Strong Woman Do Bong-Soon is Big on Laughs

Three times the charm! Guk-Doo, Bong-Soon and Min-Hyuk are our lovely leads.

Banter, Battles & Big Laughs Reign in Strong Woman Do Bong-Soon  

You wouldn’t know it at first sight, but look out! In the new Korean comedy series Strong Woman Do Bong-Soon airing on DramaFever fists are about to fly, and it’s sure not gonna be pretty! Plucky Bong-Soon Do’s petite frame and flirty fashion hides her greatest asset: her superhuman strength. This gift is inherited by all the females in the Do family and it proves to be their undoing time and time again. After flaunting and abusing their brute strength Bong-Soon’s grandmother and her mother had their abilities snatched away by some serious karma backlash that also left their bodies (and their pride!!!!!!) hurting.

The pilot opens up with Bong-Soon, a young twenty-something, spending her days working meaningless jobs, playing games at internet cafes, and living with her overbearing mother, pushover father, and twin brother Bong-Ki. When Min-Hyuk Ahn, a cock-sure guy who could’ve walked out of the pages of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, witnesses Bong-Soon using her immense strength he instantly enlists her to be his personal bodyguard. Min-Hyuk is an entitled young CEO who only goes into work two days a week for less than three hours each. He spends the rest of his time maxing out his credit cards at designer malls, zipping around on his hover board, or gaming in his tricked out arcade basement in his humongous estate. That is until a determined stalker sending him hate calls and threats pops up in his life. 

Arm wrestling?! No need to ask Bong-Soon twice!

Min-Hyuk needs some muscle, pronto. And he finds it, in the package of a plucky and fluently sarcastic Bong-Soon. Pouting and pleading, Min-Hyuk butters Bong-Soon up by offering her an enormous salary. Cha-ching! But it’s not  just earning a pretty penny that gets Bong-Soon on board, but his promise that, if she protects him and helps him determine the identity of the creep who’s after him she can become a video game developer for his company, Ainsoft, that seals the deal.

Bong-Soon doesn't have beef-cake biceps or the physique of a fighter, so time and time again she is underestimated by bullying and smack-talking men. Her words alone don’t cut them down to size, but instead, as she lashes out against a gang of rowdy men at a construction site (with school children stranded in a near by bus, no less) she sends them flying through the air and crashing into buildings. It’s a very zany and over-the-top scene loaded with silly sounds and the hapless bullies shrieking, panicking, and raging, (or all three). Think of the kind of slapstick comedy routines you’d see in silent movies or retro cartoons. 
Strong Woman Bong-Soon is not a serious drama. It’s a purely fun and escapist show with a premise that’s entertaining to watch on screen. For some, the tone of the humor might be a little too much in-you-face, but to me, that’s what makes this show so much fun. Kooky little noises zip and zing throughout the episodes: think kazoos being blown, puppy dogs whimpering (in cuteness? embarrassment? sadness? all three?), and ring tones that trill and chirp like games from an arcade. The camera work often plays with filters: think love sparkles glittering across the scene as Bong-Soon gushes over Gook-Du In, or the glowing rays of happiness beams that shoot out out across the screen. 

NOW who's shiny!  Take that you dumb crab from Moana!

Strong Woman Bong-Soon knows how to tease and to poke fun at itself. But it’s also not all about only laughs. There's a dark, CRIMINAL even, undertone! A more serious B-story follows Gook-Du, an ambitious detective’s efforts in cracking a series of violent murder cases cropping up in the peaceful and suburban Dobong District. One of the victims was assaulted just a stone’s throw away from and Bong-Soon’s house. Gook-Du has a hunch that a serial killer maybe be on the loose, so he embarks on one-man mission to find and apprehend him. This boy knows how to go balls out!

Strong Woman Do Bong-Soon seems to want to challenge gender stereotypes and be socially conscious, yet in some ways it missteps with its sense of humor. For one, the gay jokes aimed towards the Min-Hyuk, are constantly fired off. Homophobia is occasionally used as a punch line here, and this show is not going to win any LGBTQ media awards anytime soon. For the most part though, the comments are harmless and lacking any real teeth. Instead, the dynamic between Do Bong-Soon and her mother is what’s troublesome. 

 

Clowns to the left, jokers to the right & here's Bong-Soon, stuck in the middle (with you!)

Her omma constantly shoots off her mouth at her daughter, especially with criticising how Bong-Soon is still not married. She relentlessly demands that Bong-Soon tries harder to nab herself a man by dressing “more provocatively” and to “seduce” her boss. She brushes off the notion of him being gay as just a “phase”, she considers his sexuality and feelings as not important at all, and instead, secondary to that of her trying to hitch her daughter up to a handsome and wealthy piece of ass. But mostly wealthy. Blegh. 

Romance, in particular the unrequited love trope is a large part of this show. But much of it is tongue-in-cheek. Bong-Soon harbors a huge (and not so secret) crush on her neighbor & former classmate Gook-Du. It's obvious that Bong Soon is mooning over Gook, but he consistently brushes her aside and never acknowledges her OBVIOUS feelings. Jerk move. There's also a kind of tension between Min-Hyuk and Bong-Soon that may not be quite romancy, but certainly charged with emotions. In the typical fashion of the K-Drama love equations, we have ourselves a triangle! Cue the groans! 

Our masked kidnapper isn't exactly Bloodyface, but he's still creepy as f*ck

Whether Bong-Soon is going to win the heart of Gook-Du, or find out that she’s ultimately truly, madly, deeply in love with Min-Hyuk is bound to take up a lot of screen time. But, character-driven as it is, Bong-Soon has an energy on screen and sassy personality that makes it fun to watch what she’ll say or do next. She frequently bickers and banters with Min-Hyuk, unarguably those are some of the best moments of the show. The side plot about the seedy underbelly of the Dobong District and the string of violent attacks and murders on women in that area adds another level of intrigue to the show and keeps it from being one giant farce.

With a pop-infused soundtrack and populated by a cast of flawed, funny and feisty characters Strong Woman Do Bong-Soon is a refreshingly light new Korean drama, with a surprisingly serious side to it. The madcap antics of Bong-Soon struggling with keeping her strength in check and playing “tug a war” with Min-Hyuk (both are stubborn to a fault  & heavy-handed with insults) and trying to uncover the identity behind a stalker who's got his sights set (and a constantly running commentary of threats) on the CEO make this show compulsively watchable and completely irresistible!

 

She may not be large, but she sure as heck is in charge!

First and last image from Google Images

All other images taken as screengrabs on my phone while watching Strong Woman Bong-Soon on DramaFever