My Name is Kim Sam Soon

Main Cast:
Kim Sun Ah as Kim Sam Soon
Hyun Bin as Hyun Jin Heon
Jung Ryeo Won as Yoo Hee Jin
Daniel Henny as Dr. Henry Kim

Synopsis

Kim Sam Soon is a 30-year-old Paris-trained pastry chef, fresh out of a job and fresh out of love. She was publicly dumped by her boyfriend. She sees herself as not pretty, nearly an old maid and slightly on the chubby side. Sam Soon is the third daughter of a rice miller and lives with her mother and older sister who just got divorced. She hates her name and regards it as a bane on her life, the cause of all her bad luck. She has been trying to change her name to Kim Hee Jin but was not allowed to by her mother, a widow with a ferocious personality. Her family is not poor but certainly not flush, her mother carrying on a “small finance business” after the death of her father. Sam Soon is portrayed as rough and tough, blunt, swears like a dockhand but realistic in her outlook on her personal prospects in life.

Hyun Jin Heon is a 27-year old restaurateur and the son of a hotel owner, tall, good-looking, and an obvious catch. He runs the restaurant against his mother’s wishes - she would like him to come to work at the hotel with a view of eventually taking over for her. Displaying an unusual streak of independence for heir-apparent in similar situations, Jin Heon refuses to comply. He does, however, go back to his mother for help whenever he is in a bit of a jam with his restaurant, particularly with cooks and hired helps. Jin Heon is initially portrayed as haughty, cold with a streak of mischievous meanness. Three years ago he was involved in an accident resulting in the death of his brother and sister-in-law and leaving his niece, Mi-joo, unable (and unwilling) to talk. At about the same time as he was recovering from that painful episode, his long-time girlfriend left him to go to the U.S. without any explanations, which left him heartbroken and bitter. She left with an enigmatic promise that she will return. Jin Heon’'s mother (whom he addressed as President Na whenever he wants to raise her ire) persistently tries to put him on blind dates, so that he can settle down quickly and look after his orphaned niece as well.

In a serendipitous but less than glamorous encounter, Kim Sam Soon met Hyun Jin Heon, resulting in Sam Soon being offered a job as the pastry chef at Jin Heon’'s restaurant, Bon Appetit. That unglamorous encounter also resulted in the two of them signing a “contract dating” agreement whereby Sam Soon agrees to pretend to be Jin Heon’'s girlfriend (to stop his mother’s match-making endeavours) in return for KRW 5 million which Sam Soon badly needs to rescue her home from being repossessed by the bank.

Yoo Hee Jin is a young, rich, drop-dead gorgeous (the complete antithesis of Sam Soon) aspiring medical student who was Jin Heon'’s high school sweetheart. She discovered that she has cancer of the intestines and went to the U.S. for treatment. This occurs at about the same time Jin Heon was in the hospital trying to repair his badly broken leg resulting from the accident. Hee Jin committed an error of judgment when she decided not to tell Jin Heon her reason for going to the U.S., causing much anger and bitterness on the latter’'s part. Her reasoning was that she did not want to burden Jin Heon in such dire times of his life. When she was declared cancer-free, she decided to return to Korea to resume her relationship with Jin Heon, leaving her parents behind.

Dr. Henry Kim is a Korean American who is Hee Jin’s doctor. He is almost unreal in that he is absolutely good-looking, presumably rich and completely devoted to Hee Jin. Despite the unrequited love, he persevered and decided to take a 6-month sabbatical just to be able to follow Hee Jin back to Korea.

Review

As a rule, I tend to stay away from Korean comedies. They tend to be slapstick and childish and the few that I saw I did not enjoy, even if others seem to think highly of them. "My Name is Kim Sam Soon" (MNiKSS) I must confess, is the exception to the rule. I have been told that 75% of the world’s female population do not consider themselves attractive, has a tendency to be overweight and are forever dreaming of a Prince Charming of one form or another, to rescue them from their dreary existence. Kim Sam Soon is no exception. You may have to suspend disbelief that she is able to get a Prince Charming in the face of a competitor like Yoo Hee Jin but then again Prince Charles did choose Camilla over the late Princess Diana.

I understand that MNiKSS enjoyed enormous popularity during its showing in Korea in the summer of 2005. It is because most women identified with her character although at times she displayed just a tad too much coarseness for my liking. She is honest and she does not take any nonsense from anyone, Jin Heon included. Asian dramas in general love to portray simpering females in need of perpetual rescuing and it is very annoying to see that. One can be in love but still have a spine.

There is obvious chemistry between Kim Sun Ah and Hyun Bin and there was no excessive prudishness in the handling of holding hands, kissing, and even premarital sex. There are many funny moments and the karaoke scene with Jin Heon and Sam Soon’s family was hilarious. Watching MNiKSS and other K-dramas made me wonder about Korean mothers though. No matter what strata of society they come from they seem to be very violent towards their children, no matter what age they are. Jin Heon'’s mother, the hotel President, never seems to stop hitting him whenever they meet and Sam Soon’s mother is no different. In some Asian societies, to hit someone, let alone your own children, with a broom (or similar implements) is considered extremely bad form and said to bring interminable bad luck. But Sam Soon'’s mother had no such qualms. Is hitting your offspring a Korean display of tough love? I wonder.

In a rare moment of good luck, I managed to secure a VCD set of this comedy-drama with an almost flawless English translation. That helped a lot in the appreciation of the story. This is very unusual indeed where the scripts of most Korean dramas arriving in my country are either translated into the local language badly or into a slaughtered form of English. Even the DVD sets where the quality is supposed to be better, does not escape this fate. I wish there are more editions like this available, to widen the popularity of K-dramas outside Korea’'s boundary.