Thoughts on Unexpected You (or…A Bang Full of Bangs)

It’s been a year and a half since I’ve reviewed a Korean drama on this blog, and I’m just now getting back in the game. I finished watching Unexpected You about a month ago, but I’ve been putting off this review because honestly, I just didn’t feel like writing it. I’d like to start watching another one though, and I feel as though I can’t do that until I get this thing posted, so…here we are.

For what it’s worth, I enjoyed this drama very much. It was probably my favorite one I’ve watched yet, so my procrastination is not meant to be a reflection of any low regard for the drama itself. The Korean title is “넝쿨째 굴러온 당신,” which literally translates into “You Who Rolled in Unexpectedly.” For simplicity, the English title is given as either Unexpected You or My Husband Got a Family. I prefer the former, as it’s closer to the literal meaning of the title.

Plot

Two key themes of this drama are family relationships and cultural expectations. Unlike America, Korea is a very family-oriented culture, and adherence to hierarchy within the family is very important. This drama shows how traditional values often cause tension for Koreans in modern society.

In the first episode, we’re introduced to a Yoon-Hee. Yoon-Hee is a woman who worked hard to establish a career in TV production, and she doesn’t want to give it up. She had a difficult time finding a husband, because every man she dated had family members she would’ve had to deal with. Eventually though, she discovered Terry. Terry was adopted by a Korean-American family when he was five years old, and he can’t remember anything about when he lived in Korea. His adoptive parents are world travelers, so after he grew up, they encouraged him go off on his own and didn’t try to tie him down. Terry is a doctor, and for whatever reason, he decided to go back to Korea to practice medicine, where he eventually met Yoon-Hee. Besides being a perfect match for each other, Terry didn’t have strong family ties that would have interfered with Yoon-Hee’s career, so it was only natural for them to get married.

However, the first episode also introduces us to the Bang family. 30 years earlier, Eom Chung-Ae, the mother, took her young son Gwi-Nam to the marketplace while she was pregnant. Suddenly, she went into labor and needed to be rushed to the hospital. She left Gwi-Nam at the marketplace, trusting the women there to watch him (I love that old-fashioned sense of community, where even people in the city know and trust each other). Being a little kid though, Gwi-Nam wandered off and was never found. For 30 years now, Chung-Ae has had to live with a sense of guilt over her son’s disappearance. Despite searching for him constantly, he’s never turned up.

Perhaps you can already tell where this is headed: Terry is actually the Bang family’s long-lost son Gwi-Nam. When Terry and Yoon-Hee need a new apartment, they end up moving into the building owned by Bang Jang-Soo, Gwi-Nam’s father. By then you know it’s just a matter of time before they discover he’s the son they’ve been searching for. The real story though, is the adjustment everyone has to make once these formerly bickering neighbors become family. Much of the focus is on Yoon-Hee, who now has a bunch of in-laws she never wanted living right beside her, and how hard it is for her to play her new role. In the same building, Gwi-Nam’s relatives include his parents, his paternal grandmother, three sisters, a niece, an aunt, an uncle and a cousin.

Since this is a family drama, all the family members have their own plotlines, which intersect at various points. In addition to Gwi-Nam’s family, Yoon-Hee’s relatives (mother, two brothers, and a sister-in-law) also factor in. Even though they don’t live in the same building, Chung-Ae’s two sisters are also part of the story.

Writing and Acting

I thought this drama was strong in both categories. The actress who played Yoon-Hee occasionally seemed fake in her emoting, but generally she was solid. The actress who played Mal-Sook, the youngest daughter, also struck me as being a shade weaker than the other actors, but she was good at her role when it called for being comically “evil.”

This drama actually had three actors that I’d seen in previous dramas. Jang Yong, who played the father in Spring Day, was also the father here. As I said in my review of that drama, he’s a very impressive actor, even though he’s not the type to get leading roles. He actually brought a tear to my eye in the scene where he discovers that Terry is Gwi-Nam. I think I officially consider Jang Yong my favorite Korean actor. Am I unusual or what?

One of Chung-Ae’s sisters was played by the same actress who played the mother of one of the three “dads” in Three Dads, One Mom. The other one was basically just a cameo, but Ji Jin-Hee, whose acting I singled out as especially poor in Spring Day, appears as a priest in one episode.

I think the writing was good in the sense that it was funny, and they tied the storylines together well. A lot of the jokes I didn’t understand until I asked my co-worker about them, but once I understood, I appreciated how clever they were. I really liked the characters, and I wish I had the space to describe each of them in detail.

Music

There were several songs I recognized in this drama.

In one episode they actually used the song “너의 곁으로” (“To Your Side”) by Jo Sung Mo, which was one of the recurring pop songs in Lovers in Paris. I thought that was funny, and even wondered if it was meant to be some sort of reference.

Secret made a musical appearance when the characters came across “Starlight, Moonlight” while flipping radio stations in the car.

There were two references to the scene in Pretty Woman when Julia Roberts goes shopping set to the Roy Orbison classic (at least, I think that’s where that cliché originated). Both of them involved shopping for clothes and the song playing in the background. I thought it was kind of dumb for them to do that twice, but I guess they spaced them apart enough that viewers who were following the drama on TV would be less likely to notice it. For some reason though, it made me think of Dumb & Dumber.

Both “You Raise Me Up” and “Power of Love” (the Celine Dion song) appeared as the melody of the background music in different scenes as well.

English

This was by far the longest drama I’ve watched yet (58 episodes), but I think I documented almost every case of English words being used. Ready? Here are all the ones I noted:

“No comment,” “sorry,” psycho, wife, dark circle, my present, reject, “Let’s go downstairs,” good night, stress, of course, franchise, sunglasses, singer-songwriter, diet, American-style goodbye hug, date, ticket, lotion, “Over the Rainbow,” hurricane, netizens, manager, howling (feedback), stance, Honey, interview, home ground, high-heels, three-out system, spam, timing, flying knee kick, accept, hardcore, very good, rooftop, “Yes!,” ex-wife, list, makeup, lipstick, divorce, specs, boxing, image, icon, restaurant, wine, wedding dress, self, idea, special, perfect, minus, carnation, coupon, “It’s not a dream,” tip, steam, “The King of Lobby,” mouse pad, tester, U-turn, propose, trophy, bromide, history, blacklist, tear stick, television program, lip gloss, stalker, fair play, staff, ice cream waffles, salad, salt, golden time, entertainer, audition, concept, size, volume, quality, seminar, condition, accessory, couple, campus couple, S.O.S., “ready, action!,” fashion, downtown, surprise, bus tour, big star, key point, character, membership training, camera battery, two plus, set, manners, cream, “thank you,” Restart, wet tissue, cream sauce, tomato sauce, trouble, romantic, spa, pace, monitor, sponge, glamorous, office wife, house wife, cast, world star, “hair and makeup,” trauma, “you’re welcome,” rival, shopping, energy, noise marketing, “party time,” chance, “Let’s go!”, room service, pitcher, tight, win-win, show time, “ta-da!”, goodbye kiss, romance, single, love affair, dessert, carpool, followers, seaworld, forever, cut, fan club, “I’m OK,” miscast, kiss scene, extra, smart, buyer, pro, interior café, stop, point, “Never!”, incentive, management, rental, taxi fee, UFO, guide, schedule, “Good idea!”, Olympic season, instant, botox filler, “Good morning!”, remake, relax, necktie, scale, event, “the power of love,” rule, scandal, trunk, chic, sign, voice phishing, check, hot pants, mini skirt, home dress, show, hairstyle, trademark, sausage, one-room, active, modern rock, chocolate, kitchen towel, sharp, detail, holiday

Many of Korea’s words for certain objects are the same as the English words, because I presume they didn’t have these things in Korea until recent times.

I often heard the word “wife” used, even though Korean has the word anae. I learned that nowadays, anae sounds old-fashioned to many younger people, so they use the English word instead.

“Stress” was also commonly used. I’m not sure what the deal with that one is. I suppose the concept of “stress” (as in, pressure from dealing with constant responsibilities) feels like a somewhat recent development to the West as well. Older books and movies don’t talk about “stress” much. The concept seems like a product of the modern-day self-help culture.

Ending

OK, I’ve noticed something in all four dramas I’ve watched: The final episode is always weird. By the time they get to the final episode, they’ve got to cram in every loose end that needs tying up and still give the viewers something satisfactory to close it out. One of the three sisters gets married in the final episode (though I won’t spoil it and tell you which one, in case you plan to watch it), which is nice, but they get that part out of the way early and deal with a bunch of other stuff too.

For some reason, the subtitling in the final episode appeared to have been done by a different person than the one who subtitled the rest of the series, because it followed a different stylistic format. It annoyed me, because it appeared that that subtitler wasn’t familiar with the characters’ names, and just went by whatever he or she heard, which was wrong in several cases. They also seemed to make reference to a family member of some sort who was never shown or mentioned anywhere else in the series, so I wonder if that was something else the subtitler misheard and wrote down incorrectly. I honestly have no idea what that was all about. Once I learn Korean better I’ll have to go back and rewatch it.

The final scene was just bizarre. It involved a four-legged race, but there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to ending it in the place where they did. It left me scratching my head.

Other Observations

One minor recurring theme is that Terry/Gwi-Nam was raised in America, and is thus unfamiliar with certain Korean cultural norms. It made for some good comedy, but at times I felt like I understood Korean culture better than he did. How is it that an ethnically Korean guy who speaks the language, was raised by Korean-Americans, and lived as an independent adult in Korea knows less than I do? For what it’s worth, on the few occasions we heard Terry speak English it sounded very unnatural, so from a native speaker’s perspective it seemed like a stretch to think that he actually grew up in America.

A lot of humor was derived from the characters’ names, though my co-worker had to explain the jokes to me. Gwi-Nam, for instance, has a humorous full name, Bang Gwi-Nam. In Korean, banggwi means “fart,” and nam is a root that often means “male,” so his name could be understood as “fart man.”

The three sisters are named Il-Sook, I-Sook and Mal-Sook. Early in the series, it’s frequently mentioned how unusual their names are. I learned that it’s because the character “Sook” (숙) is somewhat old-fashioned, and it’s rare for younger women to have it in their names. “Il” (일) is the Sino-Korean character for “one,” “I” (이) is the Sino-Korean character for “two,” and “Mal,” (말) means “last,” so the first characters in their names signify their birth order.

The cousin who lives upstairs is named Jang-Goon, which my co-worker told me is a common name for dogs in Korea (it means “general,” like the military rank). I think the dog comparison is supposed to go along with the fact that Jang-Goon is a very slow-witted character.

There’s also Yoon-Hee’s old student, later I-Sook’s co-worker, whose full name is Cheon Jae-Yong. Cheonjae means “genius” in Korean, but Jae-Yong isn’t always the brightest bulb. I think there was a joke intended there.

There’s a conflict that lasts for a few episodes that you’d never see in an American drama: Mal-Sook gets upset because Yoon-Hee addresses her by her actual name. Because Mal-Sook never gave her permission to do so, it would be considered rude by Korean standards. If you weren’t familiar with Korea, you’d probably never understand that.

Though the drama is about her husband finding his family, Yoon-Hee in many ways seems to be the focal character. I alternated between liking her and disliking her. She had many good qualities, such as intelligence and drive, but other times she was underhanded and selfish. Not to bad-mouth Korea, but this drama seems to suggest that the culture of Korea is one with a lot of phoniness and backbiting. One thing I’ve always had difficulty with is putting on a happy face when I’m anything but. I don’t think I could survive in a society like Korea.

The English subtitles were generally very good, though I occasionally wondered if the translator’s first language was English. I had to listen rather than just read the subtitles, or I might’ve gotten confused at certain parts. Thankfully, because I know a little about Korean language and culture, I was able to understand on my own at times. Unfortunately, there were occasionally jokes that were plays on words, and therefore, they didn’t really translate. The translator didn’t seem to try to explain them either, so if all you did was read the subtitles, you would’ve been confused.

One frequent error I saw was use of the word “complicating” rather than “complicated.”

In another episode, Yoon-Hee’s brother says in response to a comment their mother made about herself: “Why do you say such slander?” I can only presume he meant “Why do you say something so dishonorable?”, because slander is generally about other people, not oneself.

One thing I learned from watching this drama is that the word sagwa means both “apple” and “apology.” There’s a joke about that in one episode when Jae-Yong tosses I-Sook an apple and she asks “What’s this?” He says “My sagwa,” playing off the double meaning to mean “my apology.” Maybe it wouldn’t have worked, but they missed a chance to play off the similarities of the two words in English. Jae-Yong could have said “My apple-ogy.” I need to learn this language so I can be a mean subtitling machine.

Something else about Jae-Yong also made me wonder. He says he’s the first son in his family in several generations, yet his father and grandfather founded and run the company he works for. Is his father not a son? Did ownership of the company pass through the maternal line? I wonder if there was a translation or writing error there.

Because Yoon-Hee’s job is with a company that produces TV dramas, there were a lot of meta-jokes. They frequently poked fun at dramas themselves, suggesting that the characters were over-the-top and the scenarios were far-fetched. The writers often seemed to be winking to the audience about the fact that their own characters and situations could be ridiculous at times. As I mentioned in my writeup for Spring Day, I think the people who make these dramas generally know they aren’t high art, so they don’t mind being self-deprecating about them.

In one of the early episodes, before they discovered that Terry was Gwi-Nam, I-Sook and Mal-Sook had an exchange that went something like this:

“Can you believe the way that drama ended?” “I know! Why don’t they just reveal that he’s the son already?”

I’m guessing those lines were based on internet comments for Unexpected You, because it was several episodes before the characters discovered they were related, and it had to be frustrating for viewers to have to wait week-to-week like that.

I’ll preface my remaining comments with a spoiler alert. If you plan to watch, just skip ahead to the bolded “Final Thoughts” below.

One plotline involving Il-Sook is that she meets Yoon Bin, a washed-up pop star from the ‘90s that she used to be a huge fan of. She becomes his manager and helps him get on a TV show called Restart, a singing competition which is intended to help former music stars rejuvenate their careers (I presume this was inspired by the real-life Korean show I Am a Singer). We don’t know whether he wins, but the last we see of him in the competition is that he makes it to the Top 3, and by then he’s already secured a record deal. That seems odd to me. Is he allowed to get a record deal while he’s still competing?

Each of the three sisters finds a love interest by the end: Il-Sook finds Yoon Bin, I-Sook finds Jae-Yong and Mal-Sook finds Se-Gwang, Yoon-Hee’s brother. Even though she’s the least likable of the three sisters, Mal-Sook’s relationship with Se-Gwang was the only one I liked at first, because they actually seemed to complement each other well. Both of them were dishonest and manipulative, but when they were together, they actually tried to be better people. I figured they needed each other, so I was rooting for them.

The prospect of Il-Sook and Yoon Bin getting together seemed too cheesy for me for most of the series, and it wasn’t until the very end that I actually started to like the idea of them as a couple. Perhaps viewers felt the same way I did, because in the final episode, the two of them still hadn’t gotten together, though it seemed like they left open the possibility that they might in the future. As I’ve mentioned before, these dramas seem to leave things ambiguous on purpose, probably because it allows viewers to project what they want onto the story.

I-Sook was my favorite of the sisters. She had a very simple, unpretentious charm, despite being a bit rough around the edges. I didn’t like Jae-Yong at first, because he was kind of dumb and immature, but when it became clear that he really appreciated I-Sook, I was OK with them being together. It was cute when Jae-Yong’s father met her for the first time. He originally came to tell her he didn’t approve of her, but when he talked to her, she won him over just by being herself. I don’t know if Korea ever does spinoff dramas, but I’d like to see one about Jae-Yong and I-Sook’s life together (because now that we’re past the spoiler alert, I can reveal that’s it’s the two of them who get married in the final episode).

As I said before, I wish I could explain every character in detail, but I don’t want this post to be unbearably long. I recommend watching it to appreciate how interesting they all are.

Final Thoughts

This drama apparently won a lot of awards, and I can see why. It was superb. Sitting through 58 episodes was a little rough, but at least it was rarely boring. Near the end, there were moments when it felt like they were just killing time, but as I’ve said, things can get screwy when they’re approaching the conclusion.

I like the concept of a family drama better than the love story dramas I watched previously. This one had plenty of romance, but without it being the focal point of the entire series. Having other plotlines to follow made it balance better for me. In the future, I’ll be on the lookout for other family dramas to watch.