One thing that differentiates the romantic K-dramas from those we see in other countries is that they find interesting professions for the people they fix. In Run Forward, a world – class track star is set by a movie translator. Interest, right? Read on for more.
RUN AIR: STREAM IT NO SKIP IT?
Opening photo: Separation screen of a man carefully tying his running shoes and a woman jumping into a pair of purple Chucks. They both run, but for different reasons.
The Question: Oh Me-joo (Shin Se-kyung) is the one exploding in Chucks; she goes to a film festival where a film she has translated into English first appears. Meanwhile, national and field star Ki Seon-gyeom (Im Si-wan) attends the festival with his mother, the famous actress Yook Ji-woo (Cha Hwa-yeon), which distracts Me-joo from seeing her credit on screen.
For his part, Seon-gyeom is skeptical about his career, and his players are like a mixed bag. The fastest runner, Kwon Young-il (Park Sung-joon) is a bully, and Kim Woo-sik (Lee Jeong-ha) is constantly getting the better of himself. For Me-joo, she has to deal with the smarmy director of the film she was working on, Han Seok-won (Bae Yoo-ram); she needs it for an interpretive gig that will help her career.
But when she confronts her college professor while spitting fake lies, Seok runs after her when she comes out. Me-joo literally runs into Seon-gyeom, who grabs the fake gun she dropped and holds it to Seok-won’s face; he takes the gun by mistake. They meet again a few days later when she is robbed trying to buy another fake gun, and he launches an art case with a student named Lee Young-hwa (Kang Tae-oh) that hits the man on the head. This time, after giving their statements to the police, they exchange numbers.
Me-joo swallows her pride and apologizes to the professor, so she can save that interpretive work. Through connections, however, she has offered another job, interpreting for an elite athlete while going on an international news tour. She works for the president of the sports organization Seo Dan-a (Sooyoung), which is so cold that she rejects the desire of her visiting brother to spend time together. When she finds out who the athlete is, she begins to feel that he is going to lose.
What displays does it remind you of? Run Forward one of those K-drama rom-coms that has a more humorous tone, so Crash lands on you.
We will: When we watch K-drama rom-coms, we tend to look at a thing or two: The version of meet-cute we get in the first program, and the chemistry between the stars of the show. Run Forward examining both boxes, making for a hard start, albeit in a controversial way.
Suffice to say, this is largely about the romance of Seon-gyeom and Me-joo. There will be time for Dan-a and Young-hwa to make a connection, but we only gather that from some of the upcoming program descriptions and attractions. There are a lot of support players, and most of them are doing well with their careers. But there is enough chemistry between the directors, Shin Se-kyung and Im Se-wan, to carry this show for whatever seasons it runs.
Shin Se-kyung is primarily like Me-joo. She’s having a great time, and she can look beyond any actress in the K-dramas we’ve seen so far. Her character has more of a funny heavy build to do, as Seon-gyeom seems to be a very bold and thoughtful character. But maybe as they get closer, it won’t make it as bad for him.
What I didn’t like was the tools that brought these two together in the first place. As we said, it was somewhat controversial; Me-joo has to stand up to the professor, grab his toupee in the process, then beg for his forgiveness, and then hire him for this position. And for the meet-cutes, she has to buy a fake gun from a guy on the other end of the headset on the MMPG she’s playing. Is this unusual for K-dramas? Not at all. But the move to bring those two cunning children together seemed more complicated than usual. But once the show settles down, there won’t be much movement.
Sex and skin: None.
Bullet parting: Me-joo extends her hand to formally introduce herself to Seon-gyeom. He makes a “brag” move as she did the last time they met. “I have the lightest thing,” he says. “Are you really scared?” she asked. “I am Ki Seon-geyom,” he replied. Okaaayyy….
Sleeping star: We would watch a series about Me-joo movie distribution friend Park Mae-yi (Lee Bong-ryun). She has more cajones than any of the men on this series.
Mainline of Pilot-y: When Dan-a’s brother Tae-woong (Choi Jae-hyun) hits a planter behind her desk, she doesn’t want her helper to clean it up. Wow. We would be away with the fort immediately.
By profession: STREAM IT. The characters enter Run Forward more than enough size for the romance between the fun directions to follow.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but doesn’t take it for granted: it’s a TV junk. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
Stream Run Forward On Netflix