Witch's Romance

Summary: Witch's Romance is a 16 episode 2014 k-drama produced for TvN. This romantic comedy explores the unlikely romance between Ban Ji Yeon (Uhm Jung Hwa), a jilted-at-the-altar 39 year old reporter with a difficult personality, and Yoon Dong Ha (Park Seo Jun), a 25 year old professional part-timer still grieving for his dead girlfriend. As they both try to mend broken hearts, they find the companionship they've been missing in one another and the courage to fall in love again.

3 1/2 Hearts for Lots of Laughs

 Recommendation: I loved this k-drama! It is so much fun that I often found myself giggling like a little kid as I watched each episode. The strength of this series rests entirely on the cast as the plot is fairly standard for this genre and doesn't offer up a lot of surprises. Park Seo Joon and Uhm Jung Hwa do most of the heavy lifting with great chemistry and an aura of playfulness that lights up the screen whenever they are together. Maybe I'm a little boy crazy because I'm a fan of all the bromances popping up in k-dramaland lately. Park Seo Joon and Yoon Hyun Min were completely adorkable as BFFs and roommates. I couldn't get enough of them. As expected, all the loose ends in this k-drama are tied up neatly by the last episode and the audience gets to walk away with a big smile.

I Summon You, Gold

Summary: I Summon You, Gold! is a 2013 k-drama produced for the television network MBC. It follows the interaction of the Jung and Park families as their different lifestyles and values come into conflict through both work and marriage. The main characters are Jung Mong Hee (Han Ji Hye) and Park Hyun Soo (Yeon Jeong Hun), who unexpectedly cross paths and realize that Jung Mong Hee looks exactly like Park Hyun Soo's estranged wife. Hoping to keep his impending divorce a secret, he strikes up a deal for her to impersonate his wife until she either returns or he can break the news to his family.

Recommendation:  This is a 50 episode k-drama that requires some serious commitment to watch from wing-to-wing. It starts off strong and I was drawn into the lives of these two families. But, like with most of the 50 episode series, I was bored 1/2 of the way through it. Then, the drama took a strange turn and I was left completely confused as to the direction of the show. One of the saving graces of this k-drama is the narrative around the arranged marriage between Jung Mong Hun (Baek Jin Hee) and Park Hyun Tae (Park Seo Joon). Despite an overall terrible ending, I think there's enough content along the way to make the experience worthwhile.

Other Thoughts (And Possible Spoilers):  I've never had a glass of soju but I imagine that three bottles of it would be enough to make me feel really good before I wake up the next morning with a killer headache. That's how I feel about I Summon You, Gold! It had a great start but left me somewhat disappointed with the outcome.

Typically, from the many k-dramas that I've watched, the leading lady and leading man meet and they eventually fall in love. I Summon You, Gold! did not stray from this convention and we, the audience, came to believe that Jung Mong  Hee and Park Hyun Soo were destined to fall in love. In fact, this was the overriding storyline for the first 30 or so episodes (I might be overestimating a little) and it seemed like that was settled. Park Hyun Soo just had to divorce his estranged wife, who hadn't been seen since the second or third episode of the show.

But it never happens...

There are reasons for it and I get what the writer was trying to accomplish. But that doesn't mean I agree with it or that I like it. Plus, I don't know that the producers wanted to promote the idea of divorcing one's wife to marry her twin sister. My views on divorce are probably somewhat liberal and even I think that premise is a bit strange.