My Name is Kim Sam Soon, 7.5
My Name is Kim Sam-soon (aka My Lovely Kim Sam Soon). Korean Drama (MBC 2005).
(Sam-soon, Hee-jin, Henry, Jin-heon. Picture from MBC website.)Stars:
Kim Sun-ah..................................Kim Sam-soon, pastry chef
Hyun Bin.......................................Hyun Jin-heon, restaurant manager and son of wealthy Hotel CEO
Jung Ryu-won..............................Yu Hee-jin, woman who broke Kyun Jin Heon's heart and went to the United States
Daniel Henney..............................Dr. Henry Kim, Korean adoptee searching for lost heritage and true love
Synopsis:
The troubles are countless for pastry chef Kim Sam-soon, aged 29 and still unmarried. She doesn't have a job (though she makes a mean mousse), only a name that she hates (the equivalent of Bertha or Helga, perhaps, but with even less association to feminity). She can't lose weight and is dumped by her boyfriend in a fancy hotel on New Year's Eve after she spies him going in with another woman. Things are so rough that when she seeks solace in an empty bathroom stall, she is rudely disturbed from her bawling session by an insistent knocking accompanied by a man's voice asking her what she's doing in the men's room. The handsome young fellow, although she doesn't know it yet, is Hyun Jin-heon, 27-year-old manager of a romantic, dimly-lit little restaurant desperately in need of a pastry chef. Fate, kind fate, intervenes on Kim Sam-soon's behalf, and she soon finds a friendly community among Jin-heon's restaurant staff. Her relationship with Hyun Jin-heon is a little rockier, due to the awkward circumstances of their meeting, and the tension is exacerbated by his request that she pretend to be his girlfriend in order to appease his domineering hotel CEO of a mother. Sam-soon agrees, but on two conditions. 1) He must call her Kim Hee-jin (the sound of the name stuns him into painful recollections); and 2) he will compensate her financially, so that the house she lives in with her mother and divorced older sister won't be lost.
The two tentatively begin to like each other, but everything is thrown into turmoil when Yu Hee-jin, Hyun Jin-heon's ex-girlfriend, reenters the scene. The malnourished beauty left him suddenly three years ago when she flew to the States, ostensibly to study abroad; she returns wanting to patch things up but is shocked to find that her old flame is apparently in another relationship. Hyun Jin Heon is equally surprised to find that Hee Jin has handsome, half-Korean Henry Kim in tow, though not as surprised as he will be when he discovers Handsome Henry's vocation and stated purpose in Korea. Drama unfolds upon drama as new loves are sorely tested and old feelings reemerge from long-hidden depths of the heart.
Drama Reduction: Will Kim Sam-soon ever find love, or is she doomed to live out life as a slightly overweight (though she isn't really) spinster? Can Hyun Jin-heon love Kim Sam-soon for the awkward individual she is, or will he pine forever for his first love/ be put off by Sam-soon's inelegant ways? What will be the first words be of Hyun Jin-heon's little niece, who hasn't spoken since the fatal car accident that killed her parents?
Opinion: Traffics in several standard soap opera plot developments, but manages to create complex and endearing characters nonetheless. Some bad (though earnest) acting on the part of our American export, but he's good looking enough that women are swooning anyway.
Verdict: 7.5/10.0 Generally good viewing, though I hold an intense dislike for the developments of the last episode.
posted by alice @ 4:45 PM
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