Hotelier 5.7
Hotelier, Korean Drama (MBC 2001)
(Tae-jun, Yoon-hee, Jin-young, Frank/Dong-hyuk. DVD cover image.)stars
Song Yun-ah..................Suh Jin-young, Manager at Hotel Seoul
Kim Seung-woo.............Han Tae-jun, General Manager of Hotel Seoul
Bae Yong-joon...............Frank Shin/Shin Dong-hyuk, Korean-American M & A expert
Song Hae-gyo................Kim Yoon-hee, daughter of rival CEO Kim
other characters:
Park Jung-chul.............Choi Young-jae, son of Hotel Seoul CEO Choi
Yoon Yu-jung................Madam Choi, widow of CEO Choi
Kim Nah-rae.................Jenny, Korean-American adoptee whose guardian is Han Tae-jun
Leo Park, Frank Shin's lawyer and cohort
Manager Lee at Hotel Seoul, Manager of Housekeeping who wears blood-red lipstick, insults Jin-young, and pines away for Tae-jun.
Manager Oh at Hotel Seoul, mean man who threatens people, concocts sketchy plans, and alters the finance books.
Head Chef Loo, venerable father figure and tyrant of the kitchen
Manager Yoo, lackey of Manager Oh
Plot Summary: After beloved the venerated CEO Choi passes away, Hotel Seoul is in trouble. Madam Choi takes over her husband's position, but has little experience in the business, while son Young-jae is a good-hearted but immature, fun-seeking young man, and the wealthy and unethical CEO Kim has his sights set on acquiring Hotel Seoul at all costs. For this, he hires a renowned Mergers and Acquisitions expert from the U.S., Frank Shin (who goes by Shin Dong Hyuk after he arrives in Korea). At the same time, in the attempt to save their beloved Hotel Seoul, Madam Choi sends Manager Suh Jin-young to Las Vegas to convince Han Tae-jun, who left three years ago after being framed in a scandal, to return as General Manager of the hotel. Jin-young is hesistant, since she and Tae-jun have an unresolved relationship, but eventually agrees.
In a stroke of literary convenience, Frank Shin is currently negotiating the acquisition of a major hotel in Las Vegas, and he notices Jin-young one day in the hotel restaurant when she chews the waiter out for serving her bad food and spilling coffee on her silk scarf. Admiring her fearlessness, he sends a silk scarf up to her room, signed "Frank." Jin-young finally tracks down Tae-jun, who tells her that he is doing well in Las Vegas and doesn't want to return to Korea. Not believing him, she follows Tae-jun to the Outback Steakhouse, where he serves as a minimum-wage dishwasher. She is heartbroken, but resolute, and shows up at his house the next day, only to be shocked when a young woman opens the door. She marches away, speechless in anger and feeling betrayed, but Tae-jun explains that the girl is Jenny, the adopted daughter of a good friend of his who recently passed away; he is now her guardian. After Tae-jun and drug-abusing Jenny clash with a gun-wielding gang she owes money to, Tae-jun, Jenny, and Jin-young decide to go to LA (and eventually to return to Korea). Tae-jun and Jin-young get into a fat argument on the trip, and Jin-young demands to be let out of the car. After she screams a bit more, Tae-jun obliges, much to her shock, leaving her standing in the Californian desert. Although he feels bad soon after and makes a screeching u-turn to pick her up, she has already caught a ride in a limo with none other than the sunglasses-wearing, cool-as-a-cucumber Frank Shin and his short, garrulous lawyer Leo Park. Frank Shin discovers that this mysterious lady he keeps meeting works as a manager for the hotel he has been hired to acquire, while Jin-young discovers that he is the one who sent her the scarf, and they part as friends with definite potential.
Back in Korea, the stakes grow increasingly higher as loyalties and alliances shift and blur. Choi Young-jae falls in love with Kim Yoon-hee, not knowing that their fathers are sworn rivals, while Yoon-hee falls in love with Tae-jun, who comes to her rescue at several opportune moments. Additionally, Jenny becomes an assistant cook in the hotel restaurant, Yoon-hee starts working as a waitress despite her father's fury, and Young-jae becomes a bellboy who constantly runs Jenny over as he is rushing earnestly to the heroic rescue of Yoon-hee from some dramatic danger or another. Then, Frank Shin books a VIP suite at Hotel Seoul to heighten romantic tensions; the camera inevitably focuses on him taking a manly drink of water and wiping the sweat off his brow after his morning run. Abandoned as a child and sent to the U.S. for a better life, Frank has always ranked work as the most important thing in his life, but begins to question the value of his immense wealth as he starts to feel his loneliness in the world (cue the theme song). To rectify this situation, he comes up with a variety of ploys for spending time with the increasingly enamored Jin-young, while Tae-jun looks on uncomfortably, fends off the advances of Yoon-hee, and attempts to navigate Hotel Seoul through the treacherous waters of business deals and double-dealing hotel managers.
Drama Reduction: Will Jin-young return to her first love, Tae-jun, or fall for the generous gifts (300 roses, expensive jewelry) and smooth-talking ways of Frank Shin? Can Tae-jun lead Hotel Seoul to financial safety, or will CEO Kim achieve his depraved ends? Will Yoon-hee's domineering father squash her dream of becoming a hotelier? Can Frank Shin ever make amends with his past? Finally, how can the tangled relationships of Hotelier be resolved, resulting in the fewest broken hearts?
Opinion: I don't know whether it was a problem of acting or writing, or a combination of both, but other than Tae-jun and Young-jae, I didn't find any of the other characters compelling or believable. For a woman supposedly torn between two loves, Jin-young does an admirable job of continually snubbing and yelling at one while crying like a helpless woman in front of the other, pretty much acting herself into the inevitable conclusion. In terms of chemistry, her relationship with Frank Shin takes the term "weak bond" to a new extreme, though Tae-jun's encounters with Yoon-hee are pretty flat as well. The most unbearable part of this drama is its major failure in its attempt to create lifelike characters who navigate between clear-cut stereotypes of good and evil and struggle with their consciences and ambitions; instead, the characters waver between the extremes of stereotypes like stock characters who can't find their footing. For example, CEO Kim's otherwise shady and inhuman henchman offers a few pieces of unsolicited wisdom on childrearing that I think are designed to redeem his overall loathsomeness. However, he is nothing compared to the massive inconsistency of Frank Shin. Unfortunately, in this drama Bae Yong-joon has the emotive capacity of a finger puppet and wholly alienated me in his labored transition between work-driven M & A expert and man willing to give up all for love. (This man is the idol of middle aged women all over Asia?) Additionally, his willingness to lump Jin-young and the hotel together into a high-stakes "game" against Tae-jun didn't do much to win me over. In the end, Hotelier is not completely predictable, but also not particularly outstanding.
Verdict: 5.7/10.0
Smoothness of the cinematography makes up slightly for having one hit and three misses in the four lead roles. I am deeply dissatisfied with the script.
posted by alice @ 2:36 PM
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