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.

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