Boys Over Flowers: Part 1

Annyeong!

(Annyeong is Hi! in Korean)
This post is based on a recent discussion I had with C, on my problem of watching k-dramas, especially REWATCHING the K-drama that started it all for me - Boys Over Flowers (no, they are NOT gay). C tells me that she has never rewatched a series/movie. And this has surprised me, because I thought I wasn't the only one who wouldn't mind watching some of them repeatedly. C wanted to know more about what could possibly interest me to do so, so I tackle that, among many other things about this series.

SPOILER ALERT/ Disclaimer:
This post and the upcoming ones will contain SPOILERS. If you want to watch this series, please do so and then read the article. 
This post might offend some people. Please don't read it if you are the sort that does get offended. I use the word asshole in this post, so if you are sensitive to that, you shouldn't read that part either.

This will be a long post. This also seems to be a series of posts.

Here's the story -

There's this girl - Jann Di (Weed. Her parents named her Weed. Oh well) and her characteristics are as follows :

• She is poor
• She is extremely loyal to her friends
• She is super super poor y'all
• She hates rich people who show off
• She is clumsy, and reallly poor
• She is NOT pretty. Or smart. Or rich. 
• She is a confused person who is not wealthy

There - now that I have gotten the main character out of the way, let us move on to the titular Boys over Flowers. 

These are a group of four guys, who call themselves Flower 4. Why do these boys call themselves that you ask? Maybe it's because they identify as flowers. Maybe it's because they like flowers so much. Maybe Fantastic 4 was already taken. The point is I don't know. And I don't care, because they shorten this to F4. I also love their confidence for calling their manly selves Flowers with all seriousness.  

Their characteristics are as follows:

• These guys are rich, they are heirs to various businesses around the country/WORLD (America strikes again!)
• They are super rich. If they walked, gold would drop from their bodies or something
• One of them has permed curly hair
• One of them has light brown hair that is very obviously dyed.
• One of them is a potter (not Potter, this one is a dude that makes stuff with clay/porcelain)
• One of them is .. Well he is just .. there. For convenient plot reasons.
• They are rich and they are arrogant. All of them.

This lot meets at a school. EVERYONE at this school is a rich, arrogant, selfish asshole. So the defining character traits of these F4 are not -  very defining? They are richer (richest?) and more arrogant than the rest. They are just bigger jerks than the rest of this cesspool. Weed is a student on scholarship. She doesn't enter because she is good at something - she enters because she saves a rich kid from committing suicide and PR issues. 

Suicide is a normal thing at this school, because rich people bullying is a WHOLE NEW LEVEL compared to what you would have ever experienced. Or expected. Usually, when someone gets bullied, there are some who support the bullying, some who oppose, and some who don't care and some who mind their own business. NOT THIS SCHOOL. In this school, if F4 says they don't like someone, the WHOLE FRIGGING SCHOOL decides they want some of that sweet sweet action. For what? Nobody knows. Or cares! They just enjoy putting down their classmates over smarts, looks AND MONEY. The bullying is awfully violent, both mentally and physically.

The amount of persecuting and bullying is a linear function of how much money you have. Seriously, the children of this school are SO money-minded, you wonder what sort of adults do they turn out to be? That is just one of the philosophical questions this show makes you think about, among many. (No I am not joking. There really are many). 

But I digress - (and how do I digress :p), we go back to this student (Weed) hating F4 with her soul. And of course, plot reasons make her "friend" drop some ice-cream on the ring leader of F4 - Jun-pyo (how CUTE!) who is the permy-curly person. His hair is not naturally curly though, because, well that's just not what curly hair looks like. So Curly takes offense at this ice-cream on his SHOE and when the "friend" (there's a reason the friend is "friend") offers to get it cleaned or get a new pair ( Um. Ok I guess? -_-), Curly is even more offended (because MONEY), and orders "friend" to lick it off (?! It's a damn shoe princess - get over it!).

And thus begins, the epic Love Story that is Boys Over Flowers. 

I could sit here and type out a damn novel (and who knows, maybe I will. Corona's in the air. Other people have real life achievements like research in science and tech or helping people , basically things that matter -  and my contribution to the world will be a thesis of Boys Over Flowers, complete with my commentary - which is also probably a derivative of the things people have already done)

However, for now suffice to know this -

Weed is enraged, and Curly is all like, "If you are so interested in your friend's problems, you can lick it instead!" And Weed makes a show of bowing to lick, and shoves the rest of the ice-cream in Curly's face, and HUMILIATES the crap out of Curly. His cronies (the rest of F4) laugh at that as well, which just proves that this whole lot is super weird. I mean I always thought a bully has his cronies so that they support him/her. Hmmm. This makes her a target for the famous bullying routine these guys have down to a T, and eventually her fierce spirit and her poverty makes Curly fall for her.

There is also a triangle between Curly and the brown haired dude and her, because why the hell not. (Brown haired guy is a loner with autism, and saves Weed more times than we can count. We all cheer for Browny and Weed)

Oh and the other two Flowers? Well they are both lady-killers, so popular and so generic, that their side stories don't make much of a dent. They are good friends though, and that is surprising - I mean, where's the MONEY y'all? They are the only ones who don't bring up their status or how cool and rich they are all the time. But they do stand with Curly and Browny when the bullying is going on.

The story eventually progresses to Weed's poorness manifesting in myriad ways (she is poor guys, we are reminded of this in Every.Single.Episode. Multiple times). Sometimes, it's her dad loosing his job. Sometimes, it's her working multiple jobs and literally fainting with exhaustion. Sometimes it's not finding the proper dress to wear. There is a lot of crying after the first few episodes. 

Also the Asian mom trope has been done so thoroughly - she controls her son with an iron fist, not letting him budge, with all his whining and throwing tantrums and all those similar child-like traits. She makes life miserable for everyone in the series. She is evil reincarnate.

Hell, even the house help is more understanding than she is. Mommy stirs up loads of trouble for the love birds, all in the name of THE COMPANY. Her company is more precious to her than basic humanity itself. Her family, other people, and the whole world are just pawns in her game. Sherlock has nothing on  Mommy.

There is also a fiance!! I mean usually (I hope) when someone finds out, that the person they like, and are dating exclusively, has a FIANCE, they back off and try their luck someplace else, with a better person. But no this fiance bomb is just dropped, and there is so much misunderstanding, it's a wonder Weed still wants to be with Curly anymore. Curly doesn't even deny it. He just shrugs and says - yeah so? I love you not her!

Sigh. In the end there's amnesia. Curly looses all memories of Weed, and finally Weed tries committing suicide (because that's a great message to send to your viewers) and Curly is watching this happen (she was trying to drown herself in a pool right in front of people, and nobody even cares) and saves her!! He remembers! He apologizes! He ditches the new girlfriend made during this memory loss episode! 

He goes away to USA to become a real Man (read - higher studies in USA), and then we cut to four years later where Browny is still crushing on Weed so hard, and Weed is studying in the same college as him in Korea. Curly makes an entrance in a helicopter and asks Weed to marry him. Which Browny objects to. The end. :D

(Yeah that's how the series ended)

This ends Part 1 of this series. Here, I tried covering most of the major events that happened in this drama. While I have mentioned some of the problems with this, I guess I can give a blow-by-blow analysis of all the major ones (there are many) and we can talk about what I took away from this (apart from the wasted years of my life) and why did I find some parts fun and some of them just wrong.

And once I am done with that, maybe C could understand what is it about this particular drama that makes me obsessed as soon as I start watching it again. It's like Lays, full of air, and a pair of chips in the bag that you just can't help but munch on.

PS: I know this is long and I know this might put off some people, but the upcoming parts should be smaller !! Or maybe not? Thank you for reaching here! Phaiting! 

PPS: Phaiting (fighting said in an excited way with a strong accent) is a Korean word for encouragement and motivation :p

Until next time,

DragonRider