Meu Marido Oh Jak Doo (2018)

For the first half of this drama at least, it tells a good story about the struggles of a successful career woman who defies society by refusing to marry but ends up pursuing a contract relationship anyway.

Han Seung-joo, played by Uee, is not just single - she's alone. Her family are judgemental, abusive parasites and her friends have their own lives. She inherits a mountain from her Aunt that her family is intent on developing into a resort. But when she feels threatened in her own home, she decides to hire a man to be her husband. Oh Jak-doo (Kim Kang-woo) is seemingly a lowly herb-gatherer from the mountain she now owns and he accepts the role in exchange for her leaving his mountain home undeveloped.

At the beginning, this drama had an intelligent script that seemed to be at war with the Makjang direction. It doesn't matter how strong or independent you are, it was saying, you still need somebody to be on your side. In essence, everybody needs a mountain. Seung-joo's mountain was both figurative and literal: when things got too difficult for her, she now had somewhere solid and unchanging to rest.

From the start, the Makjang direction was extremely jarring. Full of intense close-ups, overwrought - almost screeching - line deliveries, and long scenes devoted to the bumbling slapstick antics of three mountain Halmeonis, the direction was a sour note in a otherwise enjoyable show.

Unfortunately, by about episode 14 it became obvious the director knew something we didn't. The show veered sharply into Makjang and never recovered. At a daunting 24 episodes, this meant almost half the drama was full of contrived conflict, opaque character motivations and general audience confusion. And screeching. There's a lot of screeching.

While Kim Kang-woo's Oh Jak-doo is often swoonworthy, the show is stolen repeatedly by the affectatious and pretentious Eric Cho as a second male lead, played with a lot of heart and self-awareness by Jung Sang-hoon. Uee also gives her character a lot of strength and vulnerability but both she and Kim Kong-woo struggle with their characters once their motivations get murky.

The performances are not enough to save what is, in the end, a poorly-written and badly-paced soap opera that has little overall point to make about anything.

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A drama with a modern take on marriage and married life in general

Watching this was not as frustrating as other dramas with contract-marriage themes, mainly because the main characters were created as mature adults who are just at the right age to settle down. Contrary to the usually shy and innocent heroine, the drama featured a naive country guy named Jak Doo having to agree to a fake marriage to a materialistic Seoulite to save his cabin. It does have some twists, but as mentioned, it's not frustrating to watch. There are no cheesy moments. Heck, only four kiss scenes were done during the entire drama. There was no deep hatred between the main characters, unlike in some Korean rom-com and melodramas, partly because the characters were written as mature adults. It also featured women in today's era taking over their careers (and personal lives) without much help from men. Lastly, it gave viewers a glance at the ups and downs of long-distance relationships and compromise in marriage in terms of the career and personal lives of the two lovers. It's pretty much straight to the point, which makes it more interesting.

Props to the production team for casting a team of actors to portray the characters in this project. This was not the first time for Uee to star in a contract marriage-themed drama, but compared to Hye Soo who made me cry a lot in 'Marriage Contract', Seung Joo reminded me of PD Tak Ye Jin in 'The Producers'- strong, stubborn, passionate woman. And Uee, as always did an astounding job. On the other hand, Jung Sang Hoon is quite a revelation to me. I've always seen him as a funny guy in SNL Korea, so seeing him in this drama was interesting. The character Eric Cho is a funny and genuine person, yet savage when it comes to his business dealings. Jung Sang Hoon did really well. I'm looking forward to seeing his other works.

Also, the songs are one of the very few drama OSTs that I really really love.

Overall, My Contracted Husband Mr. Oh is a drama with a modern take on marriage and married life in general. Their love story did not have a good start, but there are lots of heartwarming moments that will definitely make you smile until the end.

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