skygiants | (no subject)

tenillypo and I enjoyed the first nine episodes of the kdrama Strong Girl Do Bong Soon, and then spent the subsequent seven watching in increasingly bewildered horror.

The initial plot: Our Heroine, Do Bong-Soon has hereditary mystical super-strength passed down from mother to daughter, which will disappear if she abuses it to hurt an innocent person! Our Hero, a video-game CEO who's been receiving mysterious death threats, sees her beat up an entire collection of gangsters and immediately a.) falls madly in love b.) hires her as his new bodyguard. Also there's a love triangle involving Our Heroine's childhood friend, a handsome cop who could probably be out-thought by a box of rocks; also Do Bong-soon's neighborhood is being threatened by gangster-run redevelopment; also there's a serial killer on the loose!

The first nine episodes are nonsensical but mostly entertaining hijinks! We enjoyed:

- Bong-soon casually sending gangsters flying every episode
- Bong-soon accidentally recruiting an entire gang of delinquents who follow her around adoringly
- Our Hero's refreshing openness about the fact that he just wants his superpowered bodyguard to completely wreck him
- the handsome cop going undercover as a beautiful woman for reasons that are wildly unclear, but enjoyable!
- a visit from Bong-soon's superpowered grandma
- Bong-soon's stressed-out doctor brother, who just CANNOT KEEP UP with all the destroyed patients his sister keeps sending his way

We had conflicted feelings about:
- the subplot in which Bong-soon mistakenly believes Our Hero is gay and planning to steal the handsome cop away from her; we liked the subsequent strong threesome vibes but did not like the related casual homophobia

We did not enjoy:
- frequent cutaways to the serial killer's dungeon basement of despair
- frequent cutaways to the world's most frustratingly incompetent cops failing to do anything useful to catch the serial killer, ever

Then we hit the midway point. Half the main plots - including the gangsters seeking revenge on Bong-soon, the hero's sinister stalker and family problems, and the love triangle - wrapped up, leaving us instead with:

- ongoing incredibly frustrating serial killer-related police incompetence ("YOU SAW THE SECRET DOOR TO THE MURDER BASEMENT!" we screamed at the screen. "YOU SAW IT FIVE EPISODES AGO! YOU HAVE SEARCHED THE PLACE THREE TIMES SINCE! WHY DO YOU NEVER LOOK THERE!")
- a subplot which takes up AT LEAST 30% of the back half in which the leader of the gangsters drinks poop wine, has a spiritual awakening, and is duped by a fake monk
- another wildly homophobic subplot which takes up AT LEAST another 20% of the back half in which a gay coworker with a crush on the hero 'comedically' battles Bong-soon
- lots and lots and lots of PDA Inappropriate to a Workplace Environment

Things that appeared in the first half that never appeared again:
- Do Bong-soon's superpowered grandma
- any members of the hero's family, ever, at all
- Handsome Cop's crossdressing undercover alternate identity

I did learn things while watching this show! For example: now I know what poop wine is. I didn't want to know, but I do. I also learned it's possible for a kdrama to include too much PDA, a phenomenon I had never before experienced in this medium.

Another thing I learned about myself is that I will forgive a show nearly anything if it promises a superhero narrative in which a serial killer kidnaps the hero and keeps him imprisoned in his basement so that the heroine has to go rescue him with her super-strength. This is not a thing that actually happened on this show, it's just something that several previews made look like might happen, so

tenillypo and I spent several episodes leaning forward on the couch shouting "KIDNAP HIM! KIDNAP HIM! JUST KIDNAP HIM AND ALL IS FORGIVEN!"

Instead the serial killer kidnapped our temporarily depowered heroine and tied her to a bomb. Life is a stream of disappointments.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

THE HOMOPHOBIA GETS SO MUCH WORSE that the entire first half now seems AS NOTHING

Urk.

Time to give up, then -- it's not like I have oodles of time on my hands. (TBD asked me to watch the Deadpool movie and report back ("Children can't watch that.") and my main reaction was When?!?.)