Fantasy Couple recaps are here! It’s a show I guzzled through in the early days of K-drama addiction and one I remember being very funny and full of memorable characters. After all these years, the show does not disappoint.
Dramatic music plays as we see a beat-up vehicle cross a bridge in what looks to be a scenic countryside town. Two tense men sit inside the SUV. The driver looks angry while the passenger looks scared.
“Got the steel ready?” the driver asks ominously. The passenger tries to dissuade the other from doing whatever it is they are set out to do. “It’s not our turf,” he tries to reason but the driver is determined to expand his territory.
Thugs? Out for a gang fight? I signed up for rom-com not action… The collection of pipes in a bag on the backseat does not look reassuring.
They stop at a nondescript building but what’s odd and hilarious is they’re wearing what look to be a long black raincoats. In the middle of a sunny day out in a deserted street.
With their faces set they walk into the building. There’s a sign at the entrance. It reads: Women. What the? The next thing we see: A collection of semi-nekkid ajummas in various state of undress busy eating boiled eggs and gossiping. It’s a women only bath-house. This is territory expansion? Ha!
The shocking presence of two grown men makes the ajummas simper. The younger guy of the two is embarrassed, but not the leader. Out he takes a plunger from his bag of pipes and asks with fortitude: “Where is it? … Let’s go get it!” What are you? Toilet repairman?
The bath-house’s owner ajumma leads the two men into a second room as the nekkid ajummas sigh: “You lucky bundle of sticks”. Ha! The minion, who is about to die of embarrassment, is called Dukgoo.
It seems the bathroom has flooded with dirty water due to a clogged pipe. The guys are here to unclog it. Dukgoo digs out a yucky looking bundle of hair that would make anyone go Ewww~! So they’re plumbers. Dukgoo’s boss dispenses advice on drain hygiene. He then persuades the owner ajumma to redo the plumbing. “Why don’t you redo the floor tiles while you’re at it? … And change these sauna booths, too,” he advises with an unhealthy glint in his eyes.
Dukgoo wisely reminds his mercenary boss to save his business pitches for when they are outside of the women’s bath-house. Thankfully for Dukgoo, a violent thrust with the metallic plunger unclogs the drain.
Back in the main room, Plumber Boss haggles with the owner ajumma for ripping off his $30. He’d agreed to a $20 discount, but she paid him only $100 instead of the $130. He threatens to shower in the bath-house just to get his money’s worth if the ajumma doesn’t cough up. This guy seems to be Scrooge reincarnated. A hot reincarnation, mind.
He then takes off his vest as the women collectively watch slack-jawed and drool. It’s hilarious that Mr. Plumber’s body is oiled and perfectly tanned as the camera lovingly caresses it. And it’s here that we hear the first strains of that ear-wormy tune we’ll be hearing throughout the show in its variations. Here, the tempo’s suitably slowed.
Owner ajumma tries to knock some sense into the half-naked plumber, but the guy means to get his money’s worth. He starts unbuckling his belt. Say hi to Oh Ji Ho’s happy trail, yoroboon. He strips down to his black briefs. When the owner ajumma still doesn’t pay up, he drops his undies too!!
Ajummas collectively gasp. One of them faints! Hahahha. Some watch from behind their fingers while some lech openly. The next thing we see: Mr Plumber and Dukgoo are all dressed and ready to leave the bath-house. “No one messes with my money,” Hotbod Plumber declares with a satisfied smile.
We are now in an ornate hall full of well-dressed white people. It’s an auction party for a painting titled Women Weeping by James Wood. The auctioneer starts the bidding. The price escalates. A woman in her 30s nearly wins the bid at $350,000. The main door dramatically opens and a Korean woman dressed in red fur and an ostrich feather hat bids up: “$500,000!”
Everyone turns to look at the newcomer who battles the other woman desperate to win the bid. Eventually, the painting’s sold to the Lady in Red for a million dollars! Red Lady seems to be loaded. The woman who lost the bid is the painter’s daughter out on a mission, collecting her dad’s early works.
She seethes at the Korean Lady for thwarting her plan, but the latter astutely cuts the other’s righteous fury by revealing how the daughter’s desperate to get her hands on the painting because her dad’s on his deathbed, and how the daughter wants to profit from the inevitable boom in price that’ll follow. How did she get the dirt? She bribed the woman’s boyfriend for $10,000. Hm. She seems to be loaded and sharp! With a variation of “koraji hagunoon” she leaves the hall and decides she needs to leave NY because the weather’s crappy.
Back in the scenic Korean countryside, two men play golf. From their conversation we gather they’ve already been holed up in the country golf resort for the past 3 months. The Boss seems reluctant to go back to US.
We later see the Bossman inside his suite at the resort feeding his pet fish called Solomon. Hehehhe. Aw. He even talks to the fish but gets interrupted by an unexpected “Meow!” from somewhere inside the suite. The man tenses and follows the sound.
He finds a white Persian cat atop a bunch of luggage in the bedroom. “Princess!” he addresses the cat like he’s surprised its even there. Just then he gets a call from his wife. He does not look happy that she’s coming back to Korea.
Aaand, his wife is the Lady in Red we saw earlier! She’s already on her flight back to Korea. When the flight attendant politely asks her to switch off all electronics, Red Lady is thoroughly snooty about it.
Back in Korea, Bossman’s staff is tripping all over themselves to get things ready for the Mistress’s arrival. They’re busy clearing out things that are sure to offend her Highness. Green plants? Red curtains? Yellow bathroom lights? Toilet bowl water pressure that’s not juust right? Get rid of it! “Our peaceful days are over,” the Boss mourns.
BossLady has a name: Jo Anna. She’s busy creating a scene in the first class section of the plane about the face towel not being either not-warm-enough or too-warm. When a fellow passenger ajusshi asks her to go easy on the flight attendant, she comments on his body odour that’s nauseating her. When a whiny kid insists on not going to bed without knowing what happens to the Little Mermaid, Joanna has something to say: “She dies! The Prince cheats on her, and she tries to murder him, but she ends up drowning. Now sleep!” Ha! Joanna, the burster-er of kids’ bubbles!
She creates a stir at Incheon airport as she struts around in another of her red overcoats and a stylish hat. She’s disappointed no one came to pick her up and snatches the keys from the hired car attendant. It’s been raining and the weather earns a disdainful koraji hagunoon from her.
She finds her car parked a little distance away, and not wanting to get wet, she imperiously summons a perfectly clueless looking man carrying an umbrella and orders him to escort her to her car. The befuddled man complies and has a ‘What the heck just happened?’ look on his face as Joanna drives away without even a thank you.
Back in the village, Chul-soo (the Plumber hotbod) and Duk-goo finish up a painting job at a renovated shop. Chul-soo eagerly volunteers to get rid of the mannequin busts that the shop owner’s about to throw. Cheapskate Chul-soo plans to repaint and sell them for money! Chul-soo declines Duk-goo’s offer for a drink saying he needs to get back to the kids.
It’s still raining heavily as Chul-soo drives home singing a song that sounds like the one in CYHMH! Heh. The country road is full of pot-holes so the red paint on the backseat jostles and splashes over one of the mannequins. Joanna’s also stranded somewhere on the country road. She terrorises Sec Gong over the phone for there being no gas station in sight. She backs up the car to read a road sign and gets the car stuck in the mud. Uh oh! To make matters worse, her phone battery dies. Stranded!
Joanna gets out of the car to check the stuck right wheel and kicks the car in frustration. Just then Chul-soo drives to a stop nearby. He sees this as an opportunity to earn more cash! Ha! This guy. He offers to help her for $300.
So he’s busy shoveling the mud out from around the tyre while Joanna sits inside the car patting herself dry. She checks Chul-soo out in the rearview mirror and her verdict: “What a loser!” It doesn’t help that Chul-soo looks shady in his black raincoat.
Chul-soo doesn’t think much of her Highness either. He stops the shoveling and walks to the car front and taps the window. She reluctantly lowers it, and he asks her to help him push the car. She declines. He declares she’s deadweight and asks her to wait in his car instead. This she grudgingly agrees to.
Joanna runs to Chul-soo’s decrepit SUV and scrunches her nose at the stink, once inside. The car is messy with bottles rolling about on the floor and dirty tissues lying about. She takes his shirt from the driver’s seat to cover her legs but is alarmed to see the red paint all over it. She thinks it’s blood! On a night like this who can blame her? She panics. She lights a torch to check out the backseat and oh horrors! Is that a bloody human form!?
She looks back at Chul-soo who looks like an undertaker standing still out there in the rain in his long black raincoat. He’s busy worrying she’ll steal the cash he earned from the paint job earlier today. She thinks he’s a murderer. He thinks she’s a thief. Great! He drags the shovel across the road in a creepy murderer style while she grabs the nearby plunger and prepares for battle.
As soon as Chul-soo opens the car door, she lands a solid thwhack on his head with the shirt-wrapped plunger stick. The girl is resourceful. He tackles her and they wrestle around in the rain. She mounts on top of him and starts pummeling him with her fists while he’s desperate to get the shirt off the plunger even as she’s dead-bent on not losing the one weapon she can use against this murderer. It’s perfect!
After the brief tussle, she grabs the shovel and takes a full swing with it at his face! He lands with a thud! She swings at him again with the plunger while he grabs her ankle just as she tries and manages to get inside her car with the shirt-wrapped plunger still clutched.
Now bloody and still whispering “My moneeey!”, Chul-soo crawls to the car like some parasitic coackroach-y killer that just won’t stop. She desperately tries to get the car to move, but she’s still stuck. But juust as he reaches the door, off she drives! “My mooooneeeey!” Chul-soo croaks. Heheh. Joanna’s about to call the police when she realizes that the red stains on her hands and the shirt was paint!
Chul-soo comes home bloody and dizzy and mad that he got robbed by a pro. Ha! He falls down to the floor in the living room in exhaustion as the three boys and a woman gather around him in worry: “Uncle! What’s wrong?” He still croaks: “My mooney!” hehe.
I love how cosy and lived-in their house looks! Look at the clutter of three children given free reign of the house! I also love the odd shape of it. The woman seems to be Duk-goo’s mom babysitting the kids.
After the chaos of the past few scenes, it’s cosy to watch a freshly showered Chul-soo gobbling down ramyun in righteous anger. His wound is tended to and the kids look neat and ready for bed. It’s still raining, though.
Chul-soo still believes he was robbed, but Duk-goo, the Voice of Reason, throws the offending ‘bloody’ mannequin on the floor. He brought it in from the car to show how this must have scared off the woman into thinking Chul-soo to be a murderer.
Back at the golf resort, Billy Park, Joanna’s hubby, sighs over his old wedding pic. He reluctantly puts the wedding ring back on his finger.
“Why did you come back? Why?” he asks Joanna in the wedding pic. Sec Gong rushes in to announce that Joanna’s arrived at the resort. Now Billy polishes the pic with his coat sleeve! Heh.
Out they rush to welcome her Highness. Joanna ignores Billy’s open arms and walks right past him blaming all the trouble she got into for his failing to pick her up at the airport. Now she accuses him of not hugging her. “Why? Is it because I look like a mess?” she dares him to agree.
Billy hastily engulfs her in a stiff hug and the first thing she asks is if he changed his cologne. She says she doesn’t approve. Why is his necktie so tight? She doesn’t approve. Why has he grown so tan? She does not approve. Our thoroughly henpecked hubby meekly accepts the disapproval.
With Joanna come radical changes. Starting at breakfast, she fires the chef. Some invisible dust in the hallway makes her fire the Housekeeping Manager. That sofa in the lobby? Needs to go. And this too. And that. This. And that. Poor Sec Gong runs around jotting all her orders.
The random firing of so much of the staff has made the remaining workers resentful, Sec Gong reports to Billy. Just then a maid runs out of Joanna’s suite crying. Billy bravely elects to talk to his wife.
Billy slowly approaches Joanna who’s busy blow-drying Princess’s fur after a bath. She casually mentions how she fired the maid because the bathroom floor was slippery. Billy looks unhealthily happy to hear she nearly fell. “You wish I’d slipped and died?” she dares him to agree.
Billy then voices his concern about how he’s the resort CEO and he’d like it if she’d consult him before firing his staff, but it all gets hilariously muffled in the whir of the blow-dryer. When it’s finally quiet, he’s all out of words and she has not heard a thing he said. When she asks him to repeat what he said, he changes his tune. But inside the bathroom he wishes the floor had been a bit more slippery.
Hahahah. Chul-soo has made a huge yellow banner that asks people to report if they have any info regarding the accident on that rainy night. This way he hopes he gets a lead to the woman who ran away with his $70. 70 dollars! Hehhee.
Chul-soo reasons that there are not that many foreign cars in this village and that woman will turn up eventually. In fact, the woman in question is being driven around town by Sec Gong, right past Chul-soo and his banner. Joanna wonders if there was any news of a guy dying from a hit by a shovel. Ha! She guesses he survived.
They drive to a small local store. Joanna wants milk and saucer for her Princess. You’re feeding your Persian milk? Anyway, while Sec Gong goes into the shop, Chul-soo happens to drop by to buy soda. The fancy foreign car catches his eye, and he admires the car. Joanna rolls down her window and tells the country bum not to touch her property.
He’s about to walk away from the rude woman when her unforgettable koraji hagunoon rings memory bells. It’s the woman who ran away with his preciouss money! Chul-soo backs up to the car window and grins a Cheshire grin. “Ajumma, take off your shades,” he orders.
He bends down to get a better look at her and, when he’s sure it’s the Thief lady, he shouts, pointing to his wounded cheek: “You did this to me, you thief! Now, you’re dead!” He tries to open the car door but she locks it stat. She even has the wits to trap his head in the car window by rolling the window up! Check out her leggings!
She then quickly gets out of the other car door and gets into the driver’s seat. Uh oh! She then drives the car with his head still trapped! Hahahahha. Her satisfied smirk! Duk-goo helps his Hyung out and Joanna zooms off leaving the two men wondering what planet she landed from. Planet Craycray? Mwahahah.
Not to be so easily outdone, Chul-soo follows her in his own SUV driving dangerously in the one-lane country road. Joanna seems to enjoy the chase! Haha. Poor Sec Gong finds the street empty when he comes out of the shop.
The car chase is long but there’s this hilarious moment when both the car occupants realise the speed radar is about to capture their pic. Joanna looks gleeful while Chul-soo and Duk-goo go: Aw frak!
After a bit, sanity prevails and Joanna wonders why she’s running away from the country bum. She decides to pay him the chump change he’s haggling about and stops by the side of the road. She takes out a won note worth $1000 but then Chul-soo calls her ‘crazy ajumma’ and she changes her mind. He threatens to take her to the police.
As they bicker, Princess escapes from Joanna’s car!! Haaa! Not realizing this, Joanna drives off, but then who should nab Princess but the money-hungry Chul-soo!! Is it any surprise that he immediately sells the Persian at the local pet store? Gets swindled for it too. But Chul-soo’s so happy with the $500 he got. He tells Princess not to hate him. I love that he talks to the cat he sold: “Soon you’ll meet a better owner.”
Anna, on realizing Princess’s missing, immediately thinks Chul-soo stole her. She hunts down Chul-soo’s home address.
She arrives there to find Chul-soo feeding his boys pizza and soda from the loot money. They even have a dog! Ggotsoon! The house is so charming.
Seething, Joanna homes in on a scared Chul-soo and demands Princess back. He tells her to prove he stole the cat. She retorts: “How do you know Princess is a cat?” Ha! Caught!
Joanna tells him Princess is a million dollar cat! Whutt? Chul-soo’s eyes light up. Heheh. He goes inside the house, and we think it’s to get Princess back, but, no. He calls the pet shop guy to check if the cat really is worth that much. Outside, the kids and Joanna size each other up.
A series of distressed cries from the kids brings Chul-soo out. He sees Joanna running away with their dog Ggotsoon! Hahahahahhahahahaahahah. The kids run after her. And Chul-soo runs after the kids. Reminds me of the chase in Arang!
Joanna manages to get away in the car with Ggotsoon. The kids want the dog back. Now! What if Chul-soo got them two dogs with better breeds? Chul-soo tries to cajole them. No! They want Ggotsoon. Heh. Forced to do the right thing, Chul-soo sets up a meeting with Jo-anna for pet exchange. (Duk-goo gets Princess back from the clutches of the sly petshop owner, thank god!)
Oh, this is my favourite part of the episode.
Chul-soo and Joanna face each other, their respective pets clutched against their chest, eyes defiant, silhouetted against the sea. They stand on the sea-wall glaring at each other. They set the pets down and slowly creep up to pass each other.
It’s all so mock serious it’s awesome! That Nancy Sinatra croons Bang Bang makes this awesome-r! Tell me this is the awesomest pet exchange in the history of K-drama!
Once they get to their pets, they grab it and now Chul-soo says he’ll forgo the money she owes him if she just apologises.
“I’d rather give you the money!” she retorts.
“Then do,” his greed squelches his short-lived nobility.
“Too late! You should be thankful I let you off so easily,” she huffs.
“If we ever cross paths again, you better watch out!” he warns.
“Like that’ll ever happen,” she quips. Oh, just you wait, your Highness.
Billy’s busy celebrating his Anna-less free time by jamming to some music which he shares with Solomon the fish via earphone. Heheh. Sec Gong is also happy to be Anna-less for a bit.
But Anna arrives just then and both the men sober up. When she says she wants to go back to the US by the end of the month, they perk up. She says she wants Billy to accompany her. Billy vows he’ll be very busy with ‘work’ (read: avoiding Joanna like the plague) for the next month. Sec Gong promises to keep his Boss stress-free.
It’s a gorgeous sunny day to be out on the sea on a yacht. Joanna’s sunbathing with Princess clutched to her side. Billy’s ‘busy’ back in mainland and Gong’s catering to Joanna’s trivial whims. She threatens to go back to the mainland because she doesn’t like the shower-head.
Sec Gong immediately gets someone to call a plumber and guess who’s the busiest plumber in town? Hee! Chul-soo it is! He’s ordered to take his shoes off before he enters the yacht! Ok. Chul-soo gapes at the swanky yacht interior and fixes the shower-head in no time.
Joanna’s busy painting her nails. Princess fusses about and topples the body oil beside the chair. Princess makes her way inside when Chul-soo sees the cat! Uh—o. Don’t tell me he’ll steal it again? “What are you doing here?” he asks the cat.
Just then Joanna gets up in search of Princess, and nearly slips on the oil spilled on the floor. She wobbles inside, seeing as her toes are jammed with cotton. There, she and Chul-soo have a stare-down.
She’s about to walk off when he calls her a thief. Angry, she tries to barge in for a fight when she slips on the slick mat and stumbles into Chul-soo’s brawny arms. Whoops! It’s illegal for two people to look so good, together and separately.
Thoughts:
I have such fond memories of this show! It was one of those shows I ravished during my early K-drama discovery days. I watched it on DVD and, funnily, there was one episode towards the end which didn’t play. Maybe it was the kiss episode? What luck! So I don’t remember the ending bits for the show. Or do they not kiss here? Hm.
Anyway, I seem to be really fond of the Hongs’ older works and maybe that makes me sound like a stuck-up non-progressive boring doodoo, but when their stories were simple, the sisters could really reel me in. That’s not to say they’ve gotten worse. They seem to be experimenting and trying out new things and that’s always commendable.
Okay, so this show. What’s with the alternate title: Couple or Trouble. Am I to read the ‘couple’ part as a verb. Is that a declarative: Couple! Or there shall be trouble? Fantasy Couple is the official MBC English title, and I’m going with it.
This is said to be the reworking of the hit movie Overboard which I haven’t watched. Is my pop cultural experience incomplete without it? Hehe. Anyway, I looked up the plot in Wikipedia and the Hongs seem to have taken the basic outline from the movie. Even Joanna’s name! But I really have to hand it to the sisters in how they create this unique world filled with quirky details all their own and make the story a Hong Sisters’ Drama.
I’m also fond of PD Kim (of Arang et al). He just has this style that may not be for everyone. He has a taste for slapstick and horror and gliding camera movements and scenic countryside and an ear for music. I enjoy his work. This show is a bit shaky at times, but I think it settles down soon. Even now, I already really like it!
There are 3 pets in here: a fish called Solomon, dear to Joanna’s hubby Billy + a Persian cat called Princess, dear to her Highness Joanna + Ggotsoon the dog, dear to the orphan kids of Chul-soo. What’s not to like?
Our heroine is of the same OTT machine that produced Dokko-jin. Only, she’s female and it’s awesome! (Disclaimer: Dokko’s iconic too!) As of the first episode, she’s been entitled, snooty, rude, inconsiderate, mean, thoughtless, assy, sassy, bossy, ruthless, quick-thinking, pampered, and heartless. Wow. Hehehhe. The only thing she whole-heartedly loves is the cat. One has to wonder how and why she married Billy. Is she the primary rich person or did Billy bring some wealth of his own? And boy, are they rich!
Chul-soo, on the other hand, is poor and scraping by, but more than poor he’s greedy and money-hungry. I love how he goes to such stupid and undignified lengths to get $70. But to him every penny counts maybe because he’s raising 3 kids. Whose kids are they? What’s chump change to Joanna is a day of hard labour to Chul-soo. It’s also refreshing how it’s the woman who’s the richer one here.
I love how weird and offbeat the show is at times like a comic book brought to life. Just check out the wardrobe. Joanna’s always wearing bold red when she’s not wearing leopard print! And Billy’s get-up is like an experiment on what colours not to mix! But then, Chul Soo’s world is so mundane. I love the clash.
I also want to add that I may commit presumptuous language (and not so language-y) crimes with this venture as I must have done with DGCH. I am not Korean, but my recaps use many dialogues verbatim which might be technically wrong. (Credits to the awesome subs of WITHS2!) I could sweat about this forever and curl up in a corner worried I’ve offended someone; but I’ve realised that no matter what you do, somebody somewhere will dig up a reason to be righteously angered.
Let’s get this show on the road!
©dramababble 2015
This entry was posted by Maybee in 2015.
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