#7 - My Mister (나의 아저씨, 2018)

My Mister (나의 아저씨)

Review by Soyeon Kim (Monash University PHD Student)

Figure 1: My Mister official poster. Image source: TVN

My Mister is a Korean drama that aired on Korean TV from March to May 2018. When the drama first aired, many viewers misunderstood the content of the drama as a romance story between a young woman and an old married man, because of its title. So, even before the drama started, some said they would not watch this inappropriate drama. However, when the drama started airing and the content flowed toward the end, those who watched it admitted that the title of the drama was perfect. It wasn’t a romance between a man and a woman, but the highest level of humanity that person to person could share. It was a moment when the ignorance of those who didn’t know well enough and judged only on the outside was revealed.

Figure 2: Lee Sun-Gyun as Park Dong-Hoon. Image source: TVN

The main character, Dong-Hoon (Sun-Gyun Lee), is a safety-first, architectural structural engineer who lives a quiet life and never takes any risks. Being the second child of the three brothers, that’s how he became used to it – not expressing his feelings or asking things. He has a wife who is a lawyer and a son who is studying abroad in the States. On the outside, it looks like a peaceful life, but it is because he hates to stand out among people, and he prefers to live quietly working one step below his original abilities and skills. His wife, who is a competent lawyer, dislikes his personality. So, Dong-Hoon becomes small in front of his wife.

“I feel sorry for all the rigid people. It tells you the days of their life. Wounded children grow up too early.” This is what Dong-Hoon expressed about Ji-An (IU), another main character of the drama. At the age of six, she was left alone with her sick grandmother and is living off the debt left by her parents. Words such as dreams, hopes, and plans did not exist in Ji-An’s life, and only distrust and cynicism about humans remained cold.  

Figure 3: IU as Lee Ji-An. Image source: TVN

The drama begins when Ji-An starts working at Dong-Hoon's workplace. Jun-young, who is in a relationship with Dong-hoon’s wife and did not usually like Dong-hoon since college, plots to expel Dong-hoon from the company. In the development of the incident, Ji-an is involved to make some money using Dong-hoon, but later she became the best supporter to protect Dong-Hoon from Jun-Young, even sacrificing herself.

Well, when you hear this far, you may be wondering how the story between a middle-aged man who feels forced to live his life without any motivation and a young woman who has been living with an unfortunate fate since birth has become a ‘drama of the life’ to many people who watched it. Surprisingly, it did. Dong-Hoon and Ji-An fully understood each other as humans versus humans, and it was a great comfort to each other. Through the process of helping Ji-An, Dong-Hoon also found something else inside himself and was able to live more actively away loving himself more, and Ji-An has “lived for the first time” since she met someone like Dong-Hoon who was nice to her "more than four times" unlike others. When these two become lights to each other in the dark and finally come out of the tunnel, viewers experience as if they can see hope in this tough and lonely life.

Not only these two play important roles in this drama, but also a lot of other characters in this drama do not seem to be (or “should not” be) happy at first glance as each one is flawed. They include Sang-hoon (Ho-San Park), Dong-Hoon's eldest brother, who used to work at a large company but got fired and is driven to divorce, Ki-Hoon (Sae-Byuk Song), the youngest in the family, and who was once revered as a genius in the film field, but has been preparing to make debut as a film director for last 20 years, and an elderly mother who is nearing 70 years old but is still cooking three meals for her two sons who live in her place. But they still laugh, love, and live their lives.

Figure 4: Lee Ji-Ah as Kang Yoon-Hee. Image source: TVN

How about Yoon-Hee (Ji-Ah Lee), Dong-Hoon’s wife, who has an affair with Jun-Young? The drama does not take the judgmental perspective on Yoon-Hee’s such behaviour, but makes the viewers assimilated into her complicated feelings and cheer for her in no time. Well, at least I did. Dong- Hoon was a good man, colleague, son, father but it does not necessarily mean that he was a good husband. Yoon-Hee was lonely when she learned that she will never be able to be Dong-Hoon’s priority among his many other priorities and responsibilities. So, in the scene where Yoon-Hee cries desperately regretting her actions, we cry with her rather than feeling good for her punishment.

In this way, this drama has something in it. You see depressed people, but somehow it makes you feel hopeful. You see sad people, but somehow it makes you smile. It’s a cold winter day in the background, but your heart will feel endlessly warm. It seems that socially marginalized and lonely people gather and talk to you. “It's okay. This world is still worth living.” Above all, it makes you feel either to meet genuine people in your life or to be one of them. You want to grow as someone who can be the one on the side of someone when you see the person is going through a difficult time without any judgement. More importantly, in that way, you gain more because practicing the best values humans can do, you too can find more meanings in your life.

Figure 5: Ji-An and Dong-Hoon ep 8 screenshot.

"In a way, life is a battle between external and internal power, and whatever happens, if you have internal power, you will endure" - (Dong-Hoon) 

There are those who say, ‘Some people have never seen this drama, but no one has seen it only’, and I am one of them. I watched this drama shortly after giving birth to a child in April 2018. I just started my journey as a mum in the country where my first language is not spoken and there was no other family around to help. I was happy, but scared. I finally have someone who I can call as a ‘family’ but somehow, I still felt quite empty inside. And this was the drama I watched in the evening holding a young baby in my arms feeling cold air and smelling of dry leaves. Since then, it has become a tradition for me. I watch this drama every April, when the evening air changes, as if I were going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and feel comforted. I cross the tunnel of darkness with the main characters, and I face the light at the end of that darkness. Through the warmth of the drama, I gain the strength to endure the cold winter days to come.

And that time has come again this year. I would like to invite you to join my pilgrimage of April, so that you can experience the amazing warmth to prepare for the coming winter, too.

Check out the trailer here and the series is available on Netflix.

Soyeon Kim/Monash University ©, please do not reproduce without prior permission.

For details, contact MUKSRH andy.jackson@monash.edu