That darn Gong Yoo can con me into watching paint dry. I swear he causes me to stay with a drama long after I should quit it. Ever since The First Shop Coffee Prince, one of my favorite dramas, I’ve been smitten with Gong Yoo. So when I was browsing around Crunchyroll just for kicks and saw a shirtless Gong Yoo dressed like a surfer dude, I was sold. I didn’t even read the plot. Dived right in. And suddenly I found myself in an unintended weekend k-drama marathon of One Fine Day.
Actually One Fine Day wasn’t bad overall. It was just one of those maddening melodramas I’ve been trying to stay away from. The whole question of “are we siblings or not / what makes one siblings” just unnecessarily brings too much of an ick factor into what is supposed to be a romance.
It made me absolutely nuts how overly nice and forgiving the two romantic leads are. It left me feeling like I was an evil, vengeful hell raiser. I’m sorry, I was adopted and the brother I was raised with takes indecent liberties and attempts to rape me–forgive? What?! And my “adopted” father knew about it all along and did nothing to stop it? Oh and my adopted father kills my mother and stepfather leaving me an orphan and turns around and adopts me. Oh, this gets better. He steals the company of my now dead stepfather and amasses a fortune from it. And in twist of twists it turns out adopted dad is actually my birth dad–he had an affair with my mother, got mad when she married his friend and that’s why he let them die in a burning car. Yep, I’m supposed to live with, speak to, and forgive these people? Ohhh, my aching head. Now that’s our leading lady’s story.
Let’s go to our leading man. Gong Yoo’s character, Seo Gun, is the son of leading lady’s stepfather. They are in no way blood related but were raised together as brother and sister from the time she was about 1 years old until she was six when their parents are killed. He is taken, basically kidnapped, by his dad’s chauffeur from the orphanage and taken to Australia to grow up. He loses contact with his stepsister for 15 years. Until his brother from the guy that raises him accidentally pickpockets a student on the city bus and it just happens to be Gun’s long lost sister. Oh boy. The daughter of the guy who raises Gun has heart problems. So Gun does everything he can, even theft and scams to get money for her surgery. While I can’t blame her for falling for him (he is Gong Yoo after all), when he makes it clear that he is not interested in her she causes problems for him constantly. Even as he continues to try to help her. Her selfishness is incredible; she was playing the I’m sick card like nobody’s business. And yet HE KEEPS FORGIVING HER!
I guess what disappointed me most was it seemed like none of these people who did wrong was ever truly punished for the wrong they did. The crazy brother who knows he and his “adopted” sister are really blood-related never gets punished for attempted rape or the other things he does to her like stalking, kidnapping, fondling, etc. The father dies in a car wreck before he has truly made amends to his daughter and Gun who grows up poor and hustling because of him stealing his inheritance.
And another thing (or two)
- I especially hate stories with the” two years later” convention. I didn’t know anything could make me dislike that even more, but this story did.
- Umm, a black guy named Jamal running around with a gun causing mayhem in Sydney, Australia and the cops aren’t all over it? Yeah, because I can believe that happens. It’s bad enough to be stereotyped by your own country’s movie and TV system, even worse when Hollywood influences people who’ve probably never actually met a regular black person. Especially knowing Hollywood is less than kind in its portrayal of Asian people, too.
So what did I like about this show? Gong Yoo. On the beach, on a bike, shirtless of course. His characters are always so likable and the relationship with Seo Ha Neul was sweet. The mystery of what actually happened also kept me around to the end. But the rest of it left me feeling pretty murderous.
I recommend this show only if you LOVE Gong Yoo and can tolerate a female lead that shows a glimmer of spunk in the beginning, but quickly loses it.
Pinkpodster Ponders 
But you have nothing to say about Namgung Min?
I watched this show early on when I first started watching dramas. At the time I didn’t really know him. And until your comment didn’t even realize he was in it!
I have become more of a fan of his after seeing him play a bad guy in The Girl Who Sees Smells. He does bad guy exceedingly well. 🙂
Overall, I’m new to K-drama – piggyback rides, U-turning cars, love interest separating suffering apart for 1-3 years, flashbacks to childhood, layed stories with interesting links to most of the characters, these I’ve come to expect as standard in k-dramas. I first watched Gong Yoo in Goblin, I’M CANADIAN so I loved this series connection to the maple leaf country. I really liked all the cast. From drama to comedy and everything in between bromance and romance I loved Goblin.
I’ve recently seen him in the Bourne like movie THE SUSPECT he was great. I absolutely hate horror but the way TRAIN TO BUSCAN filmed the zombie enmass was actually cool and bare able Gong yoo and the actress who played his daughtter were wondeful. I LOVED HIS LAST SCENE IN THIS MOVIE it made me forget it was a horror film. Now I’m watching his earlier material like this one. You can see his growth as an actor. It is after all a collaborative effort so we can’t blame him for plot failure or angst.
I’ll be watching SILENCED next That movie is based on a true story Gong Yoo read while in the army. It is a sad intense story, Apparantly the movie lead to changes in South Korea punishment for some wrong doers and chages to prevent this from happening again. He is a powerful actor. I’m glad I found his work. I look forward to his future work.
Train to Busan and Goblin are awesome! You should also watch him in Coffee Prince which is the first show I saw him in. I did not like Big, but many people did.