Drama Review: My Girl

My Girl (MBC 2005)
Number of Eps: 16
Main Cast: Lee Dong Wook, Lee Da Hae, Lee Joon Ki, Park Si Yeon
Korean Wiz link: http://www.koreanwiz.org/at/drama-mygirl.html


Along with All About Eve, Kim Sam Soon, Friends, and Sweet 18 (review coming soon!), My Girl is a drama I would easily recommend to a first time drama viewer. This drama centers around Lee Da Hae’s character Joo Yoo Rin. We are first introduced to Yoo Rin, who works as a tour guide, running into the Cheju-do airport begging the airlines to hold up a flight while her partner is frantically driving a tour bus to the airport loaded with tourist needing to catch the plane. When the airline people tell her that they can’t hold up the flight, she throws herself on the ground in tears begging to see her oppa, who is leaving her, one last time. Taking pity on the sobbing woman, they let her on the plane to find her boyfriend. She keeps the charade up long enough for her tourist customers to arrive and catch the plane. We later learn that thanks to her gambling Dad, Yoo Rin, grew up a survivor, living all over the world and fleeing when her Dad would get them into trouble. Consequently, she speaks Chinese and Japanese, and she can pull off a scam when needed. However, her heart is in the right place. While they’ve settled on Cheju-do, Dad gets in gambling trouble again and flees. The thugs are after her to make good on his gambling debts, so she is on the run again. She meets Seol Gong-chan, played by Lee Dong Wook, who runs large hotel in Seoul and in Cheju-do. After a series of events makes him aware of her fibbing capabilities, he hires her to play his long lost cousin, who his dying grandfather has desperately been seeking for, but Gong-chan has been unable to find. Gong-chan wants to use Yoo-rin to fulfill his grandfather's dying wish to see his granddaughter.

Absolutely a comedy, this drama is light and funny and never loses its sense of humor. Yoo-rin’s character is good-hearted and very likeable, and you sympathize with her as she gets buried deeper in her lies as the "fake cousin." The serious-minded Gong-chan makes a great straight-man to her antics. In addition, the supporting cast is wonderful with colorful characters and story lines to go along with the main plot. Playing Goong-chan’s close friend and his rival in Yoo-rin’s love is Lee Joon Ki, who stars in The King and The Clown, a recent top grossing film in Korea. Joon Ki is the rage in Korea right now, and he raises the bar on the term "metro-sexual." The drama even pokes fun at him "looking like a girl." A bonus in the drama is fun Christmas time scenes in Seoul and lots of great scenes atop the 63 Building. There is also a great karaoke scene that takes place in the "country" after Gong-chan and Yoo-rin get lost and she scams their way into a local gathering. The drama has a great soundtrack too. Anyway, watch the drama and as Yoo-rin says "You will be blessed." BASHA!!

The entire drama is loaded with English subs on youtube by a user named byako. I linked to page 12 of her video list to get to ep 1.
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=byako&page=12

While I dld this and watched it thanks to d-addicts and fan subs, I want to buy it to add to my collection. YA will be releasing it in September:
http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/section-videos/code-k/pid-1004473245/

Finally, it can be downloaded at:
http://www.silentregrets.com/dramas/articles/kdramas/page/3/