K-Drama Boss Battle: CLoY vs DotS
Talk about having a click-baitey title.
Not even five articles into Medium and I’m already starting to write clickbait. (Actually, who am I kidding? The title of my first article was all clickbait. At least, what I deem as Medium-styled click-bait. Content is real. Promise. Haha.)
The Day I Caught My Dad Watching Crash Landing
Was the day I realised that I might have more in common with this man whom I share half my genetic material with than previously assumed.
My dad has one of those stereotypical movie going profiles; he will watch/be interested to watch a movie if:
- It concerns WWII, or the Vietnam War.
- It has soldiers.
- It has war.
- It has torpedoes, guns, weaponry.
His favourite movies are Saving Private Ryan, Brave Heart and Crimson Tide.
You get the drift.
Occasionally he watches things like Fast and Furious, but he’s not so hot for The Avengers. Superhero films have explosions and things, but somehow non-real stuff doesn’t appeal to him much.
Oh, and he likes The Lion King.
We share a family Netflix account; and he has the habit of watching shows late into the night at the expense of his sleep.
One evening, I peer over at his laptop, and Lo and Behold, what does this casual spy find but Crash Landing Onto You.
The K-Drama Crash Landing Onto You. Somehow, one doesn’t scope him out as the K-Drama type. I’d like to think I know him at least a little bit more than the average person. But this was the latest, hottest, new K-Drama kid on the block. One that I only just learnt about from the newspaper that very morning. Cool, Dad. The wonders of a video streaming channel’s recommendation machine? But what had he been watching prior to this, then! — it certainly begs the question.
He confesses it’s “only his third episode”, — this coming from a guy who eschews any series for fear of the future need for long-term commitment. How many days has he been following this? I wonder. He declines to reveal. When Netflix recommended snazzy new series in the past, he had whined, “But I don’t want to watch a series and get sucked into the nonsense and have to follow it.” Touché, Netflix.
Smiley face is appropriate here.
“Are you enjoying this?” I cast around for signs of espionage, secret weapons/stealth armour/ammunition aimed at him, taking his nightly routine hostage.
“Yea.” He’s either putting up a show of nonchalance, or not realising how incredible this moment is. “It’s not bad, what.” He follows up, catching my growing look of incredulity.
I decide to leave it while it’s good and watch part disbelieving, part curious at the series that was unfurling on the 15-inch.
So that was how we got to watching CLoY together.
Rewind to four years back, I find my mother giggling at her screen, Korean-sounding sounds emanating from the processing source. Swivel your head and glance at the screen: a fresh-faced Song Hye Kyo, a bright-eyed male, and army uniforms. It was Descendants Of The Sun.
It was a bit of a “here we go again” moment.
You see, my mother is what one might call, a Reformed K-Drama Addict. She began her journey in 2000, as did many of us, when we were introduced to the world of Korean tearjerkers via Autumn In My Heart. Here, I should add: Song Hye Kyo! She (my mother) graduated to Winter Sonata, and then ran the entire gamut of Korean series, anything she could get her hands on (actually, anything with Bae Yong Jun in it) for the next year or so.
There was a turning point where:
- it became harder to find drama series that made her feel as touched and happy as her first few
- there were no more Bae Yong Jun serials
- she started to feel cheated because the incidence of cancer in Korean character leads was alarmingly high
So, marry the feeling of a hopeless pursuit for the height of drama she experienced with Winter Sonata, and continuously being denied a happy ending — she swore off Korean dramas.
Till Descendants of the Sun.
It was as if the stars aligned; fellow friends recommended it, their ratings were off the charts, Song Hye Kyo, our first love (apart from Charmaine Sheh) had returned to acting after concentrating on modelling stints with Laneige, etc. There was no resisting it, in truth.
Naturally, I joined in the frenzy. If only to see how Song Hye Kyo looked, 16 years after Autumn In My Heart. In case you were wondering, she looks radiant in DotS. (20 years on, today, she is obviously still stupendously stunning.)
At that time, it had all the elements. Love, war, hilarity. Song Hye Kyo.
Fight, fight, fight!
Okay, so this article was supposed to be a K-Drama battle.
So let’s have a battle.
DotS broke charts by including a superstar (perhaps two), a handsome man (or three), romance and military outfits.
CLoY also has a superstar (two in fact), handsome men, romance and two sets of military outfits.
Did CLoY say, “And I’ll do you one more.” for each one of these record-breaking factors in DotS?
My mother insists that CLoY is essentially different from DotS.
“The couple is very different.”
“Yep, in DotS, it’s the guy who is funny. In CLoY, it’s the girl who is funny.”
“Haha.”
Come to think of it, they both have a sequence where the female lead character wants to leave a foreign country to go back home, but is repeatedly thwarted. During her mandatory stay, she realises how beautiful, and dangerous, this foreign land actually is, and love blossoms in the process.
Both women are career-minded when we first meet them. Both men are from the military, allowing for military-themed action sequences and military paraphernalia.
CLoY has more light-hearted moments and a stronger supporting cast, my mother insists.
DotS pioneered the comedic lead though. (Maybe pioneered is a strong word. I haven’t watched the full extent of Korean drama to ascertain this.)
DotS’ supporting cast are comedic, but almost comical.
And CLoY’s isn’t?
DotS’ late-midway is a bit draggy and back-and-forth.
And CLoY’s isn’t?
CLoY has more ways to go; logically and plot-wise.
Paragliding during a storm into the DMZ is just the height of plausibility.
Ignoring CLoY’s initial premise, there’s more story.
That’s true. There is the meta-theme of Korean Reunification. The topic of Two Koreas does come up in one episode of DotS though.
DotS has a big-bang start with a cheeky male lead and a beautiful but somewhat uptight female lead, but loses steam mid-way with not much happening except “saving-the-day” moments for the two leads.
In that sense, there is a bit more light-hearted intrigue in CLoY.
One could argue that DotS takes itself too seriously. The “battle” for occupational supremacy between the two leads is interesting, but also a little forced towards the end. Even the producers must have realised this with their breaking of the fourth wall ending. Perhaps they were hoping to provide repeated action (read: male character gets shot multiple times) and drama, and explain it away as part of life and movie-making (?).
Battle Down: CLoY wins. Its final ending is still weak though. (Direct quote from mother, who called the win.) They revert back to hospital histrionics, though entertainingly. They kill off a character, or two. Not happy. The main characters actually seem less engaged on the last episode, possibly due to the order the scene was shot in (an early scene might mean actors aren’t very familiar with one another yet).
In the end, as with many Korean dramas, the daily exchanges are the most fun, plot implausibilities notwithstanding. And who wants to watch a drama without a bit of fantasy, nay?
We would recommend watching both, and then you can decide who did better.
Epilogue and Some Parting Comments
Support Rapport
The watchability of CLoY’s supporting cast is a standout. DotS relies heavily on the star power and eye-candyness of its two sets of leads, as well as its supporting cast. Compared with CLoY, the DotS support are likeable and serviceable but perhaps lack any special chemistry. DotS doesn’t have the amusing band of four ‘brothers’, for starters. Rather they have the hospital’s gang of heroes who are interesting but perform best as counterfoils to the main characters. Interestingly, there are three spectator-gamblers in DotS that might be the genesis of the four musketeers in CLoY.
Not just compared to DotS, but CLoY’s support blow other supports out of the water. They are nuanced, funny and familiar — perhaps that’s why they are so enjoyable to watch.
Target Audience
The traits of the lead female characters also suggest that Korean producers’ target demographic are still the same teenage girls hooked on K-Drama from 2000, except they are now grown working women. This might explain the trend of some other series as well, such as Something In The Rain, where a more well-established female character meets a younger male character. Could it also have been the impetus for our own locally home-grown series: Loving You?
I wonder just how much of this demographic contributed to the success of these series.
Secondary Target Audience
On hindsight, CLoY does have soldiers. And weapons. And shooting. So, I suppose it was not so surprising that my dad might have watched it. Memory now serves to remind that he was also present during the viewing of shooting scenes in DotS.
Is having a military setting an intentional ploy to lure male audiences, or an unintended consequence of fulfilling the military man fantasy of female audiences, as referenced openly in both series?
I know of male colleagues and friends who also follow these romantic-action dramas. Some claim they are watching it with their sisters; if so, perhaps what makes guys watch the series is more that they have someone to watch it with, and the military scenes are a staying bonus to make everything easier to swallow. Win-win.
Rivalry or Homage
A personal note: Have the №1 and №2 couples in DotS been reversed in CLoY? In some ways CLoY’s Number One couple resembles DotS’s Number Two couple, and vice versa. Occupation-wise, they are not exactly alike, but they bear similarities in terms of the leads’ personalities and manner of conducting affairs.
CLoY’s №2 female is successful and aloof, much like the DotS’ №1 female. CLoY’s №1 female is confident and exuberant, much like DotS’ №2 female. CLoY’s №2 male is impish and playful (but also knows how to shoot guns), much like DotS’ №1 male. CLoY’s №1 male is strong and silent (but likes to be known as hunky, nonetheless), much like DotS’ №2 male.
It could also be that couple formulas generally fall into these few categories.
SPOILER ALERT. Back off now because the next line is a major spoiler.
CLoY then kills off its №2 male after a gunshot wound, thumbing it’s nose at the implausibility of DotS’ №1 male surviving attack after attack. Or perhaps fulfilling the rumoured original wish of DotS’ screenwriters.
One last tidbit. On a stormy night, CLoY’s №2 male tells the №2 female never to say ‘yes’ to a guy who asks if she wants ramen, as he is in general up to no good. In DotS, the №1 male does ask the №1 female for ramen. (And she says yes. They end up wearing night-vision goggles. With all this eating, how do female leads stay as slim as they are? She references this in a later episode quipping, blind-drunk, “I’m not the sort of girl who goes to a stranger’s home to eat ramen.”) Maybe the ramen reference is a common one in Korea (like a Korean equivalent of Netflix and chilling).
Or a wink to the past from CLoY to DotS, perhaps.
