Doona! (2023)

 

One of the biggest tragedies to befall humankind is our inability to control who you fall in love with – if this was something we could control then it would make life easier. We are often haunted the "what ifs" and lament "the one who got away."  But you can’t help who you fall in love with, even if that person might prove to be a bad match for you. In Doona, college sophomore, Lee Won-jun, would probably been better off dating Kim Jin-ju (his high school crush), because they not only have a shared history but the same values.  However, while he likes Jin-ju, she no longer makes his heart flutter and, instead, he falls hopeless in love with Lee Doo-na, a former idol who went into hiding after a disastrous performance with her girl group, Dream Sweet.

Doona often feels like the second season of a series – it begins when Doo-na has reached her lowest point. The first season would focus on her rise and fall, and the second season would focus on her redemption. We get a few flashbacks to Doo-na’s time as an idol – she was the face of the girl group, Dream Sweet, much to chagrin of the other members. She also carried the group – when the remaining members attempt a comeback without Doon-a, it ends in complete failure. The pressure of having to carry her group, and having to deal with the media, fans, and haters, eventually proved to be too much for Doo-na and she had a panic attack onstage. She lost the ability to sing. The anti-fans used her meltdown as useful ammo and successfully turned the public against her. It also didn’t help that her mother was busted defrauding fans out of millions of dollars. Her agent (and crush) Park In-wook puts her up in a share house and tells her to lay low until he can contact her.

The anti-fans are one of the fascinating (and toxic) elements of K-pop. These are people who are more dedicated to bashing a group they don’t like than supporting their favorite group. They will often troll the fan sites and leave all sorts of derogatory comments. They will often scour the internet in hopes of find some dirt on their hated group and post an out of context video that supposedly show these idols behaving badly (the most famous incident were the videos that allegedly show T-ara bullying Ryu Hwa-young). 

It just so happens that Won-jun moves into the share house – he is an engineering major, who is in his sophomore year of college, and moves to Seoul so he no longer has to commute from home. His best friend from his hometown, Song Tae-rim, runs a seafood restaurant and is a huge fan of Lee Doo-na – he has her picture hanging from the rearview mirror in his car.  When Won-jun moves into the share house, he recognizes Doo-na but can’t quite place her face. This leads to multiple occasions where Doo-na catches him looking at her and she, understandably, believes he is a stalker. Therefore, Won-jun’s first few interactions with Doo-na are not pleasant ones. When she isn’t accusing him of being a stalker, she flat out dismisses him. He finally puts two and two together and promises Doo-na that he will no longer look at her – he even puts up curtains in the window of his second-floor room to avoid the temptation of looking down at her (she lives on the first floor). 

Doo-na is a hot mess – she spends most of her time chain smoking, eating junk food, staring at her cellphone, waiting for In-wook's call, and watching television. She lacks direction in life and is on the path to self-destruction. One night, Won-jun comes home from the university and finds Doo-na sitting outside in the cold, without a jacket and in sandals with socks, staring at her phone. When he tries to get her back into the house, she passes out. It is his quick action (he calls an ambulance) that ends up saving her life. While Doo-na is in the hospital, he looks after her and even buys her a pair of socks for her to wear. After this incident, it is Doo-na who starts stalking Won-jun – she always knocks on his door and asks if he wants to get something to eat. She even shows up at his classroom, sits next to him during a lecture, and asks him if he wants to grab something to eat. Won-jun’s classmates recognize Doo-na and this leads to all sorts of gossip.

Won-jun’s feelings towards Doo-na are conflicted – it is obvious that he is interested in her (most dudes would be) but he still has feelings for Jin-ju, who has come back into his life. They attend the same university and Woo-jun runs into her at the bus station. Jin-ju was Won-jun’s high school crush. They were the two top students at their high school and were inseparable – to the point where their classmates suspected they were secretly dating. Finally, after months of speculation, Won-jun finally confessed his feelings to Jin-ju and…she rejected him (well, kind of). After he told Jin-ju he liked her, she cut off all communication with him. However, it turns out that Jin-ju didn’t reject Won-jun, she just didn’t have the courage to act on her feelings. She had a huge crush on Won-jun and when he confessed his feelings to her, she was initially elated. Her euphoric state quickly transformed into absolute dread, because she was afraid of her father’s potential reaction. What further sealed the deal for her is when she got home, she walked in on her strict father chopping off her sister’s hair, because he found out she was seeing a guy. To avoid the chopping block, Jin-ju decided to cut off all communications with Won-jun. Her father is the type of man who would scold his daughter for “fooling around with guys” and then later scold her for not giving him a grandchild. It is a “damned if you and damned if you don’t” situation. She always regretted her cowardice in the face of her douchey father.

It's only after she escapes her father’s tyrannical grasp that she can confess her feelings for Won-jun. Doo-na hits it off with Jin-ju after a night of drinking and later, when she is looking for a roommate, invites Jin-ju to move in with her.  Jin-ju accepts this offer because it kills two birds with stone – it allows her to move away from home and gives her direct access to Won-jun. However, by the time she confesses her feelings to Won-jun, it is too late – he has fallen in love with Doo-na. To Jin-ju’s credit – she handles his rejection well. She is disappointed and, understandably, tells Won-jun that she needs some time away from him to get over being rejected. She wastes no time moving out of the share house and into a one-bedroom apartment. This is the correct reaction! After a few months have passed, she is ready to be Won-jun’s friend. She also doesn’t bear an ill will towards the Doo-na (the two of them remain friends). There was that part of me that wanting to see Won-jun end up Jin-ju. She is not high maintenance like Doo-na, and she has more in common with Won-jun, but unfortunately that window of opportunity closed some time ago. For Jin-ju, Won-jun is the one who got away.

Normally, the premise of a rube falling in love with an idol would be a romantic comedy, but the relationship between Doo-na and Won-jun is played entirely straight. There are occasional humorous moments, but most of them come courtesy of the character, Choi I-ra. The structure to Doo-na is a bit awkward at times – I-ra is one of the main characters, but she doesn’t first appear until the middle of the series. Even her introduction is a bit awkward, Won-jun and Jin-ju witnesses her publicly breaking up with her Brazilian boyfriend. Won-jun recognizes her and walks away before she can see him. His housemate, Yun-taek, talks Won-jun and their housemate, Jeong-hoon, into going on blind group date with three college girls and Won-jun gets paired up with I-ra. She immediately recognizes him – though, he, at first, denies knowing her. It turns out they have a long history together – they were born in same hospital, on the same day, and their mothers decided to arrange for them to get married. They spent the majority of their childhood hanging out together – something that Won-jun dreaded. Won-jun describes her as being his “greatest enemy,” but the truth is their personalities didn’t gel – Won-jun was a timid, introverted child while I-ra was an extroverted, bossy child. She always managed to talk Won-jun into doing things he didn’t want to. She is also really loud.

At the age of eleven, she moved to Brazil with her family and Won-jun was convinced that he was rid of her. It turns out that she is a fashion major at the university that Won-jun is attending. Won-jun is apprehensive towards her at first, but he eventually warms up to her and the two of them become close friends. She also becomes romantically involved with Jeong-hoon who, like Won-jun, initially find her annoying, but eventually is charmed by her upbeat demeanor. She also befriends Jin-ju and Doo-na. In fact, she immediately forms a bond with Jin-ju, because they grew up in the same town and were both involved with Won-jun.  She also moves in with Doo-na – after she broke with her boyfriend, she needed a place to say and Won-jun told her that Doo-na was looking for a roommate. There was also the other part of me that hoped Won-jun would end up with I-ra.  Either Jin-ju and I-ra would have been better matches for Won-jun

A feeling of uncertainty hangs over the entire series. In the first half of the series, Won-jun’s relationship with Doo-na is defined by uncertainty – they both like each other but neither of them really wants to make a move. Their early interactions are awkward and often intense – one minute they will be getting along, the next minute Won-jun will say something that will cause Doo-na to snap (she cusses up quite a storm).  There also a few interesting stylistic choices by the director to emphasize the tension – in early stages of their relationship, the soundtrack is dead silent. In most K-drama, when the two romantic leads are together there will be a love ballad blaring on the soundtrack – this is used to signify their feelings the two leads have for each other.  In fact, the love ballad can be overbearing at times, to the point that it drowns out the dialogue (it also is played ad nauseum throughout the series).  There is a love ballad in Doo-na and it is played ad nauseum, but only during montages or scenes where two leads are separated. Whenever, Doo-na and Won-jun exchange dialogue, the only sound we get is diegetic – it comes from within the world of the narrative. The lack of a soundtrack helps add to the uncertainty – without the overbearing love ballad to clue us into the characters feelings for one another, we are not certain what Doo-na’s feelings are towards Won-jun, or if their relationship will work out. 

The moment that casts the biggest doubt on Doo-na relationship with Won-jun is when her agent, Park In-wook, walks into the picture. Won-jun and Doo-na have gone on a romantic getaway – they are staying at a beach house that Doo-na owns – and are walking down a road, holding hands, when Doo-na notices In-wook’s car parked in front of the house. When he gets out of the car and looks at Doo-na, she immediately let’s go of Won-jun’s hand. He begs with her not to go, but she ignores his pleas and drives off with In-wook, and leaves Won-jun all alone, in the middle of nowhere.  However, the reason she goes off with In-wook is to set the record straight and give him a good scolding. When she gets back to the house, Won-jun has left and taken a bus to his hometown to visit his friends and family. When Won-jun returns to the share house, she tells him that she didn’t know who she would miss more – In-wook or Woo-jun. It is only when she was with In-wook that she realized how much she missed Won-jun.

The question is: Does Doo-na really love Won-jun or was he just at the right place at the right time? Doo-na has been alone for months and Won-jun is the first person, in quite some time, to show genuine concern for her, so it’s not surprising she would have feelings for him. However, is that enough to sustain a relationship, especially given their different goals in life.  Won-jun wants to live an ordinary life, but Doo-na would never be content with an ordinary life – show business is in her blood.  The show never really answers the question. It ends on a rather ambiguous note – I have read different interpretations of the ending - there is one camp that believes they broke up and the other the one that believes they are dating in secret. I tend to favor the first theory - I also believe that the scene where the two of them kiss and make up is a figment of Won-jun's imagination (after four years, she just appears out of the blue and all is forgiven). 

I don’t know if I would recommend Doo-na, it is a fascinating but ultimately frustrating experience. The two leads, Bae Suzy and Yang Se-jong, are solid and have great chemistry, but the writing often lets them down. Bae Suzy was certainly well cast as the title character – like Doo-na, she was an idol, who debuted at young age, sixteen (in American years), and was essentially the face of the girl group, MissA – she is also regarded as being one of the most beautiful women in South Korea (if not the entire world). There are a lot of good moments scattered throughout the series (Jin-ju is given a nice character arc) but the parts are greater than the actual sum and end result is a letdown. 

 

Cast: Bae Suzy (Lee Doo-na), Yang Se-jong (Lee Won-jun), Ha Young (Kim Jin-ju), Kim Do-wan (Goo Jeong-hoon), Park Se-wan (Choi I-ra), Kim Min-ho (Seo Yun-taek), Lee Jin-wook (Park In-wook), Kwon Han-sol (Song Tae-rim),  Kim Sun-young (Doo-na’s mother), Kim Yoo-mi (Agency rep), Bae Ji-hye (Eun-joo), Go Ah-sung (Im Ha-yeon), a member of Dream Sweet), Simeez and Rian of Lachica as members of Dream Sweet), Kim Hyun-mok (stalker).

Director: Lee Jeong-hyo
Writer: Jang Yoo-ha (based on The Girl Downstairs by Min Song-ah)
9 episodes (~40 – 45 minutes)