My Mister Review — Should You watch it?
This — is one of my top 5 Korean dramas of all time. I knew it was going to be right in my wheelhouse, but even still, it took me a while to start watching. Hearing about how sad it was, I just couldn’t get in the mood for it. And yes, it really was heavy at times, but I’m so glad that I finally got around to watching it!
Thankfully, it doesn’t just stay in that heavy zone, it also has a lot of fun and becomes heart-warming and thought-provoking. The show developed into two major themes for me: we all need someone in our corner and in parallel, we all need to be true to ourselves.
tldr: Heavy, sweet, and everything in between, except that romance is not any of the central themes, though other forms of love are in full display. You won’t regret taking this journey with these characters and a true must-watch show for anyone who has hope or wants to have hope for humanity.
There are three major arenas from which this drama plays out: two pains and one redemption.
Pain #1: Poverty
The first arena is played around Lee Ji An, played by IU (Lee Ji Eun), and her struggles fighting against the constrictions of poverty. As a middle schooler, her parents get into debt and then run away, leaving her to take care of not just the debt, but also her deaf and physically weak grandmother.
Her debt is eventually held by one loan shark, who comes and physically abuses her and her grandmother to wring $$ out of them. One day, Ji An snaps and kills the loan shark. Jump back to present day: now it’s the fatherless, loan shark’s son, and Ji An’s ex-classmate, who’s now doing the collection, aka abuse.
This portion was why the beginning of this drama was so difficult to watch. The writer and director do a masterful job at conveying the suffering that Ji An goes through in a myriad of ways.
One moment that stuck with me was watching her drink the concoction of instant coffee bags when she gets home at night. You might not notice at first, but eventually you see that this is her dinner, and sometimes, her only “meal” all day. A second and more emotionally taxing moment was the physical abuse laid out by the son-turned-loan-shark. The director just lingers. When you feel like you’ve watched enough and you can’t take it anymore and you just want to jump into the scene and stop this guy…even then, it just keeps going.
We’re brought into her world. The poverty. The lack of opportunity. The weight of the world on your shoulders. Even so, this drama tries to show that sometimes, all you need is one strong person standing in your corner.
Redemption: someone in your corner
Ji An and Dong Hoon work at the same company; Dong Hoon, a team manager, and Ji An, the temp. Their lives begin to collide when Dong Hoon is accidentally framed for bribery. The accident becomes an opportunity beneficial for both Ji An, to help her take care of her debilitating debt, and the CEO of the company, who’s sleeping with Dong Hoon’s wife and wants him gone.
This leads to some perplexing relationship dynamics where Dong Hoon owes Ji An a favor AND Ji An is trying to help the CEO take Dong Hoon down. It’s also here where, in order to help the CEO, she bugs Dong Hoon’s phone. Yes, a bit creepy, but as she begins to listen in on his entire day, she gets a better understanding of who he is, particularly of how alike they are.
This is where the drama starts to lift from the heavy and becomes fun. The two eventually develop an almost uncle-niece type of relationship, where he becomes that adult that she’s never had in her life. A relationship where she starts to ask, “Why would he do this for me?” Where his actions reflect the kind of society that we say we want, but rarely ever work towards, where we help out those in need, even when it costs us something.
It takes some time, but eventually, these two characters recognize that they’re the same, that they’re both broken and scarred. And through each other, they both find healing and a new beginning. And it’s that development that the viewer will cherish and root for.
Pain #2: Self-Love
Dong Hoon is a picture perfect guy. He’s a guy with high standards of morality, who tries to do everything by the book and with excellence, and takes care of those under him. From the outside, you would think that his life is idyllic: manager at a large company, wife who’s a practicing lawyer, and a kid that they’ve sent off to boarding school in the U.S.
But just as poverty is the image that we need to break to see who Ji An really is, that pursuit of perfection is the house of cards that Dong Hoon built that begins to crumble. Dong Hoon’s pain may not be as blatant or as in your face as Ji An’s pain, but nonetheless, it’s a pain that he endures and that many can relate with.
Let’s leave this here. All you have to know is that his victory is just as heartwarming to see as Ji An’s, so just enjoy the journey. But I just have to mention how much I loved how the writer builds this part of the story up. Dong Hoon has two brothers and an eclectic class of neighborhood friends, and the writer uses these characters to craft the narrative. All are going through different crises in their own lives and in different gradations of subtlety, we learn about what loving yourself as a middle-aged person mean.
It reminded me of how in Because This is My First Life, the writer uses 3 different couples to talk about different kinds of romantic love.
Conclusion
This felt like a story without compromise. One where the director and writer got to tell the stories that they wanted to tell. They even got a rare mid-season break, so that they could have an extra week to finish filming. I don’t say this lightly, but this was a masterpiece.
It’s a beautifully woven story. You get the laughs, you get the feels, but what you really get is a deeper understanding of the pain of everyday people, with all it’s many inevitable ups and downs. It makes you want to be a better, a better human and member of society.
You walk away from the story asking, “Why can’t we all just live that way? Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Man, I didn’t even get to the supporting cast. Their stories were just as engaging, comical, and heart-wrenching. Just more great characters with different stories and different perspectives…more people you end up rooting for. Imperfect people trying their best; aka humans.
I just watched a trailer and it makes me excited for the day when I rewatch this; that moment when I just need a pick me up, more faith in humanity. As much as the heavy beginning seems to contradict such a statement, the journey of this show embodies love, with all the joy, hope, and pain that it entails. In crazy times like this pandemic, that dose of humanity may be just what we need.
OVERALL: 10/10
- STORY: 10.0/10
- DIRECTING: 10.0/10
- LEAD Actors: 10.0/10
- SUPPORTING Cast: 9.5/10
- CINEMATOGRAPHY: 8/10
- MUSIC: hits the emotions just right
