#my mission is to save even one kang ha neul fan from this fate of sustaining themselves through a ??? show just for him

[dramavixen]

dramavixen reviews – curtain call (south korea, 2022)

If you even slightly adore Kang Ha-neul and/or Ha Ji-won, run away from this show like you're a gazelle being hunted by a lion on a desert plain. They don't deserve the horrors of this show being pinned on them, just like you don't deserve the horrors of watching it.

***This review contains spoilers.***

There's something heart-racing about starting a show that you've seen few people talk about. Is it a dark horse? Or is it just so subpar that it's sunk into obscurity before most viewers even know its name?

The second one. It's the second one.

Curtain Call opens with the introduction of Grandma Ja Geum-soon (Go Doo-shim) in a sepia flashback of her younger self (played by Ha Ji-won). When the Korean War descended upon the peninsula over 70 years ago, she fled to present-day South Korea. Her husband and infant son were left behind in the chaos. She manages by herself for a while, looking out to the sea for a ship that will bring her husband and son back to her—a ship that never comes. She eventually remarries and has another son and three grandchildren, in the meantime building a hotel empire with her bare hands.

In 2000, she meets her adult North Korean son and his child, a young grandson, at a government-hosted reunion. In spite of the grandma-grandson pair vowing that they will meet again, that promise enters an indefinite lull with the death of her son and the subsequent loss of communications with her grandson.

Fast-forwarding to present-day: Grandma is old and sick, and her right-hand man Mr. Jung (Sung Dong-il) decides that he wants to grant her happiness before she dies. He's had a PI searching for her North Korean grandson in order to bring him to the south and fulfill their promised reunion. The investigation bears fruit, but a rotten one—grandson Ri Moon-sung (Noh Sang-hyun) has grown up into a cold, violent smuggler who bounces between North Korea and China, a fate that Mr. Jung firmly believes will upset Grandma and send her to an early grave.

So he does what anyone with a functioning brain cell would do, which is craft up a massive con that involves hiring no-name actor Yoo Jae-heon (Kang Ha-neul) to act as the North Korean grandson—a morally angelic version—until Grandma ascends to heaven. That's right. We are going to scam a 92-year-old woman. I should've known in that moment that it couldn't end well.

You'd really hope that in spite of the enormity of this lie, there's enough room for found-family-style warmth. After all, such is the selling point of the entire drama. Couldn't Jae-heon gradually grow to truly love Grandma as she fills the void left by the mother who abandoned him? Can't it be a tale of mutual healing between two individuals whose loneliness cannot be understood by others?

Nope. I could count the number of times the two interact one-on-one on my ten fingers, though I would prefer not to put myself through the pain of recounting this show's events in such detail. Grandma basically has the presence of a supporting character as everyone else around her busies themselves with tricking her, which really shouldn't be all that difficult since no one cares enough to check on her in the first place. The writer is too busy focusing on fake grandson over here and his supposed blooming romance with his "cousin," Park Se-yeon (Ha Ji-won), a romance which is beyond terrible, by the way. Sorry that I'm not so open-minded that I'm into watching cousins date, even if they're not actually related. (Wait until the day I tackle a review for Autumn in My Heart. Then we'll really be in for a ride.)

Except for Grandma and her real grandson, every character in this show is a villain. The main frustration is how they're presented as if they aren't villains. Her entire family masquerades around, pretending to rule over a moral high ground as they lie to her over and over again with the excuse that they don't want her to die. Guys, I don't know how to break it to you, but she's going to die. They act surprised about it even though everyone is informed of this in the very beginning and even though it's supposed to be the reason everyone ends up going along with the fake grandson shtick in the first place.

When grandson Moon-sung himself reaches South Korea in search of Grandma, absolutely no one even considers telling Grandma. They instead enter a panic, fearing the consequences of their act being unveiled, and discuss how to prevent the two from meeting.

Imagine the malice that exists in these people. Grandma is dying. Grandma's last possible way of making amends with a past that caused her and her North Korean family extreme suffering is by connecting with the grandson she met once, two decades ago. Yet, even when every single person knows that that grandson is now here, no one argues that they deserve the time to reconnect. Instead they tell Moon-sung that he should go back. Let me reiterate that in case anyone thinks I'm exaggerating the severity of these people's cruelty: they want the guy who's from North Korea to go back so that he can't meet his grandma because he's messing up their plans.

Grandma and Moon-sung are robbed of their potential time together by a "family" that dares to claim that they're doing so for Grandma's sake. Jae-heon steals every single remedial moment that's meant for Moon-sung, a man who has spent his entire life harboring hatred for a grandma he used to adore because that's the only way he can reconcile himself to the unfairness of his life. And none of that lost time is made up for, because how could it be when Grandma's health is declining so fast and everyone's tricking her? How absolutely, disgustingly insulting and heartbreaking. Everyone's selfishness is physically revolting, especially as episodes drag on and nobody shows intentions of telling Grandma the truth.

Ultimately, even though it tries to shove the beauty of such a horrific white lie down your throat, Curtain Call never convinces me that anyone is acting out of love for Grandma. All they really care about is keeping her favor so that she'll return their affection in the form of a shiny inheritance and/or more control over Grandma's hotel empire. Yeah, in the end, I guess stereotypical rich people will still act like stereotypical rich people.

I might not have cared that much about the endless lies if there existed any effort to make it seem like Grandma and her fake grandson formed a real bond. Instead, Jae-heon is the worst fake grandson ever. All attempts to create an emotional connection exist only on a superficial level, a classic case of a drama telling you that they love and appreciate one another instead of showing you. Just look at this man: he gets to the house and loiters around for a couple days, then abruptly decides to go on vacation with his fake wife for a whole week. Without Grandma. I just...I...what is the point of paying him a fortune to make Grandma happy if he won't even spend time with Grandma????? Is no one else witnessing this absurdity? Even if you're ignoring the moral pitfalls of it, you can't brush aside that he's a slacking employee.

The whole setup doesn't allow you to sympathize with any of the main characters. Had the scam been constructed because Mr. Jung's search for Moon-sung came up empty, then whatever. A fake grandson might turn out to be better than none, especially since they're on a timeline, and then when real Moon-sung appears and chaos ensues, that's understandable. But knowing that Moon-sung is alive, knowing who he is, what he looks like, where he is, and still deciding to replace him? The nerve of some people.

Returning to Mr. Jung's excuse, which is, oh, Moon-sung is an awful person that would make Grandma sad. Moon-sung is an "awful" person because: his father essentially raised him as a single parent after the death of Moon-sung's mother. Moon-sung's father then dies from illness, in both emotional and physical agony as he recalls the absence of Grandma in his life from circumstances that were not their fault. Moon-sung gets married and his wife, too, falls ill and needs an organ transplant. No one's trying to excuse his methods, but is it truly "wrong" that he resorts to violence and crime for money when he's desperate to save the last living person whom he loves?

Not to mention, when he finds Grandma himself and talks to her, he could choose to reveal his identity. But he doesn't, because it breaks him that Grandma is ecstatic and relieved to discover that her "grandson" remained happy and pure in spite of growing up in North Korea; and he knows that he isn't either of those things. Wow, what a monster. Granted, no one else knows about this encounter, so fine, let's just have a spoon of dramatic irony.

But my greatest qualm is that it doesn't matter what type of person he is. Grandma not only has the right to know, she must know. Of course she hopes that he grew up healthy and happy. But what are the chances of that? It's not like Grandma isn't aware of the consequences of the Korean War...you know, the one she personally escaped from all those years ago. How is it possible that she isn't mentally prepared to learn that her grandson had a hard life? The point of family is to accompany one another in times of hardship. In what world should anyone else, be it other family or total strangers, have the audacity to deny her of that knowledge and supersede her need to meet her own grandson?

Regardless of the acting, few things about Curtain Call feel redeeming when the characters and story lack the moral and ethical standard necessary to satisfy viewers. You just can't bring yourself to sympathize with anyone except for Grandma and Moon-sung. Here's a list of everyone that you'll learn to hate:

Grandma's first husband, the one that gets stuck in North Korea. I don't care how nice he is, this guy is an S-class dumbass. He misses the boat to flee because he's busy saving someone else's kid while holding his own infant. He can't try to hand his baby off to his wife who's already on the damn boat before helping a stranger's child? Hey, genius. Self-sacrifice and altruism aren't so cool when you're dragging your kid into the fire pit with you.

Mr. Jung. A hypocrite of a douchebag who was rescued from a deadly gangster lifestyle by Grandma and then decides to repay her by preventing her from meeting her gangster grandson because said grandson is a gangster.

Jae-heon. The dude spends all his time trying to get close to his "cousin" because she's pretty and only shallowly interacts with Grandma every so often to make sure he gets his paycheck. He then wallows in the whole tragic male lead backstory of being abandoned at an amusement park as if I can't feel bad for someone and despise them at the same time.

Se-yeon. When she learns that Jae-heon is a sham, she goes along with the lie because she thinks it's what's best for Grandma. Understandable, since she doesn't know the real Moon-sung has already been found. Nope, she learns that and is instantly like "no, we can't let her meet him." Because her hotel shares! Her hotel position! What a conniving, two-faced...

Seo Yoon-hee (Jung Ji-so). Jae-heon's partner-in-crime who plays his "wife" in the scam. She, for some reason, thinks that this is a worthwhile thing mainly because she likes Jae-heon, which is really the only evidence you need to predict that a woman did not write this show.

Bae Dong-je (Kwon Sang-woo). This man results from a writer's boss telling them that they need a second male lead even though they really don't need one. He chases Se-yeon around, insisting that she marry him because he's rich and is so obnoxious about it that I spent every moment of seeing his face just begging her to agree so that she could slowly poison him to death and take his money just to shut him up permanently.

Park Se-joon (Ji Seung-hyun). I don't know what he wants half the time. He plots to take down the hotel because reasons, so it follows that he hates his sister who doesn't want to take down the hotel, because reasons. He also has zero functioning logic cells and spends several episodes threatening to reveal that Moon-sung is Grandma's real grandson, but never does because reasons.

Park Se-kyu (Choi Dae-hoon). The exception to the rule: the only bearable character because his main goal is to stay stupid and lazy while everyone else around him succumbs to total lunacy. Can you blame him?

Long story short, this drama is on the opposite side of heartwarming and I learned that grandkids will treat you like an old bag of garbage while keeping you alive because they want your money.

I would recommend this to: people who are so desperate to feel alive that they're willing to subject themselves to hours of rage if that's what it takes

#curtain call #kbs curtain call #* #scribbles* #my mission is to save even one kang ha neul fan from this fate of sustaining themselves through a ??? show just for him #one of these days i'll get back to writing long-format essay-style reviews of shows i actually enjoyed #this is a uh 2023 new years resolution #it'll happen i swear!!