[HanCinema's Drama Review] "My Sassy Girl - Drama" Episodes 31-32

The backstory revelations end up going down a lot better than I was expecting, because the emphasis is less on the danger child Woo's actions have on adult Woo's relationships, and more on the central character flaw both Woos possess- arrogance. I was somewhat surprised to see that even as a child Woo was considered an all-star at the royal court, but this is consistent with what we've seen from the very first episode. Woo may well have been thought of as a good potential match for Princess Hyemyeong even at that time.

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However, because Woo lacked central guidance and was simply encouraged to do whatever brilliant thing he wanted, it was probably inevitable that Woo would choose poorly. But I really feel bad for Pil-yeong- he's been in the bad situation for quite a long time now of knowing about Woo's failures and doing everything he could to avoid letting any such information seep out. He's as badly compromised as Gi-joon, even if Gi-joon was the more obviously malicious actor.

A malicious actor whose fate seems fairly inevitable at this point notwithstanding Queen Jungjeon's last ditch efforts to try and destroy any remaining evidence trails. I suspect we're going to find out that while Wol-myeong was indeed as loyal as he claimed, the man was also not stupid enough to assume that this loyalty was a two way street. As the man in charge of destroying all the conspiracy's evidence, Wol-myeong more than anyone knew just how important this evidence was.

Mind, there are plenty of other pay-offs in the here and now. Da-yeon's big move ends up being motivated from a direction I was not expecting at all- given her ignorance of the wider conspiracy, it's actually possible that she might end up repenting. This will of course not be a sincere repentance, since Da-yeon's sole selfish motivation is to get together with Woo. But I really was expecting her to do something more explicitly malicious.

Although naturally, the biggest pay-off of all is the big confrontation between Princess Hyemhyeong at the end, one which like most of the confrontations in these episodes takes on a radically different tenor than what would normally be expected. The fundamental trust in the relationship between the two leads in "My Sassy Girl - Drama" is quite good. It allows for some pretty strong emotional scenes, even when they're just reminiscing about past encounters.

Review by William Schwartz

"My Sassy Girl - Drama" is directed by Oh Jin-seok, written by Yoon Hyo-je and features Joo Won, Oh Yeon-seo, Lee Jung-shin, Kim Yoon-hye, Son Chang-min, and Yoon Se-ah.