Saturday 24 March 2012

Currently watching: Scent of a Woman

My tastes in TV viewing tend to come and go in waves. After a recent spate of tense mysteries, I've now gone all girly and am currently working my way through Saigo Kara Nibanme no Koi (middle-aged woman suddenly gets a complicated love life), Renai NEET (middle-aged woman suddenly gets a complicated love life) and also this Korean series in which a middle-aged woman suddenly gets... well, you can probably guess.


Even though I've not seen many Korean dramas, I'm already seeing several recurring themes. In Scent of a Woman a clumsy ditzy woman becomes romantically involved with a rich, powerful, but emotionally cold man. There's a beautiful but scheming heiress, a handsome doctor, a disappointed mother, and all of these people's paths cross due to a number of unlikely coincidences. Oh, and drinks get spilt with alarming regularity.

In that sense, at least, there's nothing in particular to make this series stand out. I chose it because of Kim Sun Ah in the lead role, and because the synopsis sounded interesting: A single woman in her thirties discovers she's terminally ill, so she spends her last months (and her savings) to live the life she's always wanted.


And if you don't mind the clichés, it's pretty good. However, there are sixteen episodes and I wonder if this series will fall foul of the same problem that My Name Is Kim Sam Soon and Lie To Me had. Namely, a tedious lead male role. It may be a common female fantasy to melt the heart of a cold, emotionally distant hero, but to me he's about as interesting as a concrete slab in a wheelbarrow.

Perhaps some sub-plots can make this more entertaining. Or, simply, keep the camera trained on Kim Sun Ah. That'd be enough for me.

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