Song Joong Ki of “Reborn Rich” and Song Hye Kyo if “The Glory” are playing less melodrama and reducing kiss scenes.
“Reborn Rich” cut off the tension with a kiss out of the blue, but “The Glory” focused on suffocating the perpetrator of the abuse, even removing Kim Eun Sook’s kiss.
Thanks to this, “The Glory” climbed to No. 1 on Netflix’s “Today’s Top 10 Series in Korea” and shot down the second-place “Reborn Rich”, consolidating Song Hye Kyo’s victory.
“The Glory” is a story about a woman who suffered severe school violence as a teenager and stakes her whole life on revenge. In this series, Song Hye Kyo plays the female lead Moon Dong Eun, while Lee Do Hyun assumes the role of male lead Joo Yeo Jeong. Here, the first “obstacle” for the series began.
Song Hye Kyo and Lee Do Hyun had their first meeting by accident in a bed next to the emergency room, and later formed a relationship of senior and junior who played Go together. Then, as time passed, they met again by chance on the train. Kim Eun Sook, who wrote numerous romance works such as “Goblin” and “Descendants of the Sun”, is known for turning every series she worked on into melodramas.
In fact, Kim Eun Sook said in a behind-the-scenes commentary video released on Netflix’s official YouTube channel, that she would have add a kiss scene had it not been for the director. She even call kissing a “rule”, and her characters can be seen kissing during surgery, fights, and kissing after divorce.
If Song Hye Kyo and Lee Do Hyun had kissed according to the “rule”, Song Hye Kyo’s revenge would have been less solid, while the attractive vibe of “The Glory” could have disappeared immediately. It would feel out of place to see these two characters kissing as if ignoring both physical and mental pain, especially with Song Hye Kyo’s character suffering from burn scars from school violence. It would only be possible if Lee Do Hyun is not playing a plastic surgeon, but a “healer” who has magical healing abilities via mouth to mouth.
On the other hand, there are also kissing scenes that made viewers laugh out loud for its completely out of place nature. “Reborn Rich” is also a revenge drama in which a secretary of the chaebol head family, who was killed unfairly, returns as the youngest son of the family and lives for the second time. Here, the damage suffered is greater than that of “The Glory,” there are more people to revenge, and the possibility of revenge success is slim. Therefore, the revenge plan should have been twice as sharp as “The Glory”.
However, towards the latter half of “Reborn”, Song Joong Ki’s eyes turned to his first love, Shin Hyun Been (playing the role of Seo Min Yeong). On the other hand, Shin Hyun Been, a prosecutor at the Seoul District Prosecutor’s Office’s anti-corruption investigation department, continues to interfere with Song Joong Ki’s revenge project in the name of justice. Even so, the love between the two is strong. Song Joong Ki is open to revenge of all possible methods, but his mind shakes in front of Shin Hyun Been. As a result, he wastes a lot of money and resources to save Shin Hyun Been, even facing a dangerous situation
In the end, there’s no need for the sudden “genre switch” into melodrama. Instead, it is necessary to have a story that can immerse viewers for an hour rather than a viral short video.
Source: Nate
