...ing (2003)

There's something about Korean melodramas that keep attracting viewers. Is it the tearjerker moments? Is it the beauty of the leads' romance?

Melodramas are one of Korea's staple. What was the one drama that sparked the Korean Wave? Winter Sonata, which is a melodrama.

So, ...ing, for its quirky name, is a melodrama, but not quite so.

Why so?

Well, for starters, though there was the presence of an imminent death, it is there subtly.

What is this about?

..ing features Im Soo-jung (I'm A Cyborg, But That's Okay; I'm Sorry I Love You) as Kang Mi-na, an introvert and quiet high-school girl with a deformed hand constantly covered with a mitten, Kim Rae-Won (Insadong Scandal; Gourmet) as Lee Young-jae, an outgoing photographer and Lee Mi-suk as Mi-suk, Mi-na's mother.

3 main casts but a beautiful story.

The magic or uniqueness that ...ing has in comparison to its fellow melodrama counterparts is that there was no emphasis on death or the path towards death, unlike some other melodrama. ...ing focuses on the relationships between mom and daughter and boy and girl.

There's a certain bittersweetness to ...ing that is filled with the quiet joyfulness that mom and daughter share, and how boy and girl started off as tentative smoking partners to innocent romantic couple.

Left: the traffic guy

I love how the side story of the school's traffic controller came to connect the story. The man was rumored to have lost his lover on a rainy day on the same street where he was directing traffic. To him, that was where he could remember his love. Young-jae did not know the significance about Mi-na's sudden outburst one day about that man until he received news that Mi-na is not as well as she herself thought she would be.

Okay, my bad habit of telling the story from the end is not very helpful.

Well, from a young age, Mi-na has been in out the hospital frequently. Although she thought her sickness was cured, she has this terminal illness that she knows nothing about but her mother does.

Mom and daughter

Mi-suk, upon realizing that Mi-na has no friends (due to many of them hospital mates die or get well and out the hospital), had come with a lollipop and pigtails to befriend Mi-na (not shown) and so Mi-na calls her mom by her name. I love how Mi-suk tries very hard to make as if everything was okay and how she loved her daughter unconditionally.

The love story between Young-jae and Mi-na was also adorable, thanks to Young-jae's almost childish pranks in trying to woo her. I love how their dates were all captured in photographic sequence as per Young-jae's profession.

The pacing of the story is not rushed but it's not too slow. Although it has this very sad foreboding of death, it is constantly inserted with moments of humor that is not forced and played out very naturally, as if you're watching a documentary-kind of life.

Acting-wise, I think it's repetitive to say that the casts didn't disappoint. Kim Rae-won fits his sluggish yet outgoing personality so well and Im Soo-jung has always been a joy to watch, even in the brain-wack show of "I'm A Cyborg, But It's Okay".

Soundtrack-wise, it's not too shabby either. But I'm a little bias on this one, thanks to Yi Seung Yeol's "Wait" that is just so SAD, like my favorite Loveholic tracks "Echo" and "Sylvia".

...ing is a melodrama done well. I personally like bittersweet stories more than those that extract the sweetness out of the word. Hmm.

Of course, ...ing is not a new story. All melodramas don't differ too much, but its focus on relationships rather than the illness is a refreshing breath of air from the normal fare. It's an old show yes but it sure is beautiful.