Once Upon a time in Saeng Cho-ri is an ongoing, Friday comedy-suspense drama broadcasted in Korean tv on tvN channel. While the main characters are acted out by not-so-well-known actors (at least for me), the older generation actors appearing in the drama caught my eye. Kim Hak Chul as Mr. Balli-Balli, apparently known for mostly historical dramas and Kang Nam Gil, who's face is perfectly known by the romantic comedy genre drama lovers. Both of them help to make the drama lighter. Personally I like Kim Hak Chul's character more, as Kang Nam Gil usually play more or less the same character in most of his dramas. That being said, I cannot refuse him his acting skills. Talking about characters, I have to say that secondary characters are much more interesting than the lead ones. We have a village girl, who has to take care of her crazy father. Manager Jo's girlfriend Victoria, who's as fast and as quick tempered as her father (yes, Mr. Balli-balli is her father). Victoria's little brother who has a Hyun Bin-syndrome, thinking he's a main character of Secret Garden - the most popular drama of 2010. Then, there's a girl who came to Saeng Cho-ri from Seul, who has a scary mystery, which doesn't match her beauty. A mysterious writer, who has a serious problem with indicating things. Plus, the investigation team, especially the main detective who's always shown trying to light his lighter (he never achieves it).
The music is well-matched, although there's no main theme that would stay in your mind even after finishing watching the drama. Most of the track are used to emphasize the ambience of the scene.
Once upon a time in Saeng Cho-ri is an ongoing drama, this week only 15th episode was broadcasted, but until now the plot was developping in an interesting way. Or should I say until a few weeks ago? It started off with wit and many hilarious situations and this mood was perserved in the few first episodes. After light beginning we are confronted with a murder investigation and mystery involving the inhabitants of Saeng Cho-ri. Unfortunately, just when I got interested in the suspense part of the drama, everything stops to show the romance developping between the main characters.
Group of office workers from Seul are transferred to an unexistant office in some tiny village no one ever heard about. All of them has their reasons for sticking to this job, even though they are sentenced to live in the total remote area. Soon a genius broker from their company, Jo Min Sung, joins them as their manager to control their work. Little do they know his perfect mathematics abilities are gone with the wind after he had been shot by the lightening. Little does his boss, Mr. Faster than a Lightning Bolt (such an irony!) know about it. While he is busy trying to hide his disability, the workers start to notice bizzare occurences happening in the village. People living there seem to have a lot of things to hide too.
So, if I can rate this drama, even though it's not completed yet I would give it a 4 out of 5. I'm not giving it a perfect score, because I could see the plot is going up and down and what I need is a stable direction. Somehow it feels like this drama scriptwriter wanted to write it in a specific way, but then changed his mind and changed the direction this drama was heading too drastically. I'm looking forward to see more suspense. I hope after I watch the whole series, I'll b able to give it a 5 out of 5 without much hesitation.
(by pamu)
