I’ve watched some oldies this year and loved them all, but specially Go back couple, Chicago Typewriter, Chief Kim and above all Misaeng, but as I’ve already written about it here I will write about my second choice, that would be My Ahjussi.
I hesitated a lot about watching it, because I had this feeling: what if I don’t like it? Every one loves this drama, and what if I don’t like it? But then some beanies decided to share their thought while they were rewatching and I felt more confident and began. It was a wise decision because I didn’t only like it. I loved it. The drama reached my heart and my soul and it’s probably one of the best dramas I’ve ever watch and will always be and will always have a special place in my heart.
There’s a funny thing about this drama. As much as I love the drama, I hate almost every single character. All actors are fantastic, epic interpretations, but character are just so hatable to me. To me only JiAn and GwangIl really grow as characters, and realize there can be other life, and even so only JiAn can really change her destiny. This is the main reason why I never wrote my final impressions on the drama, so I’m using this round up to do it.
I also hated the world and society drama showed us. I know we see it almost in every drama, but somehow My ahjussi showed it in a raw and plain way that hurt the most: classism, misogyny, drinking culture. I hated it all, it was a slap in my face: this is the real world for so many people. It hurt. A lot. And that’s why I totally fell for JiAn. IU’s acting was o compelling as someone who’s never had a chance in life and who doesn’t expect to even have a life, she just wants to endure and survive, and then she begins to think she can live. She deserves to have a life, and she sees some light and she doesn’t know what to do about it, until she realizes she can live. It was heartbreaking seeing her through all that ordeal and even if she does some very bad things, you only want her to get rid of all that burden on her shoulders and have an opportunity.
So, why did I hate almost every character?
I really didn’t exactly hate DongHun. He’s a good guy, who loves his family and his job, but he’s given up on life. As he pleases everyone he looses himself in the process. But he redeems by being the light that can make JiAn life change. He also needed her to realize he can be happy and deserves to be happy, something he really questions.
I found his brothers specially annoying. SangHun is a good for nothing obsessed with being successful and doing nothing to try to be, he just wants to be recognized and that’s the only reason he pays for JiAn’s grandmother’s funeral: not because he wants her to feel better, but because he wants to feel better… that’s why he decides to play football in the parking slot with his friends. Perfect timing, yes. GiHun is a bully who had talent but is to lazy and thinks too high of himself. I specially hated him, with all the shouting and acting over the top thing. I think my reaction to him was so visceral because I have someone in my family very similar to him: shouting and drinking is the only thing he does. I always try to empathize with him, but I can because it’s a only a one way relation. Not empathizing back. The scene when he learns that YoonHee is cheating on SangHun and he goes mad and shouts and he’s drunk and violent, and completely loses himself to the point that SangHun tells him to stop because it’s not about him, sums how I feel about GiHun. He deserves to here every time “it’s not about you, you don’t care more the louder you shout, you idiot”.
SangHun mother wasn’t any better. I know she cares for her sons, but I really hated her submission role. I also know she’s a Korean woman of a certain age, and it’s cultural. But I hate it. The scene in which at JungHee’s bar they are all celebrating DongHun’s promotion and YoonHee arrives with a bouquet of flowers and for the first time she smiles at her with proud, and even she didn’t say a word I could clearly hear: at last, my son is better than you, I’m no longer humiliated by the fact that my daughter in law earns more than my son. I screamed to my television. I even felt sympathy (for the one and only time) for YoonHee who practically had to apologize for being successful. Another slap in the face.
Please don’t think that the fact that I felt sympathy for YoonHee made me like her, because I don’t. I don’t care that she fell in love for another man. It can happen. That’s life. And I can understand that she doesn’t feel passion anymore for DongHun. I get it. But she always looked down on DongHun’s family, she’s a snob and a liar. I mean: if you want to leave your husband and have a life with someone else, just be brave enough and tell him. The fact that JunYeong told her to wait, doesn’t mean she had to wait. She could just have asked for a divorce and begin a life on her own, but she didn’t want. I realize of course, divorce is still a hard subject in SK. But even so: she’s a lawyer, she has a job, she can be independent, she could do it. She chose not to do it.
And what about the other women in the drama? YooRa is an abused woman who decides to date an abuser while she drinks every night. JungHee is a woman obsessed over a boyfriend she had 20 years ago and that abandoned her to become a monk without giving her an explanation, while she also drinks herself every single night. Women being obsessed over men and wanting them by their sides, as if a woman couldn’t live on her own. I will not talk much about the runaway monk who never say goodbye to his girlfriend. Becoming a monk was his decision and only his, but maybe people around him deserved some kind of respect, just saying.
If you’ve arrived here you may be wondering how can I say I loved the drama after all I’ve written about all the things I hated in it. Believe me. I loved every single minute of it. Life paradoxes.
It took me a long time to write this, and I’m not sure if I really explained correctly my feelings about the drama. I edited it so many times…
Maybe when I rewatch (I’m pretty sure I’ll rewatch) my feelings change and I can warm up to some of the of the characters…
Actually, I didn’t like the brothers, too, and I couldn’t forgive Kwang-il (was this his name? The loan-shark’s son).
About the others, I thought they were very realistic and raw, not likeable or not completely likeable. For example, I think DH was a very good person, but at the same time, a very bad husband.
But I liked that they showed us that sometimes life puts a far from perfect person on your path, and you can heal each other and learn to love them, yourself, your life and others.
Well, better I stop here 😅 Everytime I write about this show, it seems there are endless things to say 😅
You summed up how I feel about My Ahjussi! I watched it live and loved it, but I also hated almost everyone. This is one of the reasons I haven’t rewatched it until now. The drama is really good but for now I don’t want to see the characters again.
I feel relieved, tbh. I had such a visceral negative reaction to almost every character… and I was loving the drama so much, but hated every one… it was really exhausting!
This is amazing. Thanks for this! I still haven’t pulled the trigger on My Ahjussi yet…I’m nervous about all the Feelings I’m sure it’s going to cause. But everyone raves about it, even its darkness. This is a really interesting perspective.
It’s worth it, and all the praise it receives is totally deserved. The drama is hard to watch but you’ll love it. I could only watch one episode a day, because it was too much, and even would let a day or two pass to watch the next one. It sort of drained my energy, because of the mixed feelings. The performances of all the actors are A M A Z I N G.
I think the first 5 eps are heavy… yes, this drama heals you, but it shatters you, too, at least during the first eps. I don’t want to scare you, but I think it’s better not to start it if you are feeling very very sad.
If not for beanies’ reviews, I would drop it, but luckily I didn’t do it (it’s a 10/10 drama to me).
I did a sort of group watch with some beanies (some of them were rewatching), and it was very interesting. If I remember well, we commented on Ally’s fan wall.
Thanks! I appreciate the trigger warning. I think I will apply @eazal ‘s approach and take it one episode at a time, watch something else alongside it, and take my time with it. It sounds really worth watching, but this has been a year with lots of ups and downs so I’d like to tread lightly. 😊
My sister binge watched it in less than a week. She stayed up until 1 a.m. to finishe the last 5 episodes. So, as you see, maybe you start watching and you crave for more. I think it won’t disappoint you.
You said it so well!! My Ahjussi has to be one of my favorite dramas, but everyone is so ugh!! I think it’s because life goes on: you might be surrounded by toxic people and your plate might be too heavy, but there are people out there who will happily give you even a small hand and you have all the right in the world to live a happy life. Well, at least that is what I got out of it.
Interestingly, I think Gwang-il ends the show trapped. To me, him sending that package of USBs is super sad, because it’s like he’s trying to free himself of Ji-an once and for all. I don’t know if he succeeds. But if he does, I think that might be sadder, since his childhood love for Ji-an is, in a sense, the only good part about it. If he gets rid of that, he’s just a hooligan, a rapacious and violent loan-shark like his father.
Interestingly, I did not interpret that scene where Yun-hui arrives at the bar the way you did. I thought mom’s smile was genuine — I thought she really didn’t smile contemptuously or victoriously, but with a genuine sense of relief because I think she genuinely believe Dong-hoon was holding her back in a certain sense as long he was just some middle manager in a company. Although, yes, I think she also felt relieved that Dong-hoon and her were also on more even footing, since I think she genuinely was concerned about Yun-hui having too much power in that relationship — a fear that I think turned out to be well-founded. However, in that moment, I didn’t read her smile and her tears as being motivated by a sense of spite or relief that Dong-hoon was more equal with his wife. I think, at the bar, she really was glad Dong-hoon wasn’t holding his wife back anymore, that henceforth she wouldn’t always be the one supporting Dong-hoon financially, that he would be able to support her too. I think her intentions towards Yun-hui in that scene weren’t malicious. But this is my interpretation!
As @pickleddragon and I were discussing the other day, the monk (Sang-won I think is his name?) is one of the most interesting characters. He’s supposed to be the one who abjured earthly desires, who decided not to participate in the rat race. But the show does a great job showing that it’s not so easy to surrender your desires. Twenty years later and, despite his attempts to opt out, he’s still running along with everybody else.
To me Gwang Il redeems himself when he gives the USB to Dong Hoon. He’s always lived in the violence (as well as JiAn) and that is the only way he can express himself, but I could feel he was never comfortable or could understand why he had to be violent. Menacing and hitting was the way he was raised (the same way JiAn was raise to just endure and just survive), and just as JiAn finds a way out of that circle she lives in, I want to believe Gwang Il does to. When he puts and end to the circle of violence, he can take another route.
The monk is also a very interesting character, the only one who seems to have chosen the other he wants and even struggling with the past (he’s not a saint, he didn’t do things right in the past because after all he run away and gave no closure to the people close to him) he is the only one who has chosen a path, and seems genuinely happy with it, even if, as you said he keeps in touch and hasn’t totally left behind his old self (I don’t know how this works with Buddhist monks, tbh).
I wonder if the monk is genuinely happy. It seems to me that he feels a lot of guilt about how he became a monk and about how he left so many people who were relying on him and loved him behind. I also detect some unresolved lingering feelings for Jeong-hui, though that might just be me. He seemed more at peace than a lot of the other characters in this show, but he didn’t seem exactly comfortable with himself and his decisions either.
I think he is. You can be happy with your life but when facing a certain part of it in the past realise you did not the best thing, have regrets, and even so, be happy with your choice of life.
As someone who is the same age as Dong Hoon or him, I can relate better to the monk who is happy with the path he chose than with DH, who took the decision to just survive.
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Eazal
December 12, 2020 at 7:57 AM
#2020roundup.
Day 21-The oldie I loved the most.
I’ve watched some oldies this year and loved them all, but specially Go back couple, Chicago Typewriter, Chief Kim and above all Misaeng, but as I’ve already written about it here I will write about my second choice, that would be My Ahjussi.
I hesitated a lot about watching it, because I had this feeling: what if I don’t like it? Every one loves this drama, and what if I don’t like it? But then some beanies decided to share their thought while they were rewatching and I felt more confident and began. It was a wise decision because I didn’t only like it. I loved it. The drama reached my heart and my soul and it’s probably one of the best dramas I’ve ever watch and will always be and will always have a special place in my heart.
There’s a funny thing about this drama. As much as I love the drama, I hate almost every single character. All actors are fantastic, epic interpretations, but character are just so hatable to me. To me only JiAn and GwangIl really grow as characters, and realize there can be other life, and even so only JiAn can really change her destiny. This is the main reason why I never wrote my final impressions on the drama, so I’m using this round up to do it.
I also hated the world and society drama showed us. I know we see it almost in every drama, but somehow My ahjussi showed it in a raw and plain way that hurt the most: classism, misogyny, drinking culture. I hated it all, it was a slap in my face: this is the real world for so many people. It hurt. A lot. And that’s why I totally fell for JiAn. IU’s acting was o compelling as someone who’s never had a chance in life and who doesn’t expect to even have a life, she just wants to endure and survive, and then she begins to think she can live. She deserves to have a life, and she sees some light and she doesn’t know what to do about it, until she realizes she can live. It was heartbreaking seeing her through all that ordeal and even if she does some very bad things, you only want her to get rid of all that burden on her shoulders and have an opportunity.
So, why did I hate almost every character?
I really didn’t exactly hate DongHun. He’s a good guy, who loves his family and his job, but he’s given up on life. As he pleases everyone he looses himself in the process. But he redeems by being the light that can make JiAn life change. He also needed her to realize he can be happy and deserves to be happy, something he really questions.
I found his brothers specially annoying. SangHun is a good for nothing obsessed with being successful and doing nothing to try to be, he just wants to be recognized and that’s the only reason he pays for JiAn’s grandmother’s funeral: not because he wants her to feel better, but because he wants to feel better… that’s why he decides to play football in the parking slot with his friends. Perfect timing, yes. GiHun is a bully who had talent but is to lazy and thinks too high of himself. I specially hated him, with all the shouting and acting over the top thing. I think my reaction to him was so visceral because I have someone in my family very similar to him: shouting and drinking is the only thing he does. I always try to empathize with him, but I can because it’s a only a one way relation. Not empathizing back. The scene when he learns that YoonHee is cheating on SangHun and he goes mad and shouts and he’s drunk and violent, and completely loses himself to the point that SangHun tells him to stop because it’s not about him, sums how I feel about GiHun. He deserves to here every time “it’s not about you, you don’t care more the louder you shout, you idiot”.
SangHun mother wasn’t any better. I know she cares for her sons, but I really hated her submission role. I also know she’s a Korean woman of a certain age, and it’s cultural. But I hate it. The scene in which at JungHee’s bar they are all celebrating DongHun’s promotion and YoonHee arrives with a bouquet of flowers and for the first time she smiles at her with proud, and even she didn’t say a word I could clearly hear: at last, my son is better than you, I’m no longer humiliated by the fact that my daughter in law earns more than my son. I screamed to my television. I even felt sympathy (for the one and only time) for YoonHee who practically had to apologize for being successful. Another slap in the face.
Please don’t think that the fact that I felt sympathy for YoonHee made me like her, because I don’t. I don’t care that she fell in love for another man. It can happen. That’s life. And I can understand that she doesn’t feel passion anymore for DongHun. I get it. But she always looked down on DongHun’s family, she’s a snob and a liar. I mean: if you want to leave your husband and have a life with someone else, just be brave enough and tell him. The fact that JunYeong told her to wait, doesn’t mean she had to wait. She could just have asked for a divorce and begin a life on her own, but she didn’t want. I realize of course, divorce is still a hard subject in SK. But even so: she’s a lawyer, she has a job, she can be independent, she could do it. She chose not to do it.
And what about the other women in the drama? YooRa is an abused woman who decides to date an abuser while she drinks every night. JungHee is a woman obsessed over a boyfriend she had 20 years ago and that abandoned her to become a monk without giving her an explanation, while she also drinks herself every single night. Women being obsessed over men and wanting them by their sides, as if a woman couldn’t live on her own. I will not talk much about the runaway monk who never say goodbye to his girlfriend. Becoming a monk was his decision and only his, but maybe people around him deserved some kind of respect, just saying.
If you’ve arrived here you may be wondering how can I say I loved the drama after all I’ve written about all the things I hated in it. Believe me. I loved every single minute of it. Life paradoxes.
Karmen ~ 🍜🏢🎭 ~ 📚☔🦋 ~ 🪂🌱💘 ~ ✨🍊💫 ~
December 12, 2020 at 9:20 AM
Thanks Eazel, this is very interesting. Reading different opinions is stimulating. I’ll think about it when I’ll rewatch the drama.
Eazal
December 12, 2020 at 10:38 AM
It took me a long time to write this, and I’m not sure if I really explained correctly my feelings about the drama. I edited it so many times…
Maybe when I rewatch (I’m pretty sure I’ll rewatch) my feelings change and I can warm up to some of the of the characters…
Karmen ~ 🍜🏢🎭 ~ 📚☔🦋 ~ 🪂🌱💘 ~ ✨🍊💫 ~
December 13, 2020 at 9:35 AM
Actually, I didn’t like the brothers, too, and I couldn’t forgive Kwang-il (was this his name? The loan-shark’s son).
About the others, I thought they were very realistic and raw, not likeable or not completely likeable. For example, I think DH was a very good person, but at the same time, a very bad husband.
But I liked that they showed us that sometimes life puts a far from perfect person on your path, and you can heal each other and learn to love them, yourself, your life and others.
Well, better I stop here 😅 Everytime I write about this show, it seems there are endless things to say 😅
SW unnie
December 12, 2020 at 11:47 AM
You summed up how I feel about My Ahjussi! I watched it live and loved it, but I also hated almost everyone. This is one of the reasons I haven’t rewatched it until now. The drama is really good but for now I don’t want to see the characters again.
Eazal
December 12, 2020 at 12:00 PM
I feel relieved, tbh. I had such a visceral negative reaction to almost every character… and I was loving the drama so much, but hated every one… it was really exhausting!
OLakes
December 12, 2020 at 11:58 AM
This is amazing. Thanks for this! I still haven’t pulled the trigger on My Ahjussi yet…I’m nervous about all the Feelings I’m sure it’s going to cause. But everyone raves about it, even its darkness. This is a really interesting perspective.
Eazal
December 12, 2020 at 12:07 PM
It’s worth it, and all the praise it receives is totally deserved. The drama is hard to watch but you’ll love it. I could only watch one episode a day, because it was too much, and even would let a day or two pass to watch the next one. It sort of drained my energy, because of the mixed feelings. The performances of all the actors are A M A Z I N G.
Karmen ~ 🍜🏢🎭 ~ 📚☔🦋 ~ 🪂🌱💘 ~ ✨🍊💫 ~
December 13, 2020 at 9:43 AM
I think the first 5 eps are heavy… yes, this drama heals you, but it shatters you, too, at least during the first eps. I don’t want to scare you, but I think it’s better not to start it if you are feeling very very sad.
If not for beanies’ reviews, I would drop it, but luckily I didn’t do it (it’s a 10/10 drama to me).
I did a sort of group watch with some beanies (some of them were rewatching), and it was very interesting. If I remember well, we commented on Ally’s fan wall.
OLakes
December 13, 2020 at 10:20 AM
Thanks! I appreciate the trigger warning. I think I will apply @eazal ‘s approach and take it one episode at a time, watch something else alongside it, and take my time with it. It sounds really worth watching, but this has been a year with lots of ups and downs so I’d like to tread lightly. 😊
Eazal
December 13, 2020 at 11:18 AM
My sister binge watched it in less than a week. She stayed up until 1 a.m. to finishe the last 5 episodes. So, as you see, maybe you start watching and you crave for more. I think it won’t disappoint you.
Karmen ~ 🍜🏢🎭 ~ 📚☔🦋 ~ 🪂🌱💘 ~ ✨🍊💫 ~
December 13, 2020 at 2:03 PM
Wow! She binged it! I could never!
Jellybn
December 12, 2020 at 1:42 PM
You said it so well!! My Ahjussi has to be one of my favorite dramas, but everyone is so ugh!! I think it’s because life goes on: you might be surrounded by toxic people and your plate might be too heavy, but there are people out there who will happily give you even a small hand and you have all the right in the world to live a happy life. Well, at least that is what I got out of it.
Eazal
December 12, 2020 at 1:52 PM
That’s why I loved JiAn and DongHun so much. They heal each other. We need healing people around and not toxic ones.
Maq
September 12, 2021 at 8:54 PM
Interestingly, I think Gwang-il ends the show trapped. To me, him sending that package of USBs is super sad, because it’s like he’s trying to free himself of Ji-an once and for all. I don’t know if he succeeds. But if he does, I think that might be sadder, since his childhood love for Ji-an is, in a sense, the only good part about it. If he gets rid of that, he’s just a hooligan, a rapacious and violent loan-shark like his father.
Interestingly, I did not interpret that scene where Yun-hui arrives at the bar the way you did. I thought mom’s smile was genuine — I thought she really didn’t smile contemptuously or victoriously, but with a genuine sense of relief because I think she genuinely believe Dong-hoon was holding her back in a certain sense as long he was just some middle manager in a company. Although, yes, I think she also felt relieved that Dong-hoon and her were also on more even footing, since I think she genuinely was concerned about Yun-hui having too much power in that relationship — a fear that I think turned out to be well-founded. However, in that moment, I didn’t read her smile and her tears as being motivated by a sense of spite or relief that Dong-hoon was more equal with his wife. I think, at the bar, she really was glad Dong-hoon wasn’t holding his wife back anymore, that henceforth she wouldn’t always be the one supporting Dong-hoon financially, that he would be able to support her too. I think her intentions towards Yun-hui in that scene weren’t malicious. But this is my interpretation!
As @pickleddragon and I were discussing the other day, the monk (Sang-won I think is his name?) is one of the most interesting characters. He’s supposed to be the one who abjured earthly desires, who decided not to participate in the rat race. But the show does a great job showing that it’s not so easy to surrender your desires. Twenty years later and, despite his attempts to opt out, he’s still running along with everybody else.
Eazal
September 13, 2021 at 6:34 AM
To me Gwang Il redeems himself when he gives the USB to Dong Hoon. He’s always lived in the violence (as well as JiAn) and that is the only way he can express himself, but I could feel he was never comfortable or could understand why he had to be violent. Menacing and hitting was the way he was raised (the same way JiAn was raise to just endure and just survive), and just as JiAn finds a way out of that circle she lives in, I want to believe Gwang Il does to. When he puts and end to the circle of violence, he can take another route.
Eazal
September 13, 2021 at 6:37 AM
The monk is also a very interesting character, the only one who seems to have chosen the other he wants and even struggling with the past (he’s not a saint, he didn’t do things right in the past because after all he run away and gave no closure to the people close to him) he is the only one who has chosen a path, and seems genuinely happy with it, even if, as you said he keeps in touch and hasn’t totally left behind his old self (I don’t know how this works with Buddhist monks, tbh).
Maq
September 13, 2021 at 1:02 PM
I wonder if the monk is genuinely happy. It seems to me that he feels a lot of guilt about how he became a monk and about how he left so many people who were relying on him and loved him behind. I also detect some unresolved lingering feelings for Jeong-hui, though that might just be me. He seemed more at peace than a lot of the other characters in this show, but he didn’t seem exactly comfortable with himself and his decisions either.
Eazal
September 13, 2021 at 1:34 PM
I think he is. You can be happy with your life but when facing a certain part of it in the past realise you did not the best thing, have regrets, and even so, be happy with your choice of life.
As someone who is the same age as Dong Hoon or him, I can relate better to the monk who is happy with the path he chose than with DH, who took the decision to just survive.