Sparks from the Wheel

Playful Kiss: A Cultural Experiment

September 8, 2011 at 10:26 pm | Posted in TV shows | 6 Comments
Tags: kdrama, playful kiss, recap, tv

Don’t let the title of this post fool you. This is not one of my horrible dating stories.

My Netflix Instant thinks it knows me. As it often suggests horror movies, I’m thinking it can’t know me that well.  However, as I scrolled through suggestions last weekend, a whim took hold. I just turned 30– why not try something new instead of watching 30 Rock episodes I’ve seen three or four times? I spend more quality time with Netflix than my parents these days; maybe it does have some insight to what I want. My remote landed on a Korean television show called Playful Kiss   

“What the hell?” I thought.

A subtitled hour later, I came to one very important conclusion: I, of course, must recap this on my blog.

A disclaimer: Playful Kiss is an example of “kdrama” or “K Pop.”  This is an area of pop culture I know nothing about as it is mostly a phenomenon in South Korea and other Asian countries.  Truly, I am going into this basically blind with the exceptions of a perusal of Wikipedia and questions posed to a friend who knows slightly more than I do about this area.  I don’t pretend to understand what’s normal or good; I’m just commenting as an outsider. If you’re here because you googled Playful Kiss and you really love it, I’m not sure you’ll like me much as I’m a bit snarky about it. No disrespect is intended, and I would be horrified at the thought of being really culturally insensitive.  I’m actually kind of enjoying it, so I hope you can read along with a sense of humor.   If you have concerns, you can definitely  leave a comment or email me at sparksfromthewheel at gmail dot com. 

Here’s the description of Playful Kiss (grammar and spelling mistakes left intact):  ”Based on the popular manga, Oh Ha Ni is a clumsy student who falls for the perfectionist, Baek Seung Jo. However, Seung Jo is indifferent towards her and rejects her love. Will she be able to move Seung Jo’s heart?”

I know what you’re thinking, but I promise there are no visits to Forks and absolutely no vampires. This jerkface can’t claim supernatural ability to explain his fuckery. But I get ahead of myself.

All images below are from screen captures I made on my iPad while watching on Netflix Instant. Sometimes I get lazy and you can see the time markers and stuff. 

With that out of the way, I now present… Playful Kiss Episode 1, Part 1 (These are way too long to do a full episode in one post- over 60 minutes in an episode.)

With absolutely no warning, we find ourselves in a lovely green glade (I know! So much like a sparkling green meadow we could name!).

A mysterious young man is smelling flowers until he notices a girl sleeping next to a tree. (Side note: he is not that mysterious. In real life, he is evidently some sort of Korean combination of Zac Efron and Justin Bieber. He’s in a pop group.)  Naturally, he can’t resist getting closer and then kissing her in really awkward slo-mo.

Don’t worry– this does not go to the Bad Place. Instead, she wakes up in wonder and spots a white horse with fluffy hooves across the glade from her.  Some how, she figures out the horse did not kiss her, but it is still the same boy who just did dream-kiss her. She chases the horse, and flowers bloom wherever she walks like she’s Giselle in Enchanted.

So she catches the horse and it turns into a handsome prince, but I suspect she would be better off with the horse.

Now, just when I’m thinking that kdramas are really strange  and that maybe there are actually no words spoken out loud and maybe I should try to watch a British comedy instead, the fairy tale princess wakes up on the steps at her school and we realize that this is all the dream of Korean Zooey Deschanel.  (Read: impossibly cute but supposedly dorky girl brimming with magic and love for the world. Probably she can also sing and has amazing hair.)

Our spritely heroine darts to class where she daydreams Cher Horowitz-style, and then she totally gets busted by her teacher. You can absolutely tell her teacher is the type that shows movies in class instead of lecturing because she got wasted the night before. She starts off acting all sympathetic to the seniors at the school working so hard and getting ready for exams but then she whips around like the Exorcist and says this:

So, I’m guessing she’s here for comic relief. Also here for comic relief? That kid to her left wearing the clown wig and the Cosby vest.   Now that we know they’re all seniors and there’s lots of stress, we move to the cafeteria where me meet The Faitful Sidekicks.

First we have, the Aggressive Friend Who Is A Bit Chunky (which I hate saying but her weight is a constant plot point and is therefore unavoidable).  She also does weird things with her hair and says inappropriate things.

We also have a girl with a Mary Anne Spier haircut. She allegedly reads all the time, and she wear glasses, so she must be smart, right? Wrong! Their class is ranked lower than everyone else’s and they never study and she uses her phone to look up the meanings to simple words like, “shy.”

So, the Three Amigos are sitting around discussing how their class is the dumbest one when the local Mean Girl shows up. You know she’s mean because she has long hair accessorized with something absurd.

She’s trying to get a soda, but it’s stuck in the machine. In a routine clearly performed many times before, Korean Zooey D gets to her feet while the boys having a jam session at lunch strike up her theme song.(Oh, don’t hipsters jam out on pink keyboards during your lunch period? No? Sorry, can’t relate.)  Then she rolls over, listens to the soda machine’s heartbeat, knocks on the side, takes a step back, executes a perfect karate kick to the control panel, and then calmly walks back to her table like it ain’t no thang while the desired soda drops to the delivery slot.  Mean Girl condescends to thank her and the Sidekicks register their surprise that she would deign to address them.

Korean Zooey D, who I should probably start calling Ha Ni since that is her actual name, doesn’t want to discuss her soda machine super power. She wants to discuss her dream about the Zefron-Bieber guy that turned into a horse.  Turns out he is a student in their class named Seung Jo who just made another PERFECT SCORE on their exams  and she’s only liked him for 4-EVA.  She’s explaining why she understands vampires wanting to bite people for being so pretty (No, I swear, there are no Cullens. Put down your stakes.), but then the forest spirit himself appears with his cheering section.

Get used to this expression. As far as I can tell, this guy just walks around with his hands in his pockets looking slouchy and bored while girls follow him. He is allegedly popular, though you never once see other dudes hanging out with him.  This does not bode well.

Anyway, he also wants a soda and also has trouble getting one. Mean Girl, eager to please him in more ways that one, pops up and offers Ha Ni’s help. She also gives this whole speech about her mom knowing his mom which just seems sort of sorority snobby of her (“Oh, I know your mom. We summer together.”), but I suspect  this will be important later.  Ha Ni, horrified, gets up and does her whole routine with a look on her face like she’s been asked to marry Charlie Sheen to put an end to  all wars. His desired soda is produced.

When she’s done, does McDreamy thank her profusely and then ask her if she wants to get coffee later because she’s obviously adorable and talented in interesting ways and he wants to know how she ever learned to do that to a soda machine? No, he does not. I guess our story would be over if he did that, but he just grabs his change and walks off as if people are always bending over backward to make his life easy. This is probably true.

Aggressive Friend takes umbrage and starts yelling Ha Ni’s name, which is pretty embarrassing, in order to get him to come back. I’m not sure why yelling her name would get the dude to return, but it doesn’t work and they go to art class where Ha Ni has this doozy of a revelation.

Oh, that’s why a teenage boy didn’t fall all over himself asking you to prom three months early– he didn’t know you liked him!  Duh!  My heart hurts so hard for her here because I think of every time in high school a girl told another girl to just tell some sub-par dude how she felt about him and how it NEVER WENT WELL.  But she’s got her answer now and just needs a way to “confess.”   The Aggressive Friend has an excellent plan:

Sadly, Ha Ni looks intrigued by this until Aggressive Friend is like, “Bitch, no.” She turns to Mary Anne Spier, who suggests a mating dance because it’s what the animals do. Truthfully, it might get his attention if she sang along to Bloodhound Gang’s “The Bad Touch” and compared them to mammals, but I get the feeling Sourpuss would just roll his eyes and walk off. This just proves he’s not worthy of her imagination and sense of humor.   Ha Ni takes it another way and has a fantasy of dancing ballet with Seung Jo.

Her fantasy draws to an abrupt close when Mean Girl walks in and starts playing mind games and says this, apropos of nothing:

Both Ha Ni and I are like, “WTF?” And then Mean Girl indicates that her boobs are way bigger than Ha Ni’s and Lover Boy likes big boobs. I’m not sure how Mean Girl knows about Ha Ni’s crush and I’m not sure what she’s referencing with this comment. Hard to woo him away from Big Boobs McGee? Hard to watch Mean Girl and Sourpuss hold hands and laugh in the sunlight?  Also- has anyone actually been made fun of for having small boobs as a high school student? This seems to happen all the time on TV, but does it happen in real life?

Meanwhile, this guy and his posse show up:

You know he’s going to be fun because he’s friends with the comic relief clown kid and he fixes his hair Elvis-style before swaggering into class.  Poor guy- given that Ha Ni and Seung Jo are getting cuddly on the posters for this show, he’s clearly the Duckie in this situation.  He pulls Ha Ni aside and presents her with chicken.  Evidently, he heard the expression, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” and then misunderstood it. Foolish boy- girls don’t eat! They can’t eat or they won’t be thin and you won’t like them!  But good old Aggressive Friend jumps right in and tries to steal the chicken dish.

Before everyone forgets that she is the hottest and most likely to end up with Seung Jo, Mean Girl calls them to attention. She appears to be teaching art class, for reasons that make no sense to me. There’s this whole scene where she poses Duckie to look like he’s running so everyone else can draw him, and he sweats and looks pained but gets over it because Ha Ni is looking at him so it’s worth it. Poor Duckie. When it’s all over- who do you think she drew? The goofy but thoughtful guy who has a deep sense of personal style?

The doe eyes, the swoopy bangs… her heart is taken. She is a smitten kitten.

Elsewhere, in the Boring Adult Sub-Plot, Bad Teacher is laughing at her cell phone while the other teachers hunch over lesson plans.  The Vice Principal comes through, yells at her, praises the others, and says some stuff about Bad Teacher’s class being Bad Apples because they’re all so effing dumb.  Guess who hears this conversation because he’s the kind of brown noser who hangs out in the teacher’s lounge? You guessed it – Mr Popularity.

Ha Ni goes to her dad’s noodle restaurant after school, and they wonder through the drying noodles where she asks for dating advice for her “friend.” Daddy Dearest, who has a raging case of frat hair, tells her about how he wooed her mom with a speech about dying together when she yelled at him for driving too fast. There was more to it than that- something like, “Do you want to date me or do you want to die?” It was vaguely threatening, but I think something was lost in translation.

Ha Ni then drifts into a completely delightful daydream (seriously- it’s adorable) set to a tune that sounds suspiciously like “Beat It” in which she and her friends resemble a motorcycle gang chasing Seung Jo through the streets.

Side note: At first, I didn’t realize this was Ha Ni’s daydream. It was just Seung Jo looking scared and running through a foggy area. I was like, “Oooh! He has a mysterious side!” But then no- it was just Ha Ni being way more interesting again.

Punk!Ha Ni gives this whole speech about dating her or dying and she has this tough girl,confident vibe going for her. And then- IN HER OWN DAYDREAM- the little jerkface turns around and climbs into a coffin.

I think Ha Ni’s face after she comes back to reality sums it up best:

No matter- her Dad suggests nixing the speech about life or death and encourages her “friend” to just go with a sincere note expressing her adoration for the object of her affection.  Facepalm! Never put it in writing! Does Ha Ni listen to me, the unseen American audience who clearly doesn’t get what’s up?  No. She slips a note in his locker.

Then Ha Ni and her Faithful Sidekicks lounge about in the cafeteria waiting for a response. Ha Ni mopes, her friends look concerned, and then… he is spotted in the wild.

Does he stop and ask for a private word before politely telling her he’s not that into her? Does he give her a half nod of embarrassed acknowledgment and then run away like a regular teen boy? No. He completely ignores her and walks off.  Her friends rightly assume that he does not even know who she is and they start screaming her name.  She should really sit down her friends and tell them to quit doing that. But it works.

He stops on the stairs,and calls down, “Are you Oh Ha Ni?” She confirms she is and he walks down and hands her a note. She’s all glittery butterflies and ponies and blushing and asking if she should open it now  in front of everyone watching her. You can just see the wheels turning in her head- she’s already planning the names of their children and imagining herself in a Taylor Swift video.

Her face starts to fall as soon as she opens the note and you just want to crawl through the screen and  give her a hug and whap that boy upside the head.  Mean Girl, who has clearly been to the Blair Waldorf School of Being a Raging Bitch, yanks the note from her hands and holds it out for everyone to see.

That’s right– he didn’t write her back. He corrected her grammar and spelling errors and GRADED HER LOVE NOTE. Okay, obviously she ends up with this cheese head, but he must get seriously redeemed at some point.   This guy is not coming off very well, not that American TV isn’t full of similar dudes (see: Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl, Logan Echols on Veronica Mars, Spike from Buffy, Swayer from Lost, etc.)

Aw snap!

But don’t worry- Ha Ni has back up.

Man, give this kid a cape and a sweet car and he will be a super hero. Duckie demands that Sourpuss apologize, challenges him to a duel, takes a swing at him, and then rips out his still beating heart and shows it to him before throwing it to the floor and calling for Ha Ni to dance on it.

No, that’s not what happened. But it would been very satisfying.  Everything before the heart ripping does happen, though. But then the vice principal, who wears a visible tank top under his work shirt and is nothing like Mr Belding, busts it up with his own iteration of “Hey, hey, hey, hey, WHAT is going on here?”

Seung Jo steps up and points out he has nothing to be sorry for since he was merely pointing out that Ha Ni is dumb, which is  evidenced by the chart the school has that shows everyone’s rankings. Then he totally outs the VP telling everyone that Ha Ni’s class is a bunch of Bad Apples. Everyone gasps, but they know it’s true.

Okay, so it seems like “study hall” is some mythical and wonderful place where only the cool kids get to study for exams. Only the top 50 in each class get to go to “study hall” and Jerkface can’t fathom why anyone would waste time writing love notes when STUDY HALL is on the line and you’ve clearly got rocks in your head instead of brains anyway.  It begs the question- if you’re not in Study Hall, can you not still study? Why is it special? Do they feed you grapes and fan you while you work?  Again, I feel I am mssing something in translation because my American high school study hall experience mostly involved dodging the librarian to find empty classrooms where we could watch The Wonder Years. 

Having fully shamed Ha Ni, he strolls off with his hands in his pockets and everyone looks scandalized. Ha Ni looks at the class ranking and faces her complete undatability.

And so we come to the end of Part 1 of Episode 1. I’m left with a couple of thoughts.

1) How impressive that these kids are so concerned with people’s intellects! Good for them for not being totally about boobs! Only a little about boobs, but not all about them.

2) I should really make an effort to pay attention to people’s names.

3) This male lead leaves something to be desired. I’m looking forward to her drop-kicking his ass. Please let her do this at some point.

4) I hope Duckie gets his own love once Ha Ni ultimately wins over the Jerk.