차칸 남자

[SPOILER ALERT!: The following is a review of the Korean drama series 세상 어디에도 없는 착한남자. Don't let me ruin it for you if you haven't watch it.]

Posters for the drama

About the title:

The writer intended to have the drama named 세상 어디에도 없는 차칸 남자, but later changed it to its current form, 세상 어디에도 없는 착한 남자, the reason being that 착한 남자 is orthographically correct. In director Kim Jin Won's words: "The lead character describes himself as a nice guy but in reality he is using another person’s love for his own love and is a bad guy who is only out for revenge. We [purposely misspelled the title] for sarcastic reasons." Given that the English translation for the original title varies and that I really like the writer's idea, I'll refer to this drama as 차칸 남자 rather than adopting its official name or any English translation.      

Synopsis:

Kang Ma Ru, a dutiful brother, promising medical student and a nice guy in general, sacrificed himself for Han Jae Hee, the woman he loved, only to be betrayed by her. Ma Ru met Seo Eun Gi by chance and Eun Gi fell in love with him. Knowing that Jae Hee is Eun Gi's stepmother, Ma Ru approached and used Eun Gi to exact his revenge on Jae Hee.

Review:

차칸 남자 slits open the darker side of human reality and plumbs the unfathomable depths of the human heart. Common throughout the drama were such themes as love, greed, selfishness, poverty, death, suffering and above all, hope and the will to live. Being a makjang (roughly translated as melodrama), the series of course has its fair share of betrayals, plots, and schemes. How far would one go, in search of love, money, or power? 

Seeing the characters doing just about anything to get what they wanted chilled my heart to its core, or at least sent shivers down my spine. Maybe that was the intention of the writer and the director. In that case, they succeeded in bringing out the worst in us. The environmental influences shouldn't be disregarded, though. The characters' actions were unforgivable but not unfathomable.  Once you understand what motivates somebody - their raison d'être, in this drama's case - what they think, feel and do fall into place:

• Ma Ru had lost his father (I guessed his father was good to him and his half-sister based on the family photo they had taken and the confession Ma Ru made to his dead father), gave up everything for the woman he loved, and was hardened by life. Was it any wonder that he became cynical, cold, and heartless? The only thing that stopped him from killing himself was that his ailing sister needed him. Everything he did - cheat, swindle, steal, lie - was done to procure money for his sister's treatment. Later when he fell in love with Eun Gi whom he had manipulated, his sole motivation in life became Eun Gi's well-being.
• Jae Hee was motivated by selfish reasons. Coming from a poor village like Ma Ru, she had suffered from poverty but was happy because of the love she shared with her boyfriend, Ma Ru. Her life changed when she met a wealthy man (Eun Gi's father) and promptly turned her back Ma Ru, choosing money over love. She climbed up the social ladder, gained material wealth and eventually took control of her dead husband's company. Even after she had a son, she still had lingering love for Ma Ru. Now that she had wealth, she was determined to chase after her lost love. 
• Brought up like a son and groomed by her steely father to take over her father's business, Eun Gi didn't want to be weak like her mother, who "hid and ran like a loser". Instead, Eun Gi stayed in her position as heiress and was determined to get what was rightfully hers. She lived for, and fought for herself. An unexpected turn of events - meeting and falling in love with Ma Ru, and later, losing her memory due to a car accident - changed her motivations. Eun Gi now lived on her love for Ma Ru and her determination to recover her lost memory.

Ma Ru (left) and Eun Gi

The writer seemed to have pulled out all the stops to deliver the necessary betrayal, romance, revenge, lies and tears (bucketfuls of them). Sometimes I couldn't tell what the characters' motives really were: did Ma Ru really loved Eun Gi or was he just using her? Did Jae Hae really missed the old times and wanted to get back together with Ma Ru? To be sure, a grim and gloomy atmosphere permeated 차칸 남자, broken only by the funny Park Jae Gil (played by Lee Kwang Soo) and his relationship with his best friend's sister Kang Choco. Some of the plot twists were predictable, others were blown out of proportion. At times they were so exaggerated that I felt it best to leave my brains aside and just enjoy the show. I was also bothered by the display of evil, in varying degrees, by all the leading characters (a rather disturbingly negative outlook on human nature).

The cinematography was great, as evident in the flawless switches between scenes. The pace was slow at the beginning and only picked up in later episodes. Character development was well-executed, but adding in amnesia and prosopagnosia (inability to recognise faces) was a risky move. If it weren't for the car accident and Eun Gi's subsequent brain injury, the story would've ended in, say, 10 rather than 20 episodes. Was the writer showing off her knowledge that brain injury is wide-ranging, not limited to just memory loss? It annoyed me when Ma Ru said that he also suffered from prosopagnosia. As for the soundtrack/background music, I think they were paired well with the scenes, placed at the right times at the appropriate volume.

The ending

The ending was open to interpretation. Did it happen? Was it just a dream? If you hate ambiguities, then you won't like the ending as much as those who like the dreamlike "happily-ever-after". In all fairness, the cast gave a stellar performance (don't you just want to stab Han Jae Hee?) and the drama series itself delivered its promises as a makjang. 

Cast and crew of 세상 어디에도 없는 착한남자