jae Mi felt towards Heung was one of sincere kindness, compassion and care, but not true love. Hae Jo wants to find some meaning in his death, but decides that the last thing he wants to see in his life is the person he loved the most. Heung's mother's shadow appears strong and tall as a mountain, a seemingly impervious obstacle which he always hides from and hesitates to pass through.
The music is also very good, with a relatively short number of clips which if you have an ear for OSTs you will definitely find yourself catching every now and then. My favorites ended up being Snow, My Wish Is, Stay (Away) and Without a Single Word. And of course, California Dreamin' was a solid choice for end credits.
If I have a complaint from the show, it's the convenient way some characters appear in locations in a way that makes little sense. Sometimes it literally feels like the writer was playing Skyrim and was using the console command to spawn NPCs or vehicles in front of him - like the Prince appearing at the island, or Heung appearing next to Hae Jo's car in the end of episode 9. While it doesn't deter one from enjoying those characters, it makes you question the validity of the script in terms of pacing and editing. But that's a minor nitpick for an otherwise splendid dramatic comedy.
All the characters in this show have their lives turned upside down, some for the better, others for the worst, their goals and desires shifting as they recalibrate with the events that transpired as they realize at some point it is meaningless to seek meaning; you just need to deal with the cards that life threw at you and make the best of it. And you, the viewer, witness the journeys of so many people mingle, change course and forever alter their lives.
And all that because of one minuscule misplaced drop of sperm.
