Sofie to Korea

Aside from lots of time for cramming Korean I have a lot of drama watching time on my hands these days. It took me less than five days to finish off the melodrama 유혹 (Temptation) with hallyu veterans Choi Ji Woo and Kwon Sang Woo. I first saw them in 천국의 계단 (Stairway to heaven) my first Korean drama ever back in 2008. While I really liked it I would then forget all about the genre for the next six years before really catching on to the Korean wave last summer. But I’m digressing. These two people were the reason that I decided to watch this drama to begin with, as I was curious about how they had developed as actors. I instead ended up favoring the second couple portrayed beautifully by Park Sun Ah and Lee Jung Jin (btw welcome into my top 3 of favorite Korean actors 이정진오빠 ^_^).

Anyway, I feel quite disappointed with this drama as it started out with so much potential only to over-complicate things and wrap it all up in a much too rushed manner. I liked the fact that this was a more mature drama dealing with topics like marriage and divorce. I went from “this is interesting” over “I fricking love this” to “what is going on?” And finally to “but this just makes no sense whatsoever!” Honestly from a drama viewing perspective it wasn’t that great. It’s not the first time that I feel that a solid drama gets ruined by a lame ending but still.

However, from a Korean learning perspective I filled out several pages in my notebook with priceless expressions and lots of great vocabulary. Thanks to the wonderful dialogue in this drama I now know the exact way to accept a proposal from someone who I’m only interested in because of his money and power so that I may get revenge over my enemies: “당신을 사랑하지 않은데 당신의 돈과 힘이 꼭 필요해요. 그래서 당신의 여자 되고 싶어요.” Now, who says you can’t learn useful everyday phrases in Dramaland? On that note I definitely didn’t waste my time although I doubt that I will ever watch it again.