Tropical Nights in December (2004)

A Caustionary Tale About What Can Happen When You Take People For Granted.

This is a very old drama that had a surprisingly risque storyline for the time.
It's about a poor insecure country girl (Young-sim) who fell in love and married a doctor from a very rich family and a handsome college student with cancer who has nothing left to lose. The two get together because Jung-woo wants to make his ex-girlfriend jealous and Young-sim is so mentally abused and desperate for any type of kindness that she's easy prey. (Even if she knows Jung-woo has ulterior motives for wanting to hang out with her.) Jung-woo is a kind man and genuinely admires Young-sims's good points, he begins to help her gain the confidence to start improving her life, and the two end up falling in love.
Like most K-dramas from this time period the coincidences rack up to the point of unbelievable and the acting/production values could be better but despite all its flaws, I enjoyed the drama. Maybe because it was filmed so long ago, but still in this century, you can really see the vast improvements in S. Korean women's lives, and it helps you to understand why so maybe some older S. Koreans might think the new generation is weak, winey, and unappreciative of just how good they have it now. The fashion was pretty different back then: bare arms, body-con shirts with (gasp) v-necked tops, and no micro-mini skirts... LOL

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