Hong Sisters 10th script, 2015, 16 eps at 1hr ea. Overall W&M is a pleasant watch but sneakily unsettling. Set in beautiful Jeju Island, whose dialect and differently gendered economics are used as the comic background, it looks like a commercially motivated script but it is an outlier in the romance genre; the ML is a central, complex character whose emotional needs and problems have a gravitational pull far exceeding those of the FL.

Jeju, the main setting, is an oasis from feverish Seoul, but its citizens are not caricatured; the dialect is the big joke. The 2romance (elder bro + haenyeo) is actually a classic romedy form, acting as a sort of a supplement to the unconventional main romance. The 2ML in the love triangle (mayor of the village) is funny and warm and provides just enough balance and fun to offset the disconnect between the ML and FL.

The FL, Lee Jung Joo (played by Kang So Ra) finds refuge and a real home in Jeju, with friends of her own and the ML's business to run by herself. Active and energetic, she still plays a passive role in the second half of the script, and most of her camera time thereafter is used to reflect the emotions (?) of the ML.

The ML's own name for his hobby-restaurant, Warm and Cozy, is a word in Jeju dialect like hygge, untranslatable; probably comfy, easy but literally it means "pleasantly warm". He takes a long time to warm up to the FL, and somehow the show feels tepid until he starts to find out about his family.

The ML Seo Geun Woo (played by Yoo Yeon Seok) is born on the wrong side of the blanket to a hotel conglomerate, or more exactly to a woman of legendary affairs and serial marriages (the Gatsby allusion is to her as Daisy, for pitys sake, not to him!). He is trapped emotionally by a predatory female villainess (grasshopper), Mok Ji Won, a heartless sexual tease of a gold-digger who uses him as a decorative companion in-between her targets.

He is encircled in the script by other people's feelings about him: he is an 'oasis prince' to the young FL, first seen in the show in a polo melee; an unserious outlander to the island community; a photogenic and easily objectified chef to influencers and foodies; or an indolent 'grasshopper' to his family, an unemployable chaebol.

He is bitter about his own attractiveness and desires. His communication with the FL, his coeval from highschool, is at first only made possible by his mistaken belief that she is about to die; his character is too cynical otherwise, but he automatically responds with compassion to her.

Any real conversation as it emerges afterwards is still spoilt by his insincerity, apparent shallowness and sudden flares of sexual teasing. He feels closed off to her. A wedding, the unraveling of his own family mystery and a forced separation finally open his heart.

At the point where normally I want to grab the FL by the shoulders in frustration at her willful misunderstanding of about everything and give her a good shake, one finds oneself hoping both the director and the FL will give this ML a solid whack on his pretty bottom.

Who is the director who let the HS have their way with him? Park Hong Kyun, the only one to direct 3 of the HS' shows, whether by accident or design or an emergent mutual trust. The soundtrack is wickedly sly. Torch songs (Moon River on a date?) and lush full orchestra accompaniment... I was left with the feeling that the writers wanted to skewer the romance genre without the audience noticing.

To be honest I keep thinking about this show and its characters and certain scenes, which probably means intuitively it is actually a better show than I have described. This has been the hardest to write about so far in my Hong Sisters rewatch project.

Spoiler alert to follow!!!. The temperature metaphor is expressed only by the ML . He characterizes their relationship as one of suppressed heat. When they finally confess mutual love, she wants to go on dates and he wants to go to bed. He wins, which is flabbergasting in this context.

first posted august 26th 2024 on Viki