My Week in Dramas 3 January 2025

Happy New Year! Hope you enjoyed a break from your usual labours. I’m back from my travels and will be posting regularly again. Thanks for your patience and support. Here’s hoping 2025 brings better and brighter dramas.

There was plenty of hype about Lovely Runner earlier in the year but it escaped me entirely as my attention was directed elsewhere. At the time of completion it’s rated 9 on MDL. Now that I’ve seen it, I can completely understand the love for it. However, in all earnestness I don’t think the script warrants all the gushing. In all likelihood the bright shiny buttons gives the impression that it is better than it is.

There are a few things going for it which accounts for its popularity. The fact that it ends reasonably well and the leads get their happily-ever-after leaves the show on a high note. On closer scrutiny the romance is not as well-developed as it seems but the leads do a good job with what they’ve been dished out and there’s a very competent director at the helm in terms how the romantic scenes are staged and framed. There’s enough key jangling to satisfy the most hard core imbiber of romance. On top of all that there’s a deeply devoted male lead who is practically perfect in every way.

The script on the other hand is not as surefooted. Just when you think everything’s hunky dory, something tiresome happens to protract the push and pull. It’s usually the female lead believing that she’s the cause of everything while there’s a persistent murderer on the loose. Furthermore she comes across less of a character and more of a plot device to be the catalyst for a series of events. She doesn’t seem to learn much from her experiences and conveniently jumps to wrong conclusions.

Overall the show is too long. At least 6 episodes longer than it needed to be. I don’t fault the show for its relentless use of tropes but just for using them mainly to drag things out. It’s passable for about 8-10 episodes after that the FF button becomes a necessity.

While on planes and car rides, I managed to catch When the Phone Rings. It starts off with all the atmosphere and tension of a Hitchcock film and then gradually transforms into something rather unexpected. (Even the title evokes a Hitchcock title or two) The psychological thriller element never really goes away with the mystery of the orphans and the orphanage that they were raised in but surprisingly what emerges from all the back and forth between Baek Sa-eon (Yoo Yeon-seok) and his mysterious caller “406” is a fascinating twist in the contract marriage trope. At the time of writing, I have only seen 6 episodes.

I was shown a glimpse into the popularity of the mute wife trope about a year ago when a short C drama popped up on my feed. Before then I had never seen one. Or any of significance. This one featured a CEO who had a secret mute lover that he is prepared to abandon until she’s engaged to his nephew or half-brother. He’s not particularly nice to her but finds himself jealously wondering after if he’s been too hasty in dispatching her unceremoniously. Since then I’ve seen dozens of others even one who is a pawn in a shotgun marriage.

The mute wife trope comes off The Little Mermaid template but with a happier ending for the titular character. She can’t speak but she can sign language and with the aid of the smartphone, tap her responses. Sometimes the condition is real and there’s no cure. Sometimes she fakes it because of dysfunctional family dynamics. It’s often a platform to talk about disability and the marginalization of the disabled. The voicelessness is almost always a metaphor for the discrimination that they experience because they are not easy to interact with ordinarily.

When The Phone Rings uses the mute wife trope rather cleverly to speak to marriage issues that plague most industrialized countries. That Hong Hui-ju (Chae Soo-bin) is not really mute is established very early on. Ironically her dream job as a teenager was to be a broadcaster but has ended up being a sign language interpreter. She marries Baek Sa-eon, a popular spokesperson for the Press Secretary’s office once in journalism himself. He’s also spent time with the FBI in the US. Theirs is a marriage of political alliance although they have had a childhood connection.

Initially Sa-eon comes across as a indifferent husband with aspirations of high office. But does he? One of many questions that arises in the plot’s unfolding. Apart from his media presence, he is also known as the scion of a political family. He keeps the identity of his wife under wraps and at first his motives aren’t clear. Is he ashamed of her? That’s a key question. But if he is, why did he choose to be married to her in the first place? It’s all very intriguing. Added to the mix is Ji Sang-u, an enigmatic doctor investigating the disappearance of children from the orphanage.

One night he gets a threatening phone call about his wife. Gradually through these conversations with 406, we become privy to the mind of Baek Sa-eon and the marriage that is a sham.

Like all contract marriages of the fictional kind, Sa-eon and Hui-ju are destined for a rocky start. Not because it’s obligatory but because Sa-eon plays his cards close to his chest. He trusts very few and confides in fewer. Until the threatening phone calls start, he has no idea how his wife lives. Or how she is feeling. They are barely housemates much less bedmates. The neglect has negative consequences. Trust levels are decidedly low. Hui-ju is looking for a lucrative payday and wants out.

Hence, the muteness is also a metaphor for the non-existent communication in the marriage. The disability though not real in this instance is not the problem. The lack of intentionality is. Marriages cannot survive without sincerity and active communication — a piece of received wisdom from the ages for good reason. It is fortunate that Sa-eon is teachable and it isn’t all expediency with him..

I am curious about many things posed in this drama but most of all if Hui-ju and Sa-eon will be able to navigate the rough seas of politics and come out of the other side winners in the marriage stakes.