my review of the prime minister and i

http://asianwiki.com/The_Prime_Minister_and_I

I recently watched this television show called The Prime Minister and I.

I'd like to review it here, and I'd like to start by talking about Korean TV in general.

I haven't watched that much Korean TV, but there are definitely some trends that I've noticed.  Usually the first few episodes of any show start with a flourish of camera work, lighting, locations, plot lines, and characters.  Then all of the orbits start to collapse on each other and everything revolves around two people falling in love.  The actors start to look tired, with much more make up, and the scenes and sets sometimes start to show wear and tear, too.

So, maybe my standards are a bit low, but I enjoyed The Prime Minister and I quite a bit.  What really won me over in the beginning was that the writers seemed to second guess their own bullshit exposition and story line.  It turns out that journalists as characters are wonderful plot devices because it is perfectly acceptable for them to question everything that is happening, just like a jaded or skeptical viewer.  There were a couple of dream sequences in particular where every character seemed to mock him or herself, and there were a few "its just like we are in a movie.." lines.  In these parts of the show the actors really seemed to be enjoying themselves.

The romance between the leads seems forcefully woven in to the story, instead of pasted on top.  I found the scenes comprising their awkward beginning to be hilarious.  Having ten minutes to cover two people hugging each other:  People hug,  It is natural,  It is not always sexual.  Someone would see the hug and then that person would tell other people.  So much fuss about a hug, or a kiss.  The show was falling all over itself to be PG-13 but still managed to talk about the main character's virginity at age 24, pregnancy, and raging sex.  I got the feeling that writers were capable and desiring to do much more, but were even more restrained because they were self-censoring on top of whatever the normal restrictions are.  Maybe I should mention at this point that the two main characters are bound together by a contract that says they are to pretend to be married, but that they are not allowed to actually fall in love.

The funny mistakes: the sexpot that is not, the rich and jealous wife too well cast, kids with perms.  
    The main actress is supposed to be a stunningly beautiful woman, but she's kind of like an athlete from an obscure sport.  She is incredibly tall and thin, to the point where her walk is a bit strange, and when she bends her body it bears no resemblance to my own.  Whereas in other shows I've seen the supporting characters seem to be going out of their way to make comments about the lead to try to get the audience to believe something that's not true ("she is so fat and ugly"), the comments about the leads in TPMAI were subdued and mostly accurate.  "She looks good in that dress today."  "The Prime Minister looks professional when he wears a suit."
      The rich wife character, the daughter of a tycoon, is a wonderful doormat to hate rich people and their excesses, while at the same time envying their material possessions. She has the worst plastic surgery, the kind kind that gives her face a texture like melting ice cream, and she has a high pitched voice, which she puts to good use because pretty much every character in the story gets a chance to shit on her head and make her really unhappy.  And just to really show some story line power, this most hated character has the most pitiable and believable sadness.  This despite the fact that every other character in the story, no exaggeration, has a devastating legend of loneliness all their own.
   Kids on set must get really bored.  And makeup artists and art directors must get tired of talking to stressed adults all the time.  Maybe that's why children in TV shows have the craziest haircuts and most frequent costume changes?  The kid acting in this show was actually good.  Mostly the children were emotional, greedy, selfish, and confused. It probably wasn't out of their ability. They just wanted to steal a piece of bread from their sister while their dad was busy running the country.

I would sum up the ending like this:  well, there's just too much bullshit going on, so let's take a step back and think about things.  As far as outlandish plots go, I thought that was somewhere close to being reality.  My favorite moment was the first time they thought the lead actress's father was going to die.  He is shown sleeping a lot in the show, and she goes into his room and sees him sleeping, she says "wake up!" a little too suddenly.  Maybe the scene was done intentionally, so poorly, to make us feel confused just like the character in the scene.  You could even see his face moving, he clearly wasn't dead, and he wasn't.

Give it a watch. its like watching 6 or 7 movies.