All About Eve Episode 5

In this episode Sun Mi and Young Mi compete for the media studies scholarship. Although I’m sure we’re all wanting Sun Mi to win, it’s Young Mi who really needs the scholarship money. They both practise interviewing and reading the news at home but in very different situations – we can see the difference in their lives again. Sun Mi can practise with her loving dad in their nice house. She has a large wardrobe with a wide range of clothes to choose from. And she gets chauffeured to school in the car by her dad. Meanwhile Young Mi practices alone, goes to school on a crowded bus and has to patch her old shoes up as she doesn’t have any others. Watching this time around I have a lot more sympathy for Young Mi. Having said that, her vicious streak drives me mad. If only she could just be happy with Woo Jin instead of having to be so competitive and ruthless all the time… but then it would be a boring drama!

The rivalry continues between Sun Mi and Young Mi, All About Eve, episode 5, MBC 2000

All About Eve episode 4

In the 4th episode, Young Mi works on getting Woo Jin to fall in love with her to make Sun Mi jealous. In the UK, Sun Mi’s friendship with Hyung Chul develops too and then she comes back to Seoul ready to tell Woo Jin how she really feels….

Woo Jin’s mum shouts at Young Mi for dressing like a tart. She tells her to behave herself and never to dress like this again! It sounds like she’s nagging but underneath she is probably trying to help her. But Young Mi seems to soak up the criticism as though she knows she can never be good.

Young Mi, All About Eve, episode 4, MBC, 2000

All About Eve episode 3

In this episode Sun Mi meets Hyung Chul in the UK and Young Mi decides that she needs a job that pays more money than the usual hourly wage, so she goes to work as a hostess in a karaoke bar.

Sun Mi arrives in the UK. She has to go to the college office to sort some things out for her course but she can’t make herself understood. Hyung Chul happens to be in the office too and notices that she is Korean. But he doesn’t say anything to her. Then she goes off to join her very weird 60’s style English class! Afterwards on the bus on the way home she is thinking about Woo Jin and Young Mi. She is not concentrating and so when she gets off the bus she starts crossing the road on a red light and ends up getting hit by a car. Hyung Chul happens to be driving the car and is shocked that he has hit someone. Meanwhile Young Mi and Woo Jin and family are enjoying themselves and eating in a restaurant. They have just helped Young Mi move into a flat. But Woo Jin’s mum is still suspicious of Young Mi. She knows she’s trouble.

All About Eve 2000 MBC Episode 3

All About Eve episode 2

In episode two of All About Eve Young Mi starts to dig her claws into Woo Jin, and Sun Mi is not amused, especially since she goes to the UK to study and has to leave Young Mi alone with Woo Jin..

Sun Mi and Young Mi All About Eve 2000, MBC episode 2

Mr. Jin goes to the workshop to see Young Mi. She is grateful for all he has done for her and starts to cry. As he hugs her Mrs. Song walks in and sees them in an embrace.

All About Eve episode 1

All About Eve is still one of my all-time favourite dramas. For classic rivalry this drama is still hard to beat. It was a romantic drama that aired in 2000 on MBC and starred Jang Dong-geon and Chae Rim (Oh My Lady) with Kim So-yeon (Iris, Prosecutor Princess) playing the jealous villain. Two young women from very different backgrounds end up on the same course at the same university. They both want to become newsreaders. One of the girls, Sun Mi, (Chae Rim) is sweet and kind and has led a sheltered and happy life with her father who runs a construction company. She has a good friend Woo Jin (Han Jae-suk) who she has a crush on. Young Mi (Kim So-Yeon) on the other hand has had a hard life growing up in poverty with an alcoholic father. She has had to be tough to survive and envies Sun Mi’s nice life. But from the beginning Young Mi decides that she wants to take away everything that Sun Mi has. The rivalry between the two young women begins.This was the last drama Jang Dong-geon did before concentrating on films. (Too bad!) Here’s a summary of episode 1.

The rivals Sun Mi (Chae Rim) and Young Mi (Kim So-yeon) in the MBC drama All About Eve 2000

Another walk to the film location of What Happened in Bali

Last spring, while out for a walk, we stumbled over one of the locations in the SBS 2003 drama What Happened in Bali, starring Ha ji-won, So Ji-sup, and Jo In-sung. The one-room houses that Ha-ji won’s and So ji-sop’s characters lived in are located on a mountain  on the outskirts of an area in Sangdo-dong, Dongjak-gu which is now being developed. There were many other small houses like this in the area and we wondered if they would survive now that a large apartment complex was being built nearby.

2 sides of Seoul – small houses on the mountain with large apartment blocks in the background

Well, we went back and walked the same route recently and sure enough many of the little houses on the mountain had signs on them to show they were going to be demolished.

Retro Drama Review: Lovers in Paris (2004)

Tae-young (Kim Jung-eun) and Ki-joo (Park Shin-yang) in Lovers in Paris (2004) SBS

Synopsis

I’ve just finished watching Lovers in Paris, starring Park Shin-yang (Money Warfare) and Kim Jung-eun. The story begins in Paris (surprise) where Tae-young an optimistic and unpretentious young woman is studying. To supplement her studies she ends up having to get a part time job as housekeeper for a rich Korean businessman. This job doesn’t suit her and because she’s a bit clumsy she fails to meet his high standards as a housekeeper and he wants to sack her. However, he agrees to give her the job back if she will be his date to impress a French businessman whose Korean wife comes from the same hometown as Tae-young.

Soo-hyuk (Lee Dong-geon), Lovers in Paris (2004) SBS

Back in Korea they meet again and Ki-joo begins to get interested in Tae-young but his nephew, Soo-hyuk (Lee Dong-geon) also likes her. In some ways the men are very similar but in other ways they are different. Soo-hyuk has no interest in the family business and wants to be a free spirit playing his drums and riding his motorbike. He becomes jealous of Ki-joo when he starts dating Tae-young. The couple have more problems when Ki-joo’s father and CEO of the company arranges a marriage between Ki-joo and the daughter of a politician. Ki-joo refuses to comply with his father’s wishes but the family refuses to accept Tae-young saying she doesn’t come from a good enough family. There is a secret that Ki-joo doesn’t know.

All About Eve to Oh My Lady.

I hear that Chae Rim is going to make a cameo appearance in the upcoming Chinese version of the romantic Korean drama, All About Eve that she starred in with Jang Dong-geon back in 2000. I was watching All About Eve on DVD again recently and by chance turned on the TV to SBS to see her in her latest drama, Oh My Lady. I had to check the date again that All About Eve aired because I couldn’t believe it – just ten years ago she was playing a fresh faced university graduate starting out on a career as a newsreader. She’s an innocent girl with no experience of love except for the crush she has on her sonbae. Now in 2010 she’s playing a divorced ajumma with a primary school aged child. She needs money to bring up her daughter and so takes on a job as a housekeeper for a young idol. So the story line is this – there’s no way a young star in his twenties could ever be romantically interested in a frumpy divorced ajumma in her thirties. Or is there? His fashionable love interest, Yoo-ra, certainly doesn’t think so. But of course that’s what happens and the moral of the story is that it’s not how you look or what you wear or even how old you are that counts, it’s what’s inside that matters. I’m sure Chae Rim won’t only play ajumma roles from now on but really, what a difference just ten years can make!

Sun-mi (Chae Rim) in All About Eve, 2000, MBC

Gae-hwa (Chae Rim) Oh My Lady, 2010, SBS

All About Eve, funny bits. Heo-jun cameo.

I hadn’t seen the historical drama Heojun the first time I watched All About Eve so didn’t recognize Joon Kwang-ryul who played the role of the doctor in the popular  drama in 2000. The airing of Heojun and All About Eve overlapped for a while and I love this scene when “Heojun” walks past Sun-mi and her friend Cho-jeh in the broadcasting studios.

Cameo appearance by Heojun in All About Eve, 2000, MBC

He’s dressed in character obviously off to do some filming. Cho-jeh is star-struck and rushes over to him asking for his autograph. Sun-mi is embarrassed and tells her not to go. After all they are supposed to be professionals working in the media so it’s inappropriate to act like fans. Her friend doesn’t care though and rushes over anyway. She doesn’t have any paper so tells him to sign her forehead!

He acts like the doctor would act! Then she mentions that she has stomachache sometimes and asks him what the problem could be!! He takes her pulse as Heo-jun would do and tells her it’s just menstrual cramps. LOL

All About Eve, funny bits.

I’m still enjoying watching All About Eve but this time around I’m noticing things I didn’t see before…

Episode 2

Joo-hee the newsreader is in London filming the news with the broadcasting station MBS. She goes to see Hyung-cheol who is living in London. She’s obviously in love with him and they go for a walk along the Thames. They walk past a couple sitting nearby kissing. The woman is sitting on the man’s knee. Hyung-cheol glances at them as he walks by. (Is he wondering what it would be like to be in love as he never has been? Or is he thinking – Look at those two kissing in public?) There are bottles of beer next to the couple and they drink these later.

Hyung-cheol and Joo-hee, All About Eve 2000 MBC episode 2