My Week in Dramas 28 May 2023

True to Love, Nothing But You, The Love You Give Me

Do I really want to know what was in the kimbap or fried chicken in the writers’ room when ideas were being pitched for Episodes 13 and 14 of Bo Ra! Deborah / True to Love? I was fervently hoping that they wouldn’t screw up the resolution but alas they just couldn’t help themselves. Episode 13 in particular aroused something in me that few dramas are capable of doing. It made me want to punch the screen. What the show did to Su-hyeok’s arc in particular was sloppy and asinine. All in service of a push and pull that had to be until about 10 minutes before the end. It was a resolution in search of a conflict… and a villain. And even now I’m puzzling over who that might be.

Is it the insufferable Ju-hwan — the pompous egotistical ex who was caught red-handed cheating on Bo-ra? He seems to be the front runner. The classic bad guy and the quintessential obstacle to true love and happiness. The guy has no shame and the show is shameless in exploiting the very worst aspects of his personality. Or is it the gutless wonder that is the male lead who somehow loses his nerve when the destable Ju-hwan confesses on public radio that he wants another chance with Bo-ra. So what does Su-hyeok do. He caves. Accordingly Su-hyeok backs down from a fight because he says during a drunken stupor that he “doesn’t want to be the bad guy in somebody else’s romance”. It’s easy to believe that someone else wrote Episode 13 because the Su-hyeok in the last two episodes underwent a brain or personality transplant. He became a different man. But I have no idea who this man is and why he believed for a single second that Bo-ra would even get back together with the unrepentant cretin that cheated on her, an idea that would boggle the mind of anyone with a superficial understanding of what story logic looks like. While watching the entirety of Episode 13, I was wondering where that other Su-hyeok disappeared to — the gutsy hot method actor who was trying to seduce Bo-ra on more than one occasion. That guy had moves that would shake any collection of ovaries. That same guy who confessed right in front of acquaintances that he liked Bo-ra very much. Remember him? I do. I rewatched Episodes 11 and 12 more than once because of him. Lo and behold he went AWOL because the script demanded that he did. Even by the show’s own wonky standards of character development, that was a tactical blunder of the face-palming variety. In my exploding head I can just hear Jeremy Northam’s Mr Knightley saying to Gwyneth Paltrow’s Emma. “Badly done, Emma, badly done.”

Another candidate for villain here might be Bo-mi who sinks to new lows in terms of churlishness and stupidity. Gee “Sister, thy name is gaslighting” was out in full force. I’ve never liked Bo-mi who has never been much of a presence in this drama but all that defensive tantrum throwing after finding out that she’s got a bun in the oven only demonstrates why she shouldn’t have been doing the horizontal mambo with a lad whose only claim to dancing fame is with a broom in a cafe where he works as a part-time waiter.

It feels like almost everyone had a turn at being halfwits in Episode 13. All except Bo-ra who comes off smelling like roses after the rest of the cast devolve into lower life forms. All because the script demands it. This kind of last minute assault on characters not only disrespects the the characters but the audience too. I’ve never liked Ju-hwan and he certainly deserves to be unmasked as a well-dressed grifter. But to use him to protract the push and pull in such a clumsy way is cheap. It’s so passe. So 1990s. Ju-hwan is irrelevant. To bring back irrelevance in a last ditch effort is a sure sign of desperation. Worst of all the writer(s) resort to a hamfisted disingenuous rationale for why Su-hyeok goes backwards after making several strides forward in the preceding episodes. Even after she confesses to him to his face, he sits there like a tortured dill with nothing worthwhile to say. The truth is he’s not allowed to act with any consistency until he gets the first complete draft of her book. That’s his cue. The final nudge to move him into action because… it’s the final piece of evidence he needs to be convinced that she’s really in love with him. Her telling him directly not to misunderstand and that she really likes him is apparently not good enough for him fight for what he wants. Consequently the sparkling dialogue that was the first 12 episodes devolves into a jumbled mess of thoughts about pride swallowing and self-affirmation.

In a way I’m glad that I didn’t invest weeks on this show like I did with Little Women or Reborn Rich only to be left feeling vaguely defrauded by the production. To put a positive spin on this I can see how the show runners who are tethered to the ratings system are terrified of the leads coming together too early because the complaint has traditionally been “oh the show is not interesting once the leads come together.” This kind of thinking has incentivized bad endings more times than I can count with two hands and ten toes. A moderately good show can’t have a bad ending because a bad ending has a detrimental effect on the entire shape of the narrative.

Of all the genre blending efforts that I’ve seen in the past few months, I’d say Nothing But You does it better than most because of how the leads are written. They each have their own arcs and the script does a decent job of bringing them together. Although I don’t think the noona romance is necessary, the chemistry is palpable and Wu Lei is very endearing in the way he crushes over Zhu Yutong’s character, Liang You’an. The romance has legs to it because Wu Lei’s character Song Sanchuan is a level-headed, perceptive 22-year-old with an incredible work ethic. He’s someone the audience can happily root for. Wu Lei is undoubtedly one of the great young acting talents of the C drama industry. He’s good at picking scripts that stretch his acting chops. With his reputation he could be cruising but he doesn’t. I can only imagine the amount of preparatory training he did for this role as a badminton player who switches to tennis against all conventional wisdom.

Some of the best dramas I’ve seen are sports-themed. My impression after watching about 19 episodes is that this one wants to be taken seriously. As far as the sports side of things are concerned it doesn’t do anything new. The Racket Boys comparison is the first one to reach for. The group/character dynamics have obvious parallels. From the point of view of Liang You’an’s character, my mind goes to the Baeksang winner Hot Stove League. When it focuses on the world of sports, the ins and outs of grooming future sports champions Nothing But You is comparable with the two mentioned K dramas. 

However, like many C dramas, this one is bogged down by side romances that I resist caring about, revolved around people I don’t particularly like. You’an’s entitled half sister who bears more than a passing resemblance to Bo-mi from the other show is in another bewildering cringey youthful flirtation with one of the team’s tennis players, Jiaojiao. It’s not too hard to see where this is headed when the two first lock horns. No doubt this budding romance is directed at a certain demographic. Then there’s You’an’s boss. His marriage is on the rocks except he doesn’t know it. That’s because he’s an ambitious workaholic embroiled in office politics. He and his wife don’t talk much. When the family sits down to dinner, father and son argue about the relative uselessness of playing tennis professionally.

About half way through Wu Lei is the reason why I’m plodding along. I want to see Song Sanchuan win. Even if it’s unrealistic for a badminton player to switch codes so late in life I want to see him overcome impossible odds and show his mettle. Who doesn’t want to see an underdog triumph? Ordinarily I like Zhou Yutong but her character here is pretty vanilla. She’s one in a long line of female leads who are career-focused, smart, super competent and ill-used by their companies. She has a similar trajectory to Yang Mi’s character from She and Her Perfect Husband and they both end up with younger guys because the older ones are too patronising or have already been taken. Still I wouldn’t call her a Mary Sue. The writing is better than that. She’s certainly someone who has worked hard to get to where she is, under the tutelage of her direct supervisor who behaves like an ally or antagonist when it suits.

The Love You Give Me is unabashedly a trashy C drama rom com starring Wang Ziqi and Wang Yuwen as a second chance couple with a child that he knows nothing about at first. It is a trope fest beat for beat. More often than not it’s fun although occasionally inane in its treatment of the male lead. It suffers from the middle drag which is a lame attempt at protracting the push and pull between the leads. The cute kid is definitely a drawcard but towards the end he’s more of a recurring character than a supporting one. They trot him out to remind the audience that this is about the happily-ever-after of three people not just two. Happily too the side romances were not so unbearable that I had to fast forward through all their interactions. Noona romances seem to be all the rage these days. That couple in this have their moments but like these sorts of fictional pairings it’s a case of hope triumphing over reason especially when the couple has so very little in common. The third couple fare better because the ballerina transforms into a likeable character who tries a bit too hard initially but knows at least when to stop trying.

Wang Ziqi is good and demonstrates a certain level of versatility. He’s very funny. Even when the character is humiliated for laughs he doesn’t lose his dignity as an actor. Wang Yuwen doesn’t have much to work with and is fine with what she’s been given. The character she plays is another one of those competent career women who is more wronged than Cinderella and does it tough. Anyway, it’s a decent distraction when you haven’t got much else on and want something that doesn’t require a lot of brain activity.