This TV series, called "The Successful Story of a Bright Girl" in English, was my first experience with Korean drama but it certainly will not be my last.
The plot revolves around Yang-Soon, an adorable country girl who is forced to drop out of school to work as a maid to pay off her con-artist parent's debts. She is employed by arrogant young cosmetics executive Gi-Tae (Ki-Tae in the subtitles) who takes pleasure in making her life miserable but secretly begins to admire her-- much to the displeasure of his girlfriend Na-Hee. Meanwhile, Gi-Tae's rival, Jun-Tae, plots to make him penniless.
***SPOILERS! If you don't want to know what happens after the initial episodes, please skip this section.***
What had been a cute Cinderella story turns dark when Gi-Tae falls into Jun-Tae's trap and is left a pauper. Yang-Soon, who has always dreamed to saving a prince in danger, takes the opportunity to help him with results that are alternately funny, romantic and sad. However, the plot returns to a sunny state when Gi-Tae pulls himself together and beings to plot to get his company back from Jun-Tae.
Many viewers were annoyed by the ending, which involves plot elements that seem to have been pulled out of the air at the last minute. While it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the show, I wish the screenwriters had done a better job of foreshadowing.
***End of Spoilers***
While it is a romantic comedy, there are enough fights and dirty business deals to keep most guys fairly intrigued. Girls can enjoy the obvious chemistry between the leads and the sweet love story that finally develops.
The show is certainly not perfect, characters make very silly mistakes and are much too trusting of their enemies. And you had better like the two main songs in the soundtrack since they are both played in their entirety at least once and often twice an episode. For me, however, the flaws are outweighed by charming presentation.
The series consists of 16 hour-long episodes. I saw it on an 8 DVD set imported from Malaysia. Having the advantage of viewing part of it with a Korean speaker, I must say that the English sub-titles leave much to be desired. They range from grammatically weird ("On earth, what are you doing?") to absolutely unreadable. Profanities are added when the characters said nothing of the kind in Korean and sometimes subtitles are added when a character didn't say anything at all! Most frustratingly, one short scene has no subtitles. However, the language problems did not ruin my appreciation for the show, all that's required is a little extra patience.
This is an excellent show for newcomers to the world of Korean entertainment. It certainly hooked me!
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