Letter #9: Man x Man

Good morning, Erin.

All right…if I’m being perfectly honest, as much as I enjoyed Mad for Each Other, I was still miffed about Start Up (though, I admit, after I did a little research and—to my great surprise—discovered the fan community agreed with me about being so hardcore #TeamGoodBoy, I did calm down a bit. It’s just nice to know I wasn’t alone on that point, y’know?) even after that pleasant bounce-back show, which meant that I wanted to go for a total change of pace with what I moved on to next. 

So, I’m just about done listening to IU’s full discography. Which…I did not expect there to be so much nu-disco. I expected more bubblegum-y pop (yes, like “Strawberry Moon,” I can’t help it, I love that song), maybe some power ballads…but disco? Spanish guitar? Modern enka? She has a whole Jessica Rabbit-esque “women’s blues” album! What is this panoply of genres?! There’s an IU track for everyone, practically. I had no idea. 

Oh oh oh! AAAAAAND…I totally found that she’s got an interview show that she does on YouTube! How? Well, of course, because YouTube gave me a recommendation—of her interview with Mr. Goblin! I’m so excited to watch that. It’s, like, 45 minutes long. I dunno if you’ve seen it. You probably have. 

And—oh, wait, we’re talking about Man x Man, today. Right. Sorry. Forgot because…IU…

[cough]

ANYWAY:

1. Daryl, circa the 35-minute mark of Ep 1: “…I have no idea what I’m watching.”

2. Daryl, circa the 36-minute mark of Ep 1: “Wait, Erin’s notes say it starts slow. Okay, good. I’m not crazy. I mean, I’m talking out loud to myself, but…”

3. Daryl, circa the 45-minute mark of Ep 2: “I still don’t know what’s going on, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I kind of love the weird, ‘accidental’ homoerotic moments between Guard Kim and Actor Guy. It’s very funn—why am I still talking out loud to myself?!”

3A. Oh, I can’t remember pretty much anyone’s names, again. So…get ready for that. Again.

3B. …which I’m going to blame on the translation choosing to re-order everyone’s names into the western format. So, when I would read it one way but they’d be saying it another. So…clearly the translation’s fault. And definitely not my general inability to remember names. 

4. Guard Kim looks like Vincenzo and Mr. Goblin had a baby. 

5. Do-ha (the main girl) reminds me of my college girlfriend. Which is…I mean, it’s not her fault, of course, but it meant that she had to work that much harder to endear herself to me. She got there, mostly, but it took a while. 

6. Y’know who didn’t take a long time to get my approval? The makeup girl duo. Apparently it’s a rule that a pair of ladies serving a quaternary (but consistently present) role are an automatic thumbs up, in my book. 

6A. …I was also fond of the Restaurant Friend (Do-ha’s roommate). And Fashion Lady. For…story reasons. 

7. Actor Guy’s initial jealousy of Guard Kim was something I really enjoyed about the opening stages of the (sorta-)love triangle. Because they introduce the idea that he could maybe be gay (because he doesn’t do kissing scenes in movies)—despite his clear attraction to women—there’s this layer on top of their relationship that it’s possible that Actor Guy is as much crushing on Guard Kim as he is simply desperate to be the cool guy’s super-best friend. (I know it turns out the whole thing is really about Ex-Girlfriend, but, still, it’s a nice touch, early on.)

8. I can get behind the Russians speaking English to the Koreans, because it’s logical that they could have a second language in common, but…that the actor is so obviously an American (not even a cheesy Russian accent) is hilarious. I’m not objecting to it or criticizing it, just…makes me chuckle, is all. 

9. How much of a sucker am I for love subplots? Well, as soon as Guard Kim started his “seduce Do-ha” mission, I became 10-times more invested in the show. So.

10. To wit: the two of them looking lovingly at one another’s tracking blips on their phones was corny and obvious and I absolutely loved it. 

11. Daryl, circa Ep 9: “HOLY F*** IT’S VINCENZO!!!”

11A. No, you have to understand how excited I was to see him. I thought maybe it wasn’t him, that it was just an unnecessarily handsome bank teller who just looked like him, but then he smiled and I was like, “It’s him! I knew it!” Man, I loved Vincenzo. 

12. A lot of the action scenes were…not very good. But that hand-to-hand fighting in the mission to rescue Do-ha, after she is taken captive, was pretty good. Particularly Actor Guy’s fighting. 

13. The silly stage kissing in this show gets a 7.5, on the Daryl Smoochiness Scale, because they at least shot it in a way that hid how silly stage kiss-y it was. Good job, show. 

14. So, I was wondering if, given the way everyone was talking, military service is mandatory, In Korea. So I actually did that thing where you look stuff up on the internet, again. And guess what? Yes, it is. 

14A. To which I immediately asked the google machine: “Does BTS have to worry about thi—oh, look at that. Yes they do. Whole series of articles about exactly that.”

14B. …to which I immediately asked the google machine: “What exactly is BTS?” 

14C. They’re a music group. If you didn’t know. 

15. The whole time, I swore that Prosecutor Guy was going to turn out to be a bad guy. Felt like such an obvious and-then-he-betrays-the-hero kind of character, but…nope. Just a good guy. Which, I mean, he always talked about his wife, but he never seemed to need to get home to see her or talk to her on the phone or wear a wedding ring—all of which was super-sus! Right? 

16. …except then we meet his wife—and she’s the mother***ing ZUMBA SNAKE! She’s in everything! (And, if I may, she looked…wowza.)

16A. Actually, back when I was watching Vincenzo, I had looked up a lot of the cast (just for the heck of it), and I remember seeing an article about how the Zumba Snake actress had done some kind of glamorous photo spread for GQ or some such thing and how fans of the show were so shocked to see her be, like, hot. And I remember thinking to myself, “…did we not already think Zumba Snake was hot? Was that just…maybe that was just me?”

17. Oh, and also on the list of things I was wrong about that I thought were obvious: Ex-Girlfriend’s son really was Main Baddy’s kid. I swore it was going to be Actor Guy’s. But I guess not. 

18. Speaking of Ex-Girlfriend, though, they took their sweet time revealing why she was hanging out with spies like it was no big deal. (Though, honestly, why Fashion Lady was allowed to, as well, is beyond me. Other than that she was…y’know. That she’d caught the eye of NIS Guy.)

19. [obligatory frowning about Hyundais]

20. Oh, y’know what made me laugh? After Guard Kim and Do-ha break up, he goes off to setup the mission to get into the black market auction, and he needs to pose as some big-time CEO or something, so he’s got, like, the dude’s young secretary with him to make it seem legit. And what made me laugh is that, because the show wants to get across that Guard Kim is still in love with Do-ha, they have the secretary be, like, just about the hottest girl you could find just so he can turn her down when she offers to sleep with him. ‘Cus, like, he must really be in love if even that girl can’t get him to forget Do-ha, right? It’s fine, just one of those silly clichés that makes me smile when I see it. 

21. Speaking of the illuminati-style black market auction scene, I thought it was HILARIOUS that they were having it take place under cover of a lecture on the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” I mean, maybe they just picked the topic at random from the internet, but I choose to assume the writers were making a sly joke about the people who subscribe to that idea being, y’know, the illuminati.

22. The last third of the show (everything after they open the slush-fund vault and Prosecutor Guy gets hit by a truck) really feels like they were stretching things out to meet an episode count. I mean, it wasn’t terrible or anything, but it did slow down quite a bit. Brought in new wrinkles they didn’t need. That kind of thing. 

23. Oh-ho-ho—very slick, show. Veeeeeeeeery subtle time jump. But I still saw what you did!

24. Oh, sure, these two get to get together. But what about Ms. Jang and Manager Guy? What about Vincenzo and Ms. Hong? What about Little Sister and Good Boy (who, sure don’t get together at all, so they don’t count, but, y’know what, I’m still mad about Start Up so I’m putting it on the list anyway because #TeamGoodBoy4Life dammit!!!)?

So…yeah, Man x Man was all right. It’s probably my least favorite of the k-dramas I’ve consumed, so far—which is not to say it was bad or anything, just a lot more up-and-down with its storytelling quality than the other shows. Like, the actors were good, and the characters were fine, but the pacing wasn’t quite what it should have been and some of the storytelling contrivances were just a smidge over the believability line, for me. Again, I thought it was fine, but there were a lot of times it where it just never quite hits its mark. Which, hey, they can’t all be the best. 

Actually, to that point, if I’ve timed this right, this should be the last letter I write before you’re back from the break. (Welcome back! It’s been so bleak without you!) So, with that in mind, and with you having just traversed through…gosh, far too many pages of my stupid thoughts about these delightful shows you’ve introduced me to, I thought a little review of where they all stand, with me, might be in order.

So, from best to least-best:

1. Vincenzo

2. Hotel Del Luna

3. Goblin

4. My Mister

5. Start Up

6. Mad for Each Other

7. Rookie Historian

8. My Name

9. Man x Man

And now you know. I guess. 

I haven’t yet decided where I’m going next, though I have a small list (within the list you gave me) of likely possibilities. Or maybe some Lee Ji-eun shows I found maybe I dunno who can say. Or maybe I’ll just wait for you to excitedly tell me about something you discovered over the last several weeks that you think I must absolutely drop what I’m doing to watch right now. 

Either way, I’m betting it’s gonna be a good time. 

--Daryl