[REVIEW] KBS TV series "Spy Myung-Wol" - 1st Episode

Scene from "Spy Myung-Wol" [KBS]

KBS TV series "Spy Myung-Wol" - Mondays and Tuesdays 9:55 p.m.
The first episode to a drama is like the first impression you give at a job interview. What you show the interviewer (viewers) within the set time frame will decide whether you will be given the chance for another meeting. And the probability to do so will be lower the weaker what you show is but on the other hand, you could also lose points by trying to reveal too much at once. "Spy Myung-Wol" laid forth a number of incidents and subplots nonstop during its hour-long airing -- the craze over South Korean pop culture in North Korea, the activities of an organization in North Korea aimed at responding to this, the meeting of North Korean agent Han Myung-wol (Han Ye-seul) and Hallyu star Kang-woo (Mun Jung-hyuk), a secretive masked ball where an ancient book is put on auction, Myung-Wol entering South Korea in order to join a special forces group by being acknowledged her capabilities by Choi Ryu (Lee Jin-wook) and a gas explosion on the set of Kang-woo's drama.

"Spy Myung-Wol" takes off from an ironical point, showing how the Hallyu, a combination of capitalism and pop culture, emerges within North Korea's rigid system, and continues with an elite agent with remarkable fighting capabilities hiding her identity to get an autograph by a celebrity and then to forcing that celebrity for an autograph by saying she is his fan. Like so, the clashing of two such extremely different cultures and worlds may be the best environment in which to produce comedy and romance but "Spy Myung-Wol" failed to show what is most appealing about itself by constantly laying forth pressing situations and changing the tone of the show before presenting its characters properly. The second episode of the show will definitely need to show more original forms of chemistry between Myung-wol and Kang-woo as seen in the moment when Kang-woo ran away from Myung-wol after tying her shoelaces together and Myung-wol with a straight face, cursed at him in North Korean dialect.

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Reporter : Choi Ji-Eun five@
Editor : Jessica Kim jesskim@