Monday, February 2, 2015

Birth of a Beauty: How One Couple Made a Drama Worth Watching- or why they should let couples be cute for longer

Having just recently finished up the ridiculous Romantic Comedy Revenge Melodrama that was Birth of a Beauty, I feel inclined to discuss why I even watched it in the first place and what made me keep watching it.  It was like the best and the worst at the same.  Insanely cute romantic comedy, ridiculous and scream worthy makjang.  I guess the balance was enough to make me keep coming back?

This is the reason I started it:


And this is why I kept watching:


But there is so much more to it.


What made this drama so likeable is because they didn't withhold the cuteness and togetherness until like episode 10-12 (when most couples get together only to be ripped apart half an episode later).  They keep them apart for as long as possible, and then tear them apart as soon as possible, etc.  But that is not the way this drama played out and it was completely refreshing, even if the rest of the drama and all the other characters were completely awful.
 
You mean a cray cray murderer match, you crazy bitca.

It's a revenge drama, with two completely cute people working together to get a completely well deserved revenge.  They are both such cute dorks that you just have to love them, and their chemistry is off the charts.  Woohoo!


The revenge is well deserved because the actual plot of this drama is a huge conspiracy makjang fest.  All of the bad guys are completely one dimensional murderers.  Yes, they are all murderers.




Or they are blackmailers...


 Who am I kidding?  She's just as bad.


And everyone else is just plain stupid.  And I mean stupid.  There are various levels of stupid.  Like clueless oppa stupid, manipulated by his evil sister.

Shut up, Oppa.  You have no idea what really going on.  P.S. Your little sister is cray cray.

Or stupid grandma stupid.  She is seriously the person I hated the most in the whole show.  Even more than the murderers.

MarlubsGD: Oh no, halmoni. Go take a hike.

Or the evil murderer husband's stupid family, who are just nasty people.


So what I'm saying is that this show is bad.  It's so dramatic and over-the-top makjang bad, but it still got us watching it every week and loving it, because the couple was so cute.  They started out cute, were cute before they got together, stayed together for longer than normal before the inevitable break up, and the over cute-ed the entire universe.

From their revenge plots:



To their ridiculously cute team work while executing their revenge plots:




To their superb action skills while getting revenge and protecting the people they love:






Their relationship developed so quickly as friends and partners, being so comfortable with skinship from the start, that when they started to like each other it was hilarious.  Especially since they were pretty much on equal terms, no matter what their partnership contract said.



Especially when getting revenge on the other person.





And how they support each other, through compliments or literal support, they are so adorable.








They really made up for all the dramatic crap and hooked us through giving us one of the cutest couples of all time.








And even when the bad guys tried to break them up, they resisted for so long (even though they still ended up pulling the noble idiocy crap and breaking up and lying to protect the other person- boo!!!).  Han Tae Hee is like the perfect boyfriend/fiance/husband/man.  Immediately apologizing after they fight or have misunderstandings.  Cute!


Ugh!  Relationship envy!  I want that!  Ahhhhhh!  Plus it doesn't hurt that these people are also super attractive.  Joo Sang Wook = rawr!  and Han Ye Seul is gorgeous.  And they play their quirky, sweet, and powerful characters so well.  They saved this show and made me watch it (pretty much against my will).






So even though there was too much of these horrible peeps, who we hated so much we just gave them nicknames:

Wiener Thinker:

Lizabreff : Haha. So MarlubsGD and I are watching Birth of a Beauty episode 16, and Lee Kang Joon has Sara backed up to a wall, threatening her, and telling her that she's not Sa Keum Ran anymore and that she is really pretty now. Marlubs shouts out "knee him in the balls!" And I say, "yeah, then he wouldn't be able to think anymore!"

A man so dumb (because he only thinks with his wiener) that what's going on has to be spoon fed to him.


Dog Poop Face:


Cray Cray Bitca (who seriously made me scream every time she was on the screen, especially if the grandma was also on the screen):


There was usually enough of this cuteness to make it better:




Although 17-19 were really hard to watch and 20-21 didn't manage to make up for that loss of cuteness.  No kissing?  LAME!  Still, I ship this couple.  One of my favorite OTPs of all time!

We did have the added bonus of this to make it a bit better:


Mmmmm!  Get Secretary Choi a lead role, pronto! #SecretaryChoiforMaleLead2016

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that an adequate amount of couple cuteness covers a multitude of sins.  Why do they insist on dragging out the couple getting together until episodes 10-12 only to tear that same couple apart in episode 13 so we can have 4-8 episodes of moping noble idiocy before the couple can finally be happy at the very, very end?  We want more happy and cute and less makjang moping!  That's what this drama has taught us.  The writers can get away with bloody murder (or making every villain a murderer) if they give us a couple with the right amount of chemistry and plenty of chances to use it.  So... make the already good dramas better and the okay dramas good with a little cuteness!  Or a lot.  We want a lot of cuteness.  Cuteness from episode 1!!!!!!