Presentation
Korean Title: 결혼작사 이혼작곡
Aired in: 2021 (16 episodes)
Channel: TV Chosun
Grade: 7/10
Actors: Sung Hoon, Lee Ga Ryeong, Park Joo Mi, Lee Tae Kon, Jeon No Min and Jeon Soo Kyung
For more…
Unexpected affairs:
Love Affairs in the Afternoon
Revenge for having an affair:
– Cheat on Me if you Can
– The World of the Married
Affairs with dramatic consequences:
– The Penthouse 1,2&3
Analysis
Synopsis
The drama tells the story of 3 women, working together at a radio station. They seem very happy and satisfied with their marriage, until their lives are turned upside down by a secret.
My Opinion (No Spoilers)
This drama started off quite well. The idea of the depiction of 3 different marital lives and the consequences of cheating appeared to me very intriguing and interesting. I was expected lots of drama, as well as waiting for the wives’ reactions. Up to the 8th episode, it seemed that the drama was evolving in that direction. Yet, I was very disappointed, when I realized that half of the drama would be dedicated to the mistresses and their love lives.
This twist, if I may call it so, destroyed the powerful atmosphere that the drama had been building since the beginning. Instead of witnessing the explosion of the revelation of the affairs, the rhythm suddenly started to drop and the story became boring to a certain extent.
I know that there is a season 2 in preparation, but I have to say that I am not completely sure it would’ve been needed, if the screenwriter (Phoebe) had not wasted so much of our time on non-essential secondary events.
Out of curiosity, I guess I will check out the first two episodes maybe of season 2, in case the action actually takes off again. However, if nothing has changed, it is going to be quite complicated for me to keep on watching.
Analysis (Spoilers Alert)
Characters:
The story is made up of quite a number of sub-groups embodied by different characters: the wives, the mistresses, the different couples, the different families… Each having specific dynamics, which gives a broad view of intricate relationships.
The wives: Sa Pi Young (Park Joo Mi), Boo Hye Ryung (Lee Ga Ryeong) and Lee Si Eun (Jeon Soo Kyung) represent the first group introduced in the drama. They work together at a radio station, one as a writer, one as a producer and one as an announcer. They are fellow colleagues and also happen to be at different stages of life.
Boo Hye Ryung is in her 30s, she is a drummer and announcer. Most of her family lives in Canada, meaning that she has spent most of her life alone. Therefore, she is quite determined, strong-willed and doesn’t easily bend. At some point, she appears to be selfish in her decisions, as she always makes herself and her career come first. (I don’t personally think this is selfishness, but I can understand the criticism). Anyway, she is quite ambitious, has difficulties admitting she is wrong and expects from her husband Pan Sa Hyun (Sung Hoon) to bend most of the time. She also clearly stated she didn’t want children, which will lead to conflict later on in the drama.
Sa Pi Young is in her 40s, she is married and has a daughter (around 12 maybe, I don’t remember exactly). She is not on good terms with her mother, because she blames her for destroying her relationship with her father, after her mother discovered he had cheated on her. Thus, she bears a lot of resentment toward her and doesn’t want to include her in her life anymore. She is married to a kind, brilliant and loving doctor (in appearance) Shin Yu Shin (Lee Tae Kon). However, as we find out in the drama, Yu Shin has a very specific, if not worrisome, relationship with his stepmother. She got married to his father, when he was still a kid and has no problem admitting she was his first crush.
Lee Si Eun is in her 50s, she is mother of 2 and has been married for more than 30 years to Park Hae Ryun (Jeon No Min). He is a respected university professor, who became one thanks to his wife’s sacrifice (she paid for his tuition, was disowned by her rich family for marrying him and takes also care of all the chores at home).
Though the 3 female leads seem quite different, the intrusion of another woman in their married lives, completely shakes their world. Interestingly, they are introduced at the very beginning of the drama through a shocking event: one of the writers athletes their show is accused by a woman in the public of having an affair with her husband. This allows also for a direct presentation of the subject of the drama and an immersion in the future themes that will be tackled.
I have to admit I was quite confused at first because I couldn’t clearly understand the relationships between characters. Eventually of course, I managed.
The husbands: Though they mostly remain in the background, with a deeper focus on female characters (wives and mistresses), the husbands in that drama really made me lose faith in mankind. Each of them is portrayed as a gentleman, a loving husband (and father sometimes). However, I found myself as betrayed as their wives, when I discovered they were all hiding a secret affair.
Pan Sa Hyun is a lawyer, who wooed Hye Ryung until she eventually accepted to get married. They have been married for three years and seem at first to be in sync. Yet, the more the drama advances, the worst their relationship is actually depicted. In my opinion, Sa Hyun is a young childish man. As he is the younger child of his family, infantilized mainly by his mother, he is used to having everything he wants: either things or people. He behaves mainly like a child, looking for a new toy (the toy being a woman here). Despite that, he is a kind man too, who falls victim to his wife’s abusive personality. The way the drama is actually written gave me the impression that they were trying to make me empathize with his situation. That I refuse, for several rational reasons.
First, he chose to marry Boo Hye Ryung so he knew well what he was in for. Plus, he has been living with her for 3 years and I doubt her behavior changed that much over time.
Second, I can understand that you feel you married the wrong person, that you don’t get along well with your partner anymore and that maybe it would be better to get a divorce. This is a perfectly viable and understandable thinking. However, the way Sa Hyun chose to turn away from his wife was wrong from the very beginning. When he got fed up with her whims, he simply stopped caring about her. He didn’t try to talk it out or tell her that he didn’t approve her behavior. Or when he did so, he did it using reproach (like with her make-up). He also constantly compared his wife with another woman he barely knew. He then chased after this new woman. Clearly not the best method ever!
I believe that what he did is just a reproduction of his behavior with Hye Ryung at the beginning of their relationship (like a cycle). He was attracted to her, chased after her until he got her. This shows that he is immature and to a certain extent irresponsible. Funny, when you know that Pansa in Korean means judge and that he is far from having the wisdom of a judge.
Shin Yu Shin is to me an extremely ambivalent figure. I am convinced that he is probably the worst character of the drama. Indeed, when Hye Ryung and Sa Hyun’s marriage seems on the verge of collapse, shedding light on their incompatibility, Yu Shin is the portrayal of the perfect husband and lover (he is the knight in shining armor, literally, as he rides horses). Once again, taking a quick look at his name, Shin means God in Korean, that is to say that he is to be seen as flawless. It could’ve been the case and I seriously wanted to believe that he was not having an affair. I ended up, as you may imagine, being disappointed with the result.
Yu Shin and Pi Young have though, on the outside and on the inside (without the cheating), an adorable relationship. Both know what the other one wants and make efforts and compromises. They are very loving and their behavior was actually enough to arouse suspicion. We are indeed watching a drama about affairs, why would there be such a loving couple in the picture?
Yu Shin has two problems: first, he is a sort of womanizer, who apparently thinks that it is okay to cheat on your wife, as long as you are good toward her. Obviously that is not. This thinking is supported by Pi Young’s own thoughts on affairs, that are the result of wives’ not taking enough care of their husbands (in her opinion). Wait, what?
Second, Yu Shin has a sort of Oedipus complex toward his stepmother. It is obvious both know that they are attracted to each other, but they never crossed the line, while Yu Shin’s father was alive. However, the game chances when he dies. There is a sort of unhealthy and uncomfortable tension between the two, that could really break anytime.
Park Hae Ryun is this time the most ungrateful character. Seeing how his wife sacrificed 30 years of her life in order to take care of the family (and him) and how she was rewarded, really made my blood boil. Worse, he tries to justify (he is a professor after all) his actions, saying that life can sometimes lead you on other people’s paths and that you can’t foresee what is bound to happen. Thankfully, his children are just amazing. Especially his daughter! The 20-minute lecture she gives him in episode 8 was so satisfying! She exposed his wrongdoings (she is actually the one, who spotted him with someone else), she explained calmly, rationally and with excellent arguments why what he did was wrong. Finally, she logically told him, the reason why she didn’t want to see him again. He has made a choice, they are not holding him back, he can go live his life freely and get rid of his burdening family. Spoken like a true professor’s daughter! By the way, I really recommend you go see at least this moment, it’s pure art!
Just like for Sa Hyun, the screenwriter tries to make us sort of empathize with him. Indeed, in one episode Hae Ryun tries to have sex with his wife, who rejects him. The way I see it, she was more embarrassed because they hadn’t had sex for a long time, her body grew old as well, so her shame could be a reason, as to why she didn’t want to. Plus, Hae Ryun, though he wanted to surprise her, threw her in an uncomfortable situation, in an unfamiliar place and quite forced her, making her feel guilty when she denied the “act”. Once again, I can understand Hae Ryun’s frustration, because he really made an effort to surprise his wife and make her happy. But that was according to his judgement, not taking his wife’s perspective into account. That is the mistake and the root of the problem.
So we have here very different personalities, husbands and cheaters, operating with different tricks, to either seduce another woman, or get rid of their own wives. Let’s not forget that Hae Ryun pretends at first that he has grown tired of marital life, he needs his freedom and his wife is not appealing to him anymore. Nice guy, right!
The mistresses: I am not going to state the obvious, I hated those characters. Even though the drama tried to make me empathize, if not sympathize with them during 8 episodes, I just couldn’t get away from the idea that there was a wife in the background and that it was all wrong! Despite that, I still have to applaud Phoebe’s witty style and writing, as the circumstances confused me the entire time. That being said, I still couldn’t approve the affair.
Song Won (Lee Min Young) is Pan Sa Hyun’s mistress. She is 40 and has been married once. She divorced after discovering that she was infertile. She has always wanted to have children but she reached the conclusion that she would never have any. She meets Sa Hyun at the gym, after Hye Ryung forces him to do some sports. Contrary to Hye Ryung, Song Won is calm, kind, soft, qualities that appeal to Sa Hyun, as they are the extreme opposite of his wife. They develop at first a certain friendship, that rapidly evolves in a mutual attraction.
Obviously, when the drama starts, we are aware of the fact that Song Won is pregnant. So what happened? Only by the end do we understand that Song Won had the good idea (that is sarcastic of course) to bid farewell to Sa Hyun once and for all by sleeping with him. Makes so much sense. Instead of that, she made it worse for him, but not necessarily for her. Finally, she can have the child she had dreamed of, at the expense of Hye Ryung’s marriage. Even though Song Won seems quite nice, her loneliness, like for the other mistresses, is what made her attractive to Sa Hyun.
The 3 mistresses actually follow the same descriptive pattern: they have been hurt in the past (life, relationships, people…), bear the scars of this past and literally jump on the first person bringing them warmth and comfort. Because they are lonely characters, we can easily understand why the 3 husbands, in asserting their manhood and protective role, were so inclined to be with them.
Unfortunately, this makes them very pathetic as well, in all senses possible. They are unable of standing on their own two feet and to remain dignified. A funny paradox, when we know that Song Won asks Sa Hyun to keep her dignity intact when they are about to have sex.
A Mi (Song Ji In) is the embodiment of frailty and vulnerability. She meets Yu Shin in the plane, after a few hours they have become close friends and Yu Shin’s mind is filled with fantasies, as A Mi is. Fantasies are by the way shown here through imaginary scenes.
A Mi is alone, her family in the US and we don’t quite know what happened to her in the past. We just find out that she is in Korea to pursue a career as model and that she is about to crumble. I found that character quite annoying, desperately holding on Yu Shin (who liked it anyway). She was like a leech!
Interestingly, it seems like infidelity “runs through her blood”, as the last episode announces her mother’s affair with the oriental doctor. He is, by the way, the connection between all characters of the drama and I am quite intrigued to see how this character has been developed. Remember that during a conversion with Yu Shin and another man at the club, he seems quite faithful calling his wife “mom”. Another Oedipus complex yet?
Nam Ga Bin (Lim Hye Young) is a musical actress, who has had a tumultuous relationship. She is lost and doesn’t know what to do until she meets Hae Ryun. He is directly attracted by her talent and blown away by her “light“. She is indeed the total opposite of his wife: young, radiant but also full of insecurities. In comparison Si Eun is older, worn-out by life but still strong.
In fact, the mistresses are actually the complete opposites of the wives. Because of that, I believe that the husbands have been so used to seeing their wives, that they feel they need fresh air, “fresh blood”. They find it in the figures of theses mistresses, which we all hated, let’s be honest!
If this was not enough, the mistresses also happen to find solace in each other, as they meet unexpectedly and suddenly become best friends.
Older couples: One of this drama’s strengths was its ability to depict all kinds of couples, including older ones, for which the dynamics are slightly different. We are thus confronted with two different sets of “senior couples”.
One the one side, there is So Ye Jung (Lee Jong Nam) and Pan Moon Ho (Kim Eung Soo). They are Pan Sa Hyun’s parents and have been married for a long time. Contrary to his son, Moon Ho highlights the fact that he never cheated on his wife (is that true, though?). They love to nag each other and are constantly bickering, especially when it comes to the well-being of Moon Ho’s dog Dong Mi. He tends to consider his dog to be more important than his wife, whom he sees as a servant most of the time. I would say they represent quite a patriarchal and traditional (and outdated) marital life: the woman being the housewife and the man the head of the family. Despite all that, they don’t hate each other (not that much at least) and seem quite faithful. It is actually the only positive couple in the drama. No cheating, communication (even when they opinions diverge) and quite a “happy” marriage.
On the other side, there is Kim Dong Mi (Kim Bo Yeon), who seems to be deeply in love with Shin Ki Rim (No Ju Hyeon). They have been married for decades as well, after Ki Rim’s wife died. Dong Mi was a young nurse, who took care of him and his son Yu Shin. However, Dong Mi is wearing a mask. She can’t stand her husband anymore and finds him disgusting. Yet, she stays for several reasons: Yu Shin, the inheritance and her future freedom. In appearance they are the perfect couple, compared to Sa Hyun’s parents. Nevertheless, the loyalty is in fact stronger in Sa Hyun’s parents’ marriage, who are constantly arguing. A good way to reverse the actual circumstances.
In the end, Dong Mi manages to get rid of her husband by giving him food bad for the body, orchestrating it all until the climax at the cinema. The doctor has a heart attack and she lets him die by her side.
What are the themes tackled?
Apart from marriage, affairs and relationships, some other interesting themes are actually quite present in Love (feat Marriage and Divorce):
Oedipus complex: You may be familiar with the terminology, but if you are not, Oedipus comes from a greek myth, in which the hero Oedipus ends up committing parricide and incest. This myth lies at the foundation of this complex, developed by Sigmund Freud. Roughly explained it is the desire of a child toward a parent of the opposite sex. I guess now, it reminds you of one specific character? Yu Shin, of course. His relationship with his actual mother before she died was already quite complicated. She always favored his brother and never really liked Yu Shin. She told him as well. After the accident that killed both his mother and brother, Yu Shin find refuge and protection in his newly motherly figure: Dong Mi. Since then, he has developed very ambiguous feelings towards her.
Having a disease: Pi Young’s mother has indeed cancer in final stage. She has been exiled in Thailand by her own daughter, who considered her responsible for her father’s death. Feeling that something is astray though, Mo Seo Hyang (Lee Hyo Chun) goes back to Korea and tries to recreate a link with her family before her death. I think she mainly wants to enjoy her last moments and, at the same time, make sure that her daughter is in good trustworthy hands and that she won’t have regrets, once she is gone.
Though I didn’t really appreciate how forthcoming she was in the first episodes, I could rapidly see that she had her daughter’s best interests at heart and really wanted to protect her, that is to say prevent her from being hurt by her husband. Through all that, she still keeps her disease a secret (she doesn’t want to be a burden) and bears the pain incredibly.
Remaining single: One character singularizes himself from the rest: Seo Ban (Moon Sung Ho). He is a mysterious and intriguing figure, who decided to remain a bachelor at 40. He doesn’t feel the need to be in a relationship nor to get married. He works at the radio station, which is interesting considering that he is there kind of the “talk of the village”. He is handsome, rich but a bachelor, raising suspicion around him. Moreover, our three ladies are constantly trying to decipher him and, to a certain extent, could be interested in him.
If we take into account the fact that marriages and relationships in this drama are terrible, he may have taken the best decision for himself, by staying single.
Anyway, I am very curious to see how this character is going to evolve.
The scenario: I cannot not mention Phoebe’s style and wit in the drama. I actually think that without it, I probably wouldn’t have continued. She managed to immerse us in very different universes and to created many links between those. She also chose to tell the story in reverse, starting with the revelation of the affairs (and the climax at episode 8) and then do a flashback 10 months earlier to see how it all begun.
This is at the same time a brilliant and clumsy move. Indeed, it gives us another view on the mistresses’ relationships, almost making us adhere to the affair, without never accepting it. We are thus put in a situation in which we constantly feel anxious. This rises a certain number of questions regarding the way wives are going to react, mistresses and husbands as well. It builds up expectation and creates anticipation for the rest of the story.
Unfortunately, it lasted for too long. 8 episodes were dedicated to the wives and 8 to the mistresses. The second part ran in circles in my opinion and created a sense of boredom. I really felt as if I was seeing the same scenes over and over again. At some point, it created disinterest and disappointment. A shame! I really hope season 2 will not be constructed as such…
Another problem in the scenario was also some of its ideas, especially at the very beginning. She tended to put the blame on the wives for having their husbands cheat on them. This is unacceptable.
Questions to answer in season 2:
– The reaction of the wives: will they discover the mistresses’ identities? Will they get a divorce, turn a blind eye, humiliate the mistress and the husband?
– How will husbands either hide or deal with their situation?
– What is the story of the oriental doctor?
– Will Seo Ban find someone, be involved with one of the female leads?
– Will Dong Mi’s crime be discovered?
– How will new characters be introduced in this mess?
P.S.: I personally loved the OST of the drama “Memory” by U JI!
Once Upon a Drama 