An underrated throwback that all k-dramas fans should watch, Bride of the Century. This k-drama is not one to be missed, especially for fans of romance and melodrama! If you've been watching k-dramas for a while now, you know that many of them consist of wealthy families and handsome heirs but that is the charm that makes up the k-drama world in which we all fall in love. Bride of the Century has some unique aspects to the show that makes it hard to forget. This k-drama has a good balance of a modern and traditional world with a drop of supernatural elements. We can't forget to mention the popular Korean idol, Lee Hong-gi as he takes the stage to play the gorgeous heir of a wealthy company in Korea. A fairytale with a dark twist, Bride of the Century will move you to feel all kinds of emotions! The drama consists of the genres: comedy, supernatural, romance, and melodrama and does a fantastic job when providing the perfect scenes to tie the drama together.
3 Reviews
Cheesy romance with Romeo and Juliet Vibes
leahcubed20 August 2023
Warning: Spoilers
7/10 is my rating. This is a 2014 South Korean romantic comedy drama with 16 ,~60 minute episodes. Also known as the hundred year bride.
First I provide a unique synopsis then review.
Synopsis
Na Doo Rim (Yang Jin sung) agrees to impersonate a wealthy heiress for a hefty sum of money not knowing she is subjecting herself to a curse. It seems the Choi family, who own the Taeyang group, a major South Korean conglomerate, have been under a hundred year curse. As her luck would have it she looks exactly like rich heiress Jang Yi Kyung (Yang Jin sung) who was set to marry the eldest son of the Choi family which would have triggered the curse. The curse is the first bride if the eldest son always dies and now Na Doo Rim is in the role of that first bride. It is an arranged marriage for business reasons and the eldest son, Choi Kang Joo (Lee Hong ki) did not love Jang Yi Kyung his would be bride. When Jang Yi Kyung disappears, in their desperation to keep the wedding going forward, the Jang family finds doppelgänger Doo Rim. But the two women only physically look alike and are opposites in nearly every other way. Where the heiress is rich, Doo Rim is poor, where the heiress has a cold, indifferent personality, Doo Rim is warm and bubbly. Choi Kang Joo does not know his bride has been swapped but finds he is seeing a new aspect to his fiancee and he likes this new leaf he thinks Jang Yi Kyung turned over. He surprisingly falls in love with this woman when he thought it would be a marriage of convenience and he would keep a distance. Na Doo Rim realizes Choi Kang Joo is kind under his cold exterior and falls for him as well. But what will happen if Choi Kang Joo discovers he was deceived? What if the real Jang Yi Kyung returns? And will Na Doo Rim become the victim of the curse?
Review
If you consider in 2023 this is now about a decade old it is easier to overlook some but not all of the way the romance is portrayed. There are rare instances where people fall in love pretty much at first sight although I would argue that that's not love at the beginning it's more love the way the person looks but love can develop from that. In this series it's not love at first sight but It is a bit of a quick transition from him being mostly indifferent, but perhaps a little intrigued with her to having some kind of undying love for her. For her to fall for him it was a little bit hard to understand because he was so arrogant and cold for so long that it also felt like she just suddenly decided she was deeply in love with him. It is a good example of romance during that time frame where you did not have a slow build up to love. If you want a point in time romance that has all the flavors and tropes of romances a decade ago you might like it. If you are a fan of FT Island's Lee Hong ki you might watch just to see him in this role. He also sings a lot of the songs for the series.
Spoilers
I depart from a lot of other reviewer's in that I thought a lot of the romantic scenes were over the top and cheesy in the things they said and gestures they made regarding their romantic feelings. Like I thought Na Doo Rim saying that she didn't care if she died as long as she got to be his bride for a day, was not something anybody, but perhaps a teenage girl in their overly dramatic hormonally driven phase, would say or think about someone they knew such a short time. Her overly dramatic actions around being apart from him were out of her earlier character and not something a grown woman would typically say or think. Most mature women would realize that no love is truly worth just a single day unless you're suicidal and then I would say you need mental health help. To add to the over the top love at all costs element when Kang joo is pushing her away because of fear of the curse she jumps in front of a car and uses emotional blackmail to get him to listen to her. To me that was completely an immature action, and it didn't suit her earlier character where she is very responsible, and if anything, somewhat mature for her age. I also thought he changed a lot in terms of he just suddenly had this undying love for her which didn't fit or makes sense. I am not a "giving your heart" fan. If you give your heart to someone they have absolute control of it and that is not a healthy dynamic. Having someone in your heart is a better way as that means they have a place in your heart but not absolute control. It is a healthier love.
The whole ghost angle, wound up being rather disappointing. It was not a curse but rather a trick. It was a twist, and I generally like twists, but in this case it detracted rather than added to the story. Since the ghost was not deadly, it was ironic that it wound up being the people around the First Bride, that were more of a danger to her than the "family curse." I thought it was completely out of character for Doo rim to be willing to sacrifice her life and leave the grandmother she loved so much. I felt like in the latter half of the series a lot of what she did seemed selfish, and that she didn't care if she hurt the people around her as long as she could be with Kang Joo. It had a very tragically fatalist vibe like Romeo and Juliet but those characters were much younger so their over the top made more sense for immature teenagers to respond that way.
There was way too much forgiveness of atrocious behavior for me. For example, I did not like that they tried to make the murderous grandmother a sympathetic character, and that somehow her guilt was enough to absolve her of murdering somebody. The fact that Kang joo's mother was willing to make her son marry Yi kyung simply to cover her mother and to avoid some damage to the family business made me like her less. After being such a strong and formidable character through most of the series, it was ridiculous that she would allow herself to be black mailed. Yi kyung's mother had nearly murdered her own step son and Doo rim, and Kang joo's mother could've turned that into the police as a current crime where the grandmother's crime occurred long ago. I get that Doo rim was supposed to be some super magnanimous person but she over forgave so many it made her seem a push over. She forgave Yi kyung who had no problem her dying as first bride and did not care her mother attempted to murder Doo rim. She forgave both Kang joo and Yi kyung's mothers who were willing to have her die under the curse.
It was such a minor point that the grandmother was a runaway bride that it simply distracted from the main plot elements. And I had really liked the grandmother to that point but, after her confession, she was also a flawed character. I mean if she that adamantly did not want to marry why wait until the wedding night to make your break? I am assuming her family had already derived whatever benefit. I know part if it was to reveal the origins of the curse lore but it conficted, a bit, with what the ghost said. The grandmother's husband said he spread it to discourage the well positioned brides from marrying him so he could marry her. The ghost said it was a true love test. I realize the meaning of such things can twist over time but she is this all seeing ghost so why didn't she reveal the full story? And the reveal of why Doo rim and Yi kyung looked identical, that the ghost visited baby Yi kyung and changed her features was silly. How would a ghost have that power? And it never explained why she did that. It leads you to think she saw the future and set the whole thing up but again, how does a ghost have that power?
There was a reincarnation angle as it seemed the ghost, Yi kyung's mother, and Doo rim were all tied together in the past. It was an important aspect but was not even hinted at until late in the series. The ghost changed Yi kyung's features ensuring the ancestor she was protecting, Kang joo, would have a better suited bride. Or at least Ithink that is why it never really says.
#LeeHongKi #YangJinSung #BrideoftheCentury #TheHundredYearBride.
First I provide a unique synopsis then review.
Synopsis
Na Doo Rim (Yang Jin sung) agrees to impersonate a wealthy heiress for a hefty sum of money not knowing she is subjecting herself to a curse. It seems the Choi family, who own the Taeyang group, a major South Korean conglomerate, have been under a hundred year curse. As her luck would have it she looks exactly like rich heiress Jang Yi Kyung (Yang Jin sung) who was set to marry the eldest son of the Choi family which would have triggered the curse. The curse is the first bride if the eldest son always dies and now Na Doo Rim is in the role of that first bride. It is an arranged marriage for business reasons and the eldest son, Choi Kang Joo (Lee Hong ki) did not love Jang Yi Kyung his would be bride. When Jang Yi Kyung disappears, in their desperation to keep the wedding going forward, the Jang family finds doppelgänger Doo Rim. But the two women only physically look alike and are opposites in nearly every other way. Where the heiress is rich, Doo Rim is poor, where the heiress has a cold, indifferent personality, Doo Rim is warm and bubbly. Choi Kang Joo does not know his bride has been swapped but finds he is seeing a new aspect to his fiancee and he likes this new leaf he thinks Jang Yi Kyung turned over. He surprisingly falls in love with this woman when he thought it would be a marriage of convenience and he would keep a distance. Na Doo Rim realizes Choi Kang Joo is kind under his cold exterior and falls for him as well. But what will happen if Choi Kang Joo discovers he was deceived? What if the real Jang Yi Kyung returns? And will Na Doo Rim become the victim of the curse?
Review
If you consider in 2023 this is now about a decade old it is easier to overlook some but not all of the way the romance is portrayed. There are rare instances where people fall in love pretty much at first sight although I would argue that that's not love at the beginning it's more love the way the person looks but love can develop from that. In this series it's not love at first sight but It is a bit of a quick transition from him being mostly indifferent, but perhaps a little intrigued with her to having some kind of undying love for her. For her to fall for him it was a little bit hard to understand because he was so arrogant and cold for so long that it also felt like she just suddenly decided she was deeply in love with him. It is a good example of romance during that time frame where you did not have a slow build up to love. If you want a point in time romance that has all the flavors and tropes of romances a decade ago you might like it. If you are a fan of FT Island's Lee Hong ki you might watch just to see him in this role. He also sings a lot of the songs for the series.
Spoilers
I depart from a lot of other reviewer's in that I thought a lot of the romantic scenes were over the top and cheesy in the things they said and gestures they made regarding their romantic feelings. Like I thought Na Doo Rim saying that she didn't care if she died as long as she got to be his bride for a day, was not something anybody, but perhaps a teenage girl in their overly dramatic hormonally driven phase, would say or think about someone they knew such a short time. Her overly dramatic actions around being apart from him were out of her earlier character and not something a grown woman would typically say or think. Most mature women would realize that no love is truly worth just a single day unless you're suicidal and then I would say you need mental health help. To add to the over the top love at all costs element when Kang joo is pushing her away because of fear of the curse she jumps in front of a car and uses emotional blackmail to get him to listen to her. To me that was completely an immature action, and it didn't suit her earlier character where she is very responsible, and if anything, somewhat mature for her age. I also thought he changed a lot in terms of he just suddenly had this undying love for her which didn't fit or makes sense. I am not a "giving your heart" fan. If you give your heart to someone they have absolute control of it and that is not a healthy dynamic. Having someone in your heart is a better way as that means they have a place in your heart but not absolute control. It is a healthier love.
The whole ghost angle, wound up being rather disappointing. It was not a curse but rather a trick. It was a twist, and I generally like twists, but in this case it detracted rather than added to the story. Since the ghost was not deadly, it was ironic that it wound up being the people around the First Bride, that were more of a danger to her than the "family curse." I thought it was completely out of character for Doo rim to be willing to sacrifice her life and leave the grandmother she loved so much. I felt like in the latter half of the series a lot of what she did seemed selfish, and that she didn't care if she hurt the people around her as long as she could be with Kang Joo. It had a very tragically fatalist vibe like Romeo and Juliet but those characters were much younger so their over the top made more sense for immature teenagers to respond that way.
There was way too much forgiveness of atrocious behavior for me. For example, I did not like that they tried to make the murderous grandmother a sympathetic character, and that somehow her guilt was enough to absolve her of murdering somebody. The fact that Kang joo's mother was willing to make her son marry Yi kyung simply to cover her mother and to avoid some damage to the family business made me like her less. After being such a strong and formidable character through most of the series, it was ridiculous that she would allow herself to be black mailed. Yi kyung's mother had nearly murdered her own step son and Doo rim, and Kang joo's mother could've turned that into the police as a current crime where the grandmother's crime occurred long ago. I get that Doo rim was supposed to be some super magnanimous person but she over forgave so many it made her seem a push over. She forgave Yi kyung who had no problem her dying as first bride and did not care her mother attempted to murder Doo rim. She forgave both Kang joo and Yi kyung's mothers who were willing to have her die under the curse.
It was such a minor point that the grandmother was a runaway bride that it simply distracted from the main plot elements. And I had really liked the grandmother to that point but, after her confession, she was also a flawed character. I mean if she that adamantly did not want to marry why wait until the wedding night to make your break? I am assuming her family had already derived whatever benefit. I know part if it was to reveal the origins of the curse lore but it conficted, a bit, with what the ghost said. The grandmother's husband said he spread it to discourage the well positioned brides from marrying him so he could marry her. The ghost said it was a true love test. I realize the meaning of such things can twist over time but she is this all seeing ghost so why didn't she reveal the full story? And the reveal of why Doo rim and Yi kyung looked identical, that the ghost visited baby Yi kyung and changed her features was silly. How would a ghost have that power? And it never explained why she did that. It leads you to think she saw the future and set the whole thing up but again, how does a ghost have that power?
There was a reincarnation angle as it seemed the ghost, Yi kyung's mother, and Doo rim were all tied together in the past. It was an important aspect but was not even hinted at until late in the series. The ghost changed Yi kyung's features ensuring the ancestor she was protecting, Kang joo, would have a better suited bride. Or at least Ithink that is why it never really says.
#LeeHongKi #YangJinSung #BrideoftheCentury #TheHundredYearBride.
A sloppy and mostly unsatisfying fantasy melodrama.
cremea10 December 2014
Bride of the Century aka Hundred Year Bride is a16 episode KTV drama from early 2014. It was billed as a fantasy romance melodrama with a supposed horror element to it. It is not very good, mainly because it's too generic (despite its supernatural theme) and it's too hard to overlook its oft incoherent storytelling.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Story: A generational curse haunts a family where the eldest son's first wife will be killed on their wedding night. This family is rich, and another family wants to marry their daughter into it to consolidate their power base, however they too know about the curse. The daughter to be married off doesn't want to die, so her mom and her concoct a plan to find an identical looking woman to pretend to be the first wife so she'll get killed instead, and thus the original daughter and mom can swoop in and marry into the money & power they seek.
The girl they get to play the stand-in to the bride to be looks exactly the same, but the 2 girls are total opposites in personality. Forget all the supernatural stuff; this show is the same story these K-dramas tell all the time, i.e. poor girl meets rich guy, rich guy can't stand her at first, poor girl eventually wins everybody over with her kindness and spirit, rich guy falls for poor girl, they're in love but can't be together, rich guy sulks, poor girl cries, everything works out in the end because they were "fated to be together". It's an endlessly rehashed tale that only works well if you put some actual thought into the story and writing, and this show does neither of those things very well.
This story is also severely lacking in any creativity...Dual secondary love interests?: Check! A half dozen characters faint or have heart attacks at some point?: Check! Rich manipulative evil people?: Check! Everything is destiny?: Check! Everybody's family is endlessly intertwined with everybody else's?..Check! Check! Check! I've seen it all a hundred times before, and seen it done better many, many times.
The supernatural aspect really adds nothing to this show of any benefit. In fact (SPOILERS), there is no family curse at all, but nobody knows this at first. There is a ghost though, who wants revenge or peace and/or something depending on the daily script re-writes. As for the overall storytelling and writing, it's hard to forgive the numerous instances of how nonsensical it is at times. I can accept many flaws in logic with fantasy themed K-dramas, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Consider these simple questions that pretty much make the writers look like fools should anyone bother to ask them:
1) Why doesn't the one family just move out of the haunted house? 2) Why doesn't the bride to be just simply not marry into the cursed family? 3) How does the mom and daughter plan to pull this charade off when there will be an identical dead body leftover to deal with?...What about marriage license, ID's, fingerprints, the fact that they've committed conspiracy and fraud, etc?
The show either tries to answer these questions (and others like them) with only basic curt explanations which make little to no sense, or it doesn't even bother trying to answer them at all. There are gaping plot holes everywhere, and none of the writers seem to even care. There is no effort spent in explaining why the poor girl would even fall for the rich guy; he's basically an ass towards her, then all of sudden she's in love with him so much that she's willing to die just to be with him for one night? Really? And, in the writers' haste to give everyone the growth and resolution treatment at the end of the show, they seem to have conveniently forgotten the fact that several of these characters were perfectly willing to kill our heroine on several occasions. What are they thinking trying to generate any pathos for these characters ? The writing and storytelling is so illogical that it's utterly laughable at times.
Obviously, I don't have a whole lot of positive things to say about this show. I will however say that it's shot and produced well, and it smartly keeps to a minimum run time. I did mostly like the 2 leads as well:
Lee Hong-gi gets the role of chaebol heir bachelor. I liked him OK here, though he is given a typical part I can't stand on these shows, i.e. he goes from smug to angry to sad to in love, with little to no room in between. Star struck teenage girls might find these roles appealing, but they are extremely limited. Fortunately, Hong-gi's character does get the opportunity to eventually show some more range, and he's not bad when given the chance.
Yang Jin-sung plays the female lead in a dual role as greedy construction company daughter and poor girl who plays her sacrificial double. Actually, she plays several other parts on this show as well in historical flashbacks. This is the first time I've seen her in a lead role, and I thought she performed rather well considering all the varying personalities she had to portray.
Summary: I cannot recommend this show at all. The plot is as equally clichéd as it is absurd and the writers seem convinced it's a good idea to shoehorn every mood and genre theme into this show to cover as many bases as possible. Unfortunately, they are in no way creative or intelligent enough to pull this off successfully. If you're going to make a crazy murderous supernatural love story, then stick to your guns and go for it. Don't vacillate between that and a formulaic growth/heal/love story where "even murderers deserve love in the end", because you'll just end up with slop like this show.
Bottom Line: 5 out of 10 stars!
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Story: A generational curse haunts a family where the eldest son's first wife will be killed on their wedding night. This family is rich, and another family wants to marry their daughter into it to consolidate their power base, however they too know about the curse. The daughter to be married off doesn't want to die, so her mom and her concoct a plan to find an identical looking woman to pretend to be the first wife so she'll get killed instead, and thus the original daughter and mom can swoop in and marry into the money & power they seek.
The girl they get to play the stand-in to the bride to be looks exactly the same, but the 2 girls are total opposites in personality. Forget all the supernatural stuff; this show is the same story these K-dramas tell all the time, i.e. poor girl meets rich guy, rich guy can't stand her at first, poor girl eventually wins everybody over with her kindness and spirit, rich guy falls for poor girl, they're in love but can't be together, rich guy sulks, poor girl cries, everything works out in the end because they were "fated to be together". It's an endlessly rehashed tale that only works well if you put some actual thought into the story and writing, and this show does neither of those things very well.
This story is also severely lacking in any creativity...Dual secondary love interests?: Check! A half dozen characters faint or have heart attacks at some point?: Check! Rich manipulative evil people?: Check! Everything is destiny?: Check! Everybody's family is endlessly intertwined with everybody else's?..Check! Check! Check! I've seen it all a hundred times before, and seen it done better many, many times.
The supernatural aspect really adds nothing to this show of any benefit. In fact (SPOILERS), there is no family curse at all, but nobody knows this at first. There is a ghost though, who wants revenge or peace and/or something depending on the daily script re-writes. As for the overall storytelling and writing, it's hard to forgive the numerous instances of how nonsensical it is at times. I can accept many flaws in logic with fantasy themed K-dramas, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Consider these simple questions that pretty much make the writers look like fools should anyone bother to ask them:
1) Why doesn't the one family just move out of the haunted house? 2) Why doesn't the bride to be just simply not marry into the cursed family? 3) How does the mom and daughter plan to pull this charade off when there will be an identical dead body leftover to deal with?...What about marriage license, ID's, fingerprints, the fact that they've committed conspiracy and fraud, etc?
The show either tries to answer these questions (and others like them) with only basic curt explanations which make little to no sense, or it doesn't even bother trying to answer them at all. There are gaping plot holes everywhere, and none of the writers seem to even care. There is no effort spent in explaining why the poor girl would even fall for the rich guy; he's basically an ass towards her, then all of sudden she's in love with him so much that she's willing to die just to be with him for one night? Really? And, in the writers' haste to give everyone the growth and resolution treatment at the end of the show, they seem to have conveniently forgotten the fact that several of these characters were perfectly willing to kill our heroine on several occasions. What are they thinking trying to generate any pathos for these characters ? The writing and storytelling is so illogical that it's utterly laughable at times.
Obviously, I don't have a whole lot of positive things to say about this show. I will however say that it's shot and produced well, and it smartly keeps to a minimum run time. I did mostly like the 2 leads as well:
Lee Hong-gi gets the role of chaebol heir bachelor. I liked him OK here, though he is given a typical part I can't stand on these shows, i.e. he goes from smug to angry to sad to in love, with little to no room in between. Star struck teenage girls might find these roles appealing, but they are extremely limited. Fortunately, Hong-gi's character does get the opportunity to eventually show some more range, and he's not bad when given the chance.
Yang Jin-sung plays the female lead in a dual role as greedy construction company daughter and poor girl who plays her sacrificial double. Actually, she plays several other parts on this show as well in historical flashbacks. This is the first time I've seen her in a lead role, and I thought she performed rather well considering all the varying personalities she had to portray.
Summary: I cannot recommend this show at all. The plot is as equally clichéd as it is absurd and the writers seem convinced it's a good idea to shoehorn every mood and genre theme into this show to cover as many bases as possible. Unfortunately, they are in no way creative or intelligent enough to pull this off successfully. If you're going to make a crazy murderous supernatural love story, then stick to your guns and go for it. Don't vacillate between that and a formulaic growth/heal/love story where "even murderers deserve love in the end", because you'll just end up with slop like this show.
Bottom Line: 5 out of 10 stars!
See also
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