My Mister(2018) was recommended to me by at least two ajummas but it took me a fair bit of time to finally get to it.
With so many K-dramas fighting for my attention, this didn’t seem ‘attractive’ enough to me on the surface but I was wrong.
I’m only halfway through but I’m going to say something that will make a lot K-fans to want to hurl rotten kimchi at me – My Mister is IMHO better than Crash Landing and World of Married:)
Imagine this: three middle-aged brothers, each with his own set of problems; and one mysterious young woman whose piercing look alone will send the bravest men running from Seoul to Busan.
The main setting is in an architectural/structural engineering firm called Saman.
Not surprisingly, it is toxic environment to work at but Park Dong-hoon(played by Lee Sun-Kyun) just tries every day to do his honest best and looks away from the ugly office politics.
Meanwhile, he keeps running into Lee Ji-an(played by Lee Ji-eun, more famously known as IU), the struggling part-timer who despite being kicked around in the office, manages to find enough motivation to plot her revenge. She is someone you don’t want to mess with. I think there is one of her in every office:)
Meanwhile, Dong-hoon’s older brother Park Sang-hoon(played by Park Ho-san) ‘obsesses’ with one thing – the number of friends and associates who will show up at their mother’s wake. He keeps reminding his brother to stay in his job regardless how bad the situation is so that his colleagues will show up to pay respect when their mom passes on. It is so sad to think that way but I don’t find it unbelievable at all:(
To be fair, I don’t think My Mister is a good or accurate name because in Korea, this is known as My Ahjussi. Mister is not quite ahjussi because an ahjussi is more specific – most likely a middle-aged married man and very uncle in outlook and behavior:)
If you like this other series Misaeng, you will like My Mister. Both dramas are really about the ‘losers’ and underclass in the very layered modern South Korean society.
There are many despicable characters in My Mister and most of us will recognize them in our own work place but there are also very loyal colleagues who treat each other more like family.
One thing I really appreciate about modern K dramas is how they tackle the daily life upfront and un-sentimentally. The kind of artistic license is rare in most Asian societies where there is substantial pressure from power-to-be to not cast their society too negatively.
I know most dramas and movies are ‘fictional’ but my gut feel is that many of the successful scriptwriters are great observers of life and they keep finding ways to tell these fact-based stories.
Yes my blood boils many times watching this. I think most of you will experience the same.