What the Korean romantic-drama-dy has taught me about love. (Or, why crunchyroll ate up all my bandwidth.)

In 'My Sassy Girl' the doormats get the girls.

For some odd reason there was a time last year when I was addicted to Korean romantic comedies slash dramas (because their films can’t belong to just the one genre), I don’t even know why or how I got hooked on to them. And, no, it wasn’t because of the re-make of ‘The Lake House’ which had just been released, nor was it because of the buzz surrounding ‘My Sassy Girl’, which I picked up from reading blogs about J-Pop (don’t ask). Actually, I think I stumbled upon a link on YouTube of a trailer in English for ‘Ditto.’ You know how it is, you just keep clicking links on the Internet and suddenly it’s 2 in the morning and you find yourself watching reaction videos to 2 Girls 1 Cup, and then curiosity gets the best of you and so you actually watch 2 Girls 1 Cup, and it’s from that moment on that you realise you have a stomach of steel because you managed to sit through the whole thing without being affected.

But, I digress.

There are 2 kinds of foreign films, there are the fluffy popcorn affairs created purely for consumption by the masses; then there are the foreign films we watch on World Movies, the kind that have won various awards at film festivals and are touted as cinematic achievements. The Korean romantic-drama-dy lends itself to the former group, along with 95% of other Asian cinema and pop culture. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I tend to believe that 2 Girls, 1 Cup straddle these two.

There’s nothing realistic about romantic-comedies, let alone a Korean romantic-drama-dy, and I think this works in its favour. There’s an element of escapism when you watch these kinds of films. And, whilst the Western rom-com pretends to be realistic, (would Mark Darcy ever really fall in love with a chubby, chain-smoking ditz in the ‘real world’? I don’t think so,) the Korean romantic-drama-dy embraces the escapism, and isn’t apologetic for it’s often far out plots and characters, that, whilst hyperbolic in nature, reveal certain conditions about Korean society and the modern day mating rituals that operate within it.

1. I’m a Cyborg, but that’s OK.

My girlfriend licks batteries to 'recharge.' And you think you have problems.

There’s no such thing as the middle ground in the Korean romantic-drama-dy. The romantic leads are usually weird personality types taken from stock character archetypes, or the leads are thrust in to weird, extreme situations. In the case of the film that this sub-heading is taken from it’s both. The setting is a mental institution; the leads are a woman who thinks she’s a cyborg and a man who thinks he can steal people’s personality traits. Whilst the premise sounds farfetched, the actual film is a brilliant mix of surrealist visuals and plot, and at its core is a very human story.

Other films, too, use the clashing personality types and plots as a way for the leads to find each other. ‘My Boyfriend is Type B’ uses the premise that blood types can predict the personalities of people, and so the desirability of a prospective soulmate can be based on which blood type personality traits are complimentary, much like starsigns, only with blood. In this film, the hapless heroine is subject to the shenanigans of the jerk who happens to have a compatible blood type, and throughout the whole film you can’t decide whether you want her to leave him or stay with him. ‘Innocent Steps,’ on the other hand, uses mistaken identity, a mail-order-bride, and a ballroom dancing rivalry as the setting of a burgeoning romance.

What it taught me:

Romance isn’t simple, least of all if everything and everyone around you is telling you it shouldn’t happen. But that shouldn’t stop two people finding each other and overcoming adversity, no matter how trite, or insane, or grim it may appear to be. Love isn’t characterised by just the good stuff or just the bad stuff, but all of it, altogether. And if you can convince your soulmate that you’d love them even if they thought they were a cyborg, then that’s cool too. It’s not about who you are, where you came from, your blood type, or whether you can dance or not. It’s about how you got to that point and why you’re still there, with that person. And doesn’t that thought just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

2. The convoluted cliché and the ~ Realization ~.

She loves me, even with my awkward early era Jackie Chan bowl-cut.

Koreans love their clichés. It appeals to all the teeny fangirls who spend lots of money in order to watch these films so they can shamelessly self-insert themselves in the place of the female romantic lead, of course this isn’t just a Korean phenomenon, nor is it just an audience tendency, either (refer to: Meyer, Stephanie – ‘Twilight’). I will be the first to say that teeny fangirls scare the shit out of me [1], so I’d be producing films they wanted to watch as well. But, beyond that, the Korean romantic-drama-dy uses the standard cliché in a way that doesn’t make you want to puke. Keeping in mind what I’ve already touched upon when it came to charcterisations and premise, please observe the 3 main clichés which are used in the Korean romantic-drama-dy. There are usually overlaps.

• Cliché 1: The one where they’re best friends. It usually goes something like this: boy and girl are friends -> they like each other, they’re perfect each other, but they don’t know it yet -> start dating other people and get jealous -> fight because of jealousy -> the ~ Realisation ~ -> ANGST -> kiss and make up.

• Cliché 2: The one where they hate each other… but also, kind of, not. It can also be that they are in a relationship of convenience; often it is an arranged marriage, or she is a poor-girl-of-some-sort who must tutor a rich-dropkick-type. They bicker a lot and then they have the ~ Realisation ~ and they make amends.

• Cliché 3: The one where no one notices her… and in some cases him, but usually her. This particular cliché usually involves personal growth and maturation. The female lead is usually an ugly duckling who makes a ~ Realisation ~ and learns to love herself; and the male lead is usually an immature playboy who comes to the ~ Realisation ~ that there are problems and people outside of himself.

Rich boys like chickens, amrite?

In all these clichés there is a sense of genuine interaction. In ‘Almost Love,’ the best friends attempt to define their relationship beyond the platonic, and in the process hurt each other, deeply. In ‘200 Pound Beauty’ before the female lead is able to win the love of her dream man, she first has to make the ~ Realisation ~ that she was beautiful even without the plastic surgery. And, in ‘My Tutor Friend’ the leads must first bridge the gap between their worlds, rather than attempt to leap over it or ignore it, in order to come to an understanding.

Like with most romantic-comedies, in order to find their way to each other they must overcome complications, triumph over trials and tribulations and all that jazz, before they make the ~ Realisation ~, which seems to be a transformative event for the leads in these films. Around the time that the ~ Realisation ~ happens is around the time that the ‘drama’ in the Korean romantic-drama-dy kicks in. It begins comedically, then approximately around the halfway mark the whole tone of the film will completely change. It seems to happen so arbitrarily that you’re not quite sure whether the previous part and the part you’re watching are the same movie. Don’t ask me why they do it like that, they just do.

What it taught me:

Love has to develop. It does not emerge from a vaccuum. There is comfort in the cliché, of how people meet, but it never really explains the process. Here, however, the characters hurt each other unapologetically, physically and emotionally; the kind of beating you would get in the real world. They don’t just have the one fight, they have several, with the sole intention of damaging each other. And, subsequently, it’s interesting to watch them repair the mess they make. Regardless of whether or not they get together – and they usually do – the cliché isn’t in the outcome, it’s in the journey.

3. I like you, you like me. We should date. Wait, you said you live in what time? Oh, motherf#*@$r!

The Doc said he'd let me borrow the Delorean, so we should be good for Friday.

Because Korean moviegoers are masochists, one trendy trope that is used in the Korean romantic-drama-dy – for the sole purpose of, I’m convinced, emotional manipulation – is love across time. The most well-known of these movies in the West is ‘Il Mare,’ a.k.a. ‘The Lake House.’ In the Hollywood adaptation, the female and male lead eventually meet, and we can assume that Keanu and Sandra have a lake-house-rocking reunion and all around happy ending. In the original version, however, the female lead doesn’t remember anything that has happened, as a result of their space-time continuum manipulating ways. In another take on love and time, the female lead’s tragic love story, in ‘The Classic,’ is told through her daughter, who turns out to be crushing on the male lead’s son. The lost loves are eventually reunited in spirit through a necklace. But, one of my favourite time-bending, romantic-drama-dies is ‘Ditto,’ which has a Chinese and Japanese adaptation, about two college students who attend the same university and communicate over a HAM radio 21 years apart. It’s not a spectacular film, but it definitely made explicit what all these Korean time-themed films seem to represent: the idea of separation; which is, to me at least, a sobering reference to the relationships that were (and continue to be) victim to Korea’s own separation.

What it taught me:

There are no promises in love. Whilst you can attempt to rely on the promise of the ‘boy meets girl and lives happily ever after’ paradigm, one thing the Korean romantic-drama-dy acknowledges is that not everything can be solved. The romantic leads don’t always get together in the end, even if the laws of the rom-com demand it. Because, regardless, love is about the connection you make, and the experience, and the better person you are because of it. If true love can transcend time, then it can pretty much transcend all barriers. And that’s something worth believing in, right?

I seriously make myself puke sometimes.

[1] Like, seriously, wtf man.