Letter #106: Branding in Seongsu

Good morning, Erin.

As I’m sure you hang on my every word, I know you will remember that I have mentioned a few times that I quite like synthwave. More specifically, I’m a fan of the genre rather than of particular artists (though, if pressed, I suppose I’m a fan of The Midnight), which perhaps explains why I will happily give any new synthwave track I come across a try, regardless of—or, really, without even caring to notice—whose song it is. 

On the other hand, I’m not a Taylor Swift fan. Granted, I haven’t exactly gone deep into her discography to test specifically where I fall on the fandom scale, but my limited experience with her music never inspired me to seek out more, making my assessment, I think, a fair one.

Of course, the internet had other plans…

It took not even a week for the algorithm to worm its insidious, tentacled grasp into the sidebar of my everyday YouTube perusals: “Someone has reimagined the entire Tortured Poets Department double album as a synthwave instrumental mix—would you like to give it a try?”

“Pffft—as if.”

…

[click]

“...dammit.”

Sometimes, the most unexpected things bring us joy, is what I’m saying.

Which brings us to Branding in Seongsu, a sort of throwaway pick I started just to see if it might be worth saving for later—and then never put down. To my absolute shock.

It’s not The Matchmakers, Erin, but it’s a lot closer than I’d ever have thought. And, as such, we’re going to be light on spoilers, because I definitely think it’s worth the watch—and you will want to go into this blind. (…or, like, as blind as you can be, after I’ve spent a while going on and on about it.)

So…ready for another dark horse K-drama pick from your diligent hubae? I bet you are!

1. In keeping with the “unexpected things” theme, I only checked this show out because I was wondering what the goth/punk girl from Nevertheless was going to be in and, from a quick look at the people in the cast, I thought it was going to A) be a light romcom about a marketing firm and B) star the pretty girl from That Winter, the Wind Blew (not Song Hye-kyo; the girl from Apink), both of which sounded pretty good to me—and both of which turned out absolutely not to be the case: this is not a lighthearted romantic comedy, nor is the girl from That Winter, the Wind Blew in it. 

1A. In my defense, you know it takes me forever to learn anyone’s name, which is why I often rely on the pictures used for the cast listings on MDL rather than names when seeing who’s in the cast, and the headshots used for Kim Ji-eun and Jung Eun-ji looked very, very similar at the time. Like, seriously, their hairstyles were the same, and they even had the same smirk. It’s not fair.

1B. AND YET…turns out I actually did know the lead actress after all!

2. Which is a great time to jump into the people I recognized:

• the “hot girl” host from Nineteen to Twenty (surprise!) as Na-eon, our female lead

• the tall dude from All of Us are Dead as Eun-ho, our male lead

• the goth/punk girl from Nevertheless as Yoo-mi, the best friend/second-in-command

• the female police detective from Behind Your Touch as the oldest member of the underdog team

3. I thought the two leads were miscast, when the show started—but then it turned out that the actors had to essentially put on different personas as the plot unfolds, and they were both excellent in these other iterations of their roles, which is undoubtedly why they were cast.

3A. For the record: I think the male lead does a better job, but the female lead is funnier. (And, further for the record: she is suuuuuper-cute.)

3B. Also, we’re going to come back to the whole “miscast” thing in a minute. So, keep it in mind.

4. The soundtrack for this show kinda rules. (I’m particularly fond of the opening theme song. What’s it called and who’s it by? Dunno. But it’s great—as is the title sequence. Very good match for each other, and it gets right to the heart of what the show is. I happily sat through it every time.)

5. [refreshes page for My Sibling’s Romance Ep 10] Dammit, come on…

6. So, here’s the deal: this show is 24 half-hour episodes, and the first few are not great. They move at a satisfying pace, and I felt compelled to keep watching regardless of whether or not I was enjoying them. So, if you start the series and find yourself wondering why anyone would want to watch legit actors reading from a terrible script in what comes off feeling like a YouTube series, I want to assure you that it starts to get into the main plot around Episode 4 and gets really good around Episode 7 (which would be the end of Ep 2 and the start of Ep 4 respectively for of a regular hour-long show, which is kind of where a lot of K-dramas start to hit their stride). And, if you feel at all similar to how I do about it, you’ll have no problem getting to the part where things really pick up.

6A. This is what I meant when I said to remember the whole thing about the actors seeming to be miscast: everything about the show follows the same pattern, needing a little time to get to what it does best—and it doesn’t go out of its way to ingratiate itself to you on its way to that point. But, once you get there, I think it more than makes the trip worthwhile.

6B. That said, should this have been 10 hour-long episodes instead of 24 30-minute episodes? Probably. Does it hurt the show to have been done like this? Not really. I think the “filler” that gets us to the episode total is mostly benign, not so much padding or treading water as fun sub-adventures that, in retrospect, don’t contribute to the overall plot. It’s actually the central plot that I think needed some tightening up—near the start, obviously, since it takes longer than I think it should have to hit its stride, but perhaps more pointedly when we get towards the end of the story.

6C. …not that they don’t land the ending. It’s just that some elements of the plot, once revealed, don’t quite line up with what we’ve seen playing out. Or maybe they do in some ways, but in others they don’t. Like, there’s at least one way in which it clearly doesn’t—which I can come up with a way to justify, but what we see in the show doesn’t ever leave room to infer that justification, so…things get a little wonky, for a bit, as we wrap some things up. 

6D. Also—and I can’t stress this enough—this show is not what you think it’s going to be. And it hints at that pretty early on in the weirdest way possible. My notes at the first piece of the main plot poking its head into frame, as it were, is: “I’m sorr—f***ing what?” It’s kind of great, as is the full jump into the main plot, but…gosh, the stuff before it does not AT ALL prepare you for it. 

6E. Genuinely, though, I really liked this show. A lot.

6F. …apart from the F***ING TIME JUMP.

7. [refreshes page for My Sibling’s Romance Ep 10] Yes! Finally! All right, let’s get into…into…wait, these subtitles are all wrong. W-Why?! I ASK FOR SO LITTLE, INTERNET!

8. The show does a lot of superimposed graphics to emulate the firing off of text messages or spreading of news articles or to give a visual example of the data someone is talking about. At times, it can be a bit busy, but it’s ultimately a fun visual flair. The best use of this, though, is for the marketing team’s group chat. I initially didn’t like it, but it totally grew on me. It’s silly, but, much like the team, it grows on you.

9. The guy/girl new hire duo that’s always together—and always dressed the same!—is used brilliantly, almost as a chorus for the performance of the show, frequently being a natural (and, in at least one instance, a ridiculously theatrical) source of exposition for a given  or upcoming scenario. They’re hilarious every time they’re on screen and, arguably, the most consistently good element of the show. 

10. I would like to thank the subbers for including the spoken English in the subtitles. As they should. 

11. Speaking of English, one of the members of the marketing team is a young woman named Jenny Park. At one point, she has to sign something, and we see her signature—which is in English. And it looks like she just wrote out the word Prince.

11A. Y’know what, actually—here:

Tell me I’m wrong.

12. At one point, Na-eon put on a fancy-lady big floppy hat, and it’s all I ever wanted. 

13. At one point, a long-haired thug is running after someone…and the actor’s wig clearly would not stay on his head while running, so there’s a relatively quick shot of him (and his shaved head) sprinting along with the wig in his hand. The next time we see him, the wig is on his head, as though he always had long hair. But I caught you, show! Can’t fool me!

13A. …unless you’re talking about actresses with similar smirks! But you weren’t!

14. There are some practical aspects of the main duo’s actions that beg a question or two, but the show does its best to brush past them without answering. Of course, stopping to address some of the questions would shift the focus too squarely onto things that aren’t important to the plot, but…still. I have so many logistical questions about smooching alone! Why would you leave me hanging like this, show? What are you, the subber for Episode 10 of My Sibling’s Romance?!

15. I swear half the locations on this show are just the same empty concrete warehouse with different props in them.

16. In a great comic moment, Na-eon comes to work dressed as a schoolgirl, to the shock of all her co-workers—but, as everyone in the office stares agape at her, this one woman goes to adjust her glasses…but isn’t wearing any. It’s really subtle, very much quick and in the background—but I caught it. And laughed. 

17. [quietly adds your latest cover to his playlist]

18. Speaking of Na-eon’s wardrobe, there is a particularly clever moment (the cleverness of which I won’t explain to you) where she comes in wearing a suit and tie—and she looks great. You know I love a woman in a tie.

19. One legitimate complaint, I think, is about the uselessness of the second male lead. I know why he’s in the story, but, apart from that, he’s easily the least relevant member of the cast. I understand his functional role in the story, but…there had to be a better way to do it. 

20. In a fun continuity error, we get a scene where Yoo-mi looks gorgeous in a long coat with her hair down—which was odd, considering that, timing-wise, she’d arrived at this location a couple of hours earlier with a totally different look and clearly would not have been able to leave to freshen up. I don’t know if anyone else caught it, but it made me chuckle.

21. In a more ridiculous…it’s not a continuity error so much as an editing trick the show hopes it will get away with: in Episode 1, the marketing team is trying to get into a building that is being blockaded by the workers inside—that is, the workers inside are pushing up against the doors so that the marketing team can’t get inside, while the marketing team outside is pushing up against the doors to get in. But, if you look, the doors are designed to swing outward…meaning both sides are doing the opposite of what they’d need to do to accomplish their goals: the workers are essentially pushing the doors open, while the marketing team is essentially pushing them closed. Clearly that’s not what the scene is going for, and you can see all the actors trying to pretend like the doors are built to do the opposite of what the scene calls for, but…it looks pretty silly. 

And I guess we’ll end it there. I know I gave you more negatives than positives, but the positives are too easily summed up without letting myself get into specifics. It’s funny. It’s good. I really, really liked it. 

But that restriction on what to discuss is also what let me get this letter done as quickly as I did, which, if you remember from my last letter, was not how I thought this would go. Which is silly, in hindsight, because, as with The Matchmakers, I knew I’d want to encourage you to track it down for yourself.

Anyway—Branding in Seongsu. It’s good. I think you’d like it. 

“...and how does this fit into the ‘catch up’ theme you’ve been talking abou—”

THERE’S NO TIME, ERIN!

—Daryl