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SECRET_GARDEN

                                             December 27, 2018

I was won over by "Secret Garden" by the
first episode, where the punkish heroine--
a professional stunt woman-- on impulse
chases after a van full of four bad guys
on her BMX bike, and eventually flattens
them with her martial arts skills.

Throughout the rest of the "Secret Garden", I
was wondering what had happened to that woman.
The male lead keeps dragging her around by the
wrist, and he doesn't get his arm broken.


There are multiple scenes where he's
forcing his attentions on her over her
objections-- I don't mean to come on all       Interestingly: the actor
doctrinaire feminist or anything, but I        apparently did an interview
would think the male lead's behavior           during the show where he
would be hard to take for almost anyone.       commented on issues like
This is one of those shows where the           this-- KES responded
female lead should obviously go with door      immediately, adding a scene
#2 or door #3 instead of the raging jerk.      between secondary characters
                                               where a man tries to kiss a
Further, while some of the body-swap humor     woman (played by Yoo In-Na)
was funny, the male lead's acting was very     and gets slapped with
weak throughout.  He does a lot of generic     indignant lines of dialog
"girly" mannerisms that don't seem much        about he needs to ask first.
like the female lead (who, for example,
never sits hunched over like she's trying          Part of KES's legend is
to curl up and get smaller-- and it's not          she could do things like
unusual for her to go strutting around             this... there were
angrily wearing motorcycle leathers).  What        supposedly days when she
I would've liked to see is him acting like         walked into the shoot
a woman in a man's body who is *trying* to         with the day's freshly
act masculine but not doing it very well.          completed script in hand.


     Why is this show so popular?

     The female lead (Ha Ji-Won) is really good.

     The script is an early effort by Kim Eun-Sook (KES)
     of Goblin fame.


     There *are* a few moments that work well...


                     At one point, after the two main characters
                     have figured out that rain storms cause them
                     to switch bodies, the man is at the wheel of
                     a convertible, with the woman in some sort
                     of coma on the passenger seat next to him.
                     He's determined to let her live, and die in
                     her place, if necessary, so he drives out
                     into the country chasing a weather report.
                     He guns the engine driving across an open
                     plain toward a heavy thunderstorm....





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