All Haywire: The Life of a Fangirl

Tuesday, May 24, 2011 / 7:06 PM

Aaaah! Another great drama ends.

49 Days was the drama that I was most anticipated about after the broadcast of the phenomenon that was Secret Garden, because its premise was very compelling and I'm just a big softie for second chances and the afterlife. I almost didn't end up watching this drama just because most of the cast were actors I've never seen in anything before, minus Biker Granny and Bae Soo-bin, who were in Brilliant Legacy. But thankfully Dramabeans wrote recaps for it and my curiosity was instantly perked up again.

In the drama, Shin Ji-hyun (played by Nam Gyuri), a woman who practically has everything: background, friends, and a good fiance, suddenly dies from a car accident just days before her wedding. The problem is, she wasn't "scheduled" to die yet, so a hot reaper boy called the Scheduler (Jung Il-woo) appears and gives her a deal: she'll be able to live again if she can find three people besides her family who would cry genuine tears for her in 49 days. Those tears would be proof that her life was worth living.

To do that, she'll have to borrow the body of another woman, Song Yi-kyung (Lee Yo-won), who has been living an almost-zombie life and finding little to live for. Ji-hyun learns that her fiance, Kang Min-ho (Bae Soo-bin), and her best friend, Shin In-jung (Seo Ji-hye), have been deceiving her and working to bring down her father's company, and that her old friend, Han Kang (Jo Hyun-jae), has been in love with her all this time despite his cold, aloof behavior towards her. She also finds out some interesting tidbits about the Scheduler's old life, which by the way is my ultimate, favorite subplot/storyline in kdramasphere.

Things I love about the drama:

1. Everyone turned in a great performance in this drama but really, LEE YO-WON kills it. That woman is ageless! She makes the transition from being the soulless, walking zombie Song Yi-kyung to the smiling, bubbly Shin Ji-hyun look so effortless and natural that it's hard to get confused about who is who. You see the change not only in her eyes but in her stance and the way she speaks. Not many actors can pull off the double role and Lee Yo-won deserves all the praise she got.

2. It's a little rare to find a love storyline in the kdramasphere as heartbreaking and sweeping as the Yi-Soo/Yi-kyung subplot. What's nice about their story is that they're not romantics who believe in fate bringing them together even in death. The issue wasn't how to unite the couple again or find a loophole to bring Yi-Soo back again, but how to help Yi-kyung let go of Yi-soo's memory so both of them can move on -- she with her life, he with the afterlife.

And lemme just say that I totally swooned over JUNG IL-WOO in this -- perm, raps, and all.

3. A follow-up to No. 2 -- the Scheduler has a very prominent sense of fashion here. Reapers collecting souls with style, HA.

4. Thankfully I felt zero chemistry between the Scheduler and Shin Ji-hyun. I know some viewers "shipped" them and even predicted a tear from the reaper boy, but their interactions were of the bickering-sibling type, which I still find adorable nonetheless.

5. I dunno about you but I loved SEO JI-HYE's character, despite the flaws and the twisted view of the world she shares with her partner in crime, Kang Min-ho (played by Mr. Forever-Second-Lead BAE SOO-BIN). All this time she clearly knows she loves Ji-hyun despite deceiving her, but she greatly overshadows that feeling with the inferiority issues she has with her best friend that lead her to plot against the company. Shin In-jung is not a very complex character; she was, simply, jealous. And that's pretty realistic, especially since she grew up with almost nothing and had to live with someone so affluent, so kind, so generous.

6. The soundtrack is simply lovely and the suspenseful instrumental at the end of episode 19 was spot-on. Despite being reminiscent of local, makjang dramas here, the music is zippy and sweeping at the same time. Why can't our local dramas have instrumentals like that?

7. Did anybody expect the Granny from Brilliant Legacy to be Madame Reaper Biker here?

6. Initially, I had major issues about the ending. Initially meaning, when I read the transcap and the comments at Soompi, and before I watched the episode itself. On one angle, it was disappointing, since, well, after rooting for the main character's success for eighteen episodes how can anyone not be disappointed to know that her success was incredibly short-lived? All that two-month suffering for nothing?

I'd like to see the 49 days as a blessing than a curse. I'd go as far as even saying she was lucky to have died two months earlier than her fated death date, because she gained a chance to have a broader sense of life and the world around her, to bring everything back in order, to receive Han Kang's love, and, albeit indirectly and unknowingly, lead a long-lost relative back. Like Ji-hyun said, she "might have lived a fake life" had she not been given the 49 days deal.

Things I didn't love about the drama:

1. Every important conversation or back-hugging scene in this drama has an audience in the form of our resident stalkers Kang Min-ho and Shin In-jung. And no one ever sees them. NO ONE.

2. The lack of Ji-hyun-in-her-real-body and Han Kang interactions drove me slightly nuts. The most they got together was a picnic date, if you don't count the oops-I-tripped-and-landed-uncomfortably-on-top-of-you flashback scenes. But it's not a big deal. Anyway, if you look at it in an actor-status (?) perspective, you don't really expect JO HYUN-JAE, the top-billed male lead, be paired up happily with a relatively new actress like NAM GYURI, do you? At the same time you can't expect him to be with his female lead counterpart, Lee Yo-won, because her character already has Song Yi-soo, even if he's dead. Lots of major mindfuck in this drama, I know.

3.The drama would have been perfectly fine without the sibling concept revealed and concluded in the course of barely fifteen minutes in the last episode. It is satisfying though to see Song Yi-kyung happy and smiling, as much as Ji-hyun-in-Yi-kyung's-body did. Ugh, I'm still grieving over her tragic, what-could-have-been love story with Song Yi-soo. :(

4. I only found out halfway into the series that 49 Days was never billed as a rom-com from the start, which explained the limited humorous antics in the show. One Scheduler was enough comedy though. Swoon.

In spite of the flaws and the bittersweet ending, 49 Days had pretty strong writing to back up its life-and-death-plus-soul-possession theme. I was swept off my feet and fell in love with the characters, who were very flawed and very human (minus the stalking trait). Overall, I'd give this drama an 8/10, and have it in my top 5 favorites, right next to The World That They Live In.