KDrama Sneak Peak: The Heirs

So, it's been awhile since posting and that's mostly because I've broken my usual routine and started watching a show currently airing: The Heirs. Starring familiar faces Lee Min Ho and Park Shin Hye, the Heirs to me feels more like a Korean Gossip Girl than Boys Before Flowers kin (I mean, how Blair is Kim Ji Won's Rachel?). So I'm right about halfway though - I'm a few weeks behind - and I thought I'd put out my current thoughts. The opening episodes, I loved. There's a sort of mystic quality to the California episodes and our two leads get a lot of alone time before getting shuffled into a huge cast of characters. So far, every side character is impressively well developed. The flip side to that is the dynamics of the relationships between the characters can often be confusing. Kim Tan's family situation took me like four episodes to figure out.

Kang Min Hyuk's Chan Young is adorable and he charms in every scene he's in. Honestly, if this were  in the vein of Boys Before Flowers Kim Woo Bin's bad boy Young Do would have more of a shot with our leading lady. So that brings us to the sticky middle of this show. I find myself still enjoying the episodes but a few problems are developing. First, Kim Tan is getting a little pushy with his feelings. Eun Sang is just trying to survive and keeping her feelings in check helps her do that (Kim Tan is engaged, keep in mind). Therefore I feel for her when Kim Tan ignores her pleas to leave her alone, which is a problem, because I want my love birds to be happy together. For the moment, Kim Tan needs to back off and help Eun Sang in a way that won't cause more problems. I have faith that the show will repair this issue as it goes on, but it's a little frustrating in the mean time.

Second, the show is driving towards an inevitable collapse. When Eun Sang gets a scholarship to the rest of the cast's ritzy school, she gets caught up in a lie that she's "new money" so the kids won't bully her for being poor. Obviously, there's no way this can end well and in the mean time, we're just waiting for it to fall apart. I for one like a little surprise and when a problem just stares me down, it disrupts my enjoyment of the show. Still, I'll withhold final judgment until I see what grace the show deals with the fallout, but in the mean time, I'm pleasantly surprised. At the very least, it's getting the bad taste of Meteor Garden II out of my mouth.