And Now for Something Completely Different… Drama Review: The Suspicious Housekeeper
Enter the ‘mysterious housekeeper’, Park Bok-nyeo (Choi Ji-woo), a strange woman employed to care for the children but with secrets of her own, and an uncanny ability to provide whatever is needed a’la ‘Mary Poppins’ from a ability show emotions, and especially to smile, she quickly
The script was written with much attention paid to drawing out the mysterious aspects of the characters. The characters developed in a manner that intrigued and kept viewers fascinated and questioning throughout the series.
It may be a little late in coming, but this was a drama worth reviewing – and worth watching, it you haven’t seen it already. Another drama that spanned more than one genre – fantasy, drama, dark comedy – it also introduced
The character of Park Bok-Nyeo was deliciously complex, outwardly an automaton that followed orders in a seemingly mindless fashion. Yet despite the lack of emotional display, the character engendered empathy as well as curiosity. The viewers and the family were desperate to break past the stone wall that was her emotional barricade.
Mystery.
The Eun family has suffered the loss of their mother, and to make matters worse, the children come to learn that their father, Eun Sang-chul (Lee Sung-Jae), was having an affair and the mother, upon discovering his betrayal, committed suicide.
96 | SAN DIEGO KOREAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY MAGAZINE . March 2014
The father, Eun Sang-chul, was, in contrast, emotionally honest to a fault, unable to tell his children he loved them and pathetically ready to give up control of his family. Another character that grew in complexity as the drama progressed, Sang-chul grew into an emotional adult with the assistance (and insistence!) of the emotionally repressed Bok-Nyeo.