Okay, like 2010, but it feels a lot older. King of Baking is well known in Korea for bringing in a love of baking and baked goods. Which makes sense since there's a lot of baking involved.
Breads come in many shapes...
The viewing rating very high and the actors also won a ton of awards for it. But does it really live up to the hype?
The plot:
Kim Tak Goo is the bastard son of the head of a big bread company. He lives alone in a small poor town with his mother and has an almost magical sense of smell. When his mother decides he should grow up in a better environment and gives him to his father's family, he isn't too welcome for many secret reasons. When his mother is kidnapped, child Tak Goo (who's only in 5th grade at the time) goes off to search for her. For 14 years.
I'll sniff her out. Couldn't be too hard.
While he's gone, everyone kind assumes he's died off or something. He gets through working parttime jobs and beating up on bad guys searching for his mother's kidnapper. Eventually he lands himself in a bakery. Even though he hates bread. Umm...
Basically, the father's family finds out he's still alive and two have something against him. His half-brother wants to show he's better than him, his step-mother wants to keep from inheriting the company, and so on. But enough plot, don't want to spoil anything...
The Drama:
Basically, this is a business drama. And when I say drama, I mean I wanted to throw things at the computer kind of drama. It's almost on par with US soap operas. Tooo much business jargon no one cares about, too many henchmen, too many underhanded ways of getting stuff done. Plus, there's a whole emotional play (that of the relationship between the father, his wife, and the father's secretary) that I learned to just skip through, mainly since it was kinda screwed from the start and just got boring and repetitive.
Oh you again, what do you want now?
I think it might just be me, since I usually hate US dramas. This definitely does have more of a Western field. There's a lot less humor and a lot more crying. And to be honest, it drags a lot. I had to force myself to keep watching, which is a very very rare thing for me to do. But why did I keep watching?
No, not just for his looks...
Yoon Shi Yoon's acting was actually extremely good. He played his role near-perfectly and with plenty of enthusiasm. And he played one of the few characters in the series who made me smile.
The cookies are a lie...
His acting though was literally countered by his brother in the series, Goo Man Joon (Joo Won). I'm not sure how much of it was in character, but he came off as probably one of the stiffest and emotionless people I've ever seen.
How dare you still my award?
Yes, that bad (Sorry Kim Hyun Joong, but it's true, you were beat). Granted, technically this came out before Playful Kiss, but you get the idea. Plus, Kim Hyun Joong's level of emotion was like three times higher than his character's Taiwanese counterpart (see It Started With A Kiss), who probably just beats this character on stiffness.
O.o wth, he's smiling, that shouldn't be possible...
The Good Points:
So this drama wasn't all drama and stiffness. There were some good aspects. Such as the baking, which really did make me want to go preheat the oven and hunt for flour. The fighting was also not too badly done. Yes, there's fighting. Hence the henchmen.
Just another night after closing shop.
There is also a very nice little love arc that really didn't get played to its fullest. Which made me sad since it had a lot of potential.
There is also the growth of Kim Tak Goo while he works in the bakery. His training was actually shown really well, with him solving problems and trying again and again to get things to work. It was actually sort of inspiring.
New training exercise: Stare at bottle
The Bad Parts:
There is also another "love" arc that just made me cringe. While it gave a twist to the story, it was so forced it made me want to cry. And was also part of the plot I skimmed through. Yes, I know, bad me, but trust me when I say it really didn't effect the plot a lot. Instead, it kinda made it's own side-story and that's about it.
Result:
So, should one watch it? If you like drama on top of drama on top of drama, it's great. If not, about the only thing holding you would be the acting, since there are several very talented actors/actresses in the series. I'm sorry to say this definitely isn't one of my favorites and while I know this is a fairly popular and beloved series, personally I just don't see a lot of appeal. But, hey, we all have different opinions, don't we?
No comments:
Post a Comment