It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a Koala in possession of a keyboard, must be in want of writing about Lie to Me (“LTM”). While my proverbial pen is hardly mightier than the critic’s sword, a heart in want of expression most often than not trumps logic in service of persuasion.
I set forth the presumption that a drama existing solely as a showcase of love hardly merits scientific analysis. Really LTM ought to be enjoyed through the lens of airy emotion. But who can turn off the brain when it governs equally as the heart does? Perhaps the most fitting perch from which to view LTM is in the context of the divide between Sense and Sensibility.
For those of you who loved LTM because it engaged your full sensibility, and those of you who hated LTM because it aggravated all your practical sense, a viewer can and may find a common ground between the two.
So come take a walk down a cherry blossom lane with me. If it pleases you, do stay for a visit. If it befuddles you, feel free to traverse another path. This is one drama where folks have some mighty strong opinions, perchance review is warranted to parse the extremes for a comfortable medium.
Sense and Sensibility
I’ve noticed over the years that a good number of K-drama bloggers are Jane Austen fans. My guy doesn’t get my Austen love the same way he doesn’t get my K-drama addiction. He finds her overrated and repetitive. I find her incisive and fascinating. We have agreed to disagree. What makes Austen’s love stories work for her fans is that she has a knack for creating unique characters and then populating the rest of her world with people near, far, and in between the two extremes. Sense and Sensibility was her first novel, and really set the stage for showcasing her talented wit and keen sense of character construct.
The English blogsophere’s reaction to LTM mirrored Austen’s debut work – critically divided between the seemingly insurmountable polar extremes of sense (the drama is stupid) and sensibility (the drama touched a part of me no drama has ever done before). How can you argue with fact that the drama didn’t make much sense? How do you refute feelings that are based on personal experience? Tempering my urge to shout “can’t we all just get along”, what really inspired me to write a review on the entirety of the LTM was the fact that there is a middle ground in viewership.
The sensible part of me acknowleges, nay is fully cognizant of, all the limitations as a drama LTM possessed. But the romantic in me swooned over the most palpable sensation of love I have ever watched onscreen. Join me on a remembrance or discovery of love and K-dramas as seen through the lens of empirical fact versus irrefutable emotion. Will it be sense that sways you? Or sensibility that moves you? It’s for you to decide, but ultimately the barometer ought to be joy. Does watching this make you happy?
Ah Jung: “Love came towards me like a lie, and then the lie became love.”
I recently had a dream about a memorable first date long gone by. When the world becomes the now and the mundane, it’s been forever and a day since I consciously or unconsciously reminisced about something poignant that is nevertheless passed. When love exists, it’s easy to forget how it became.
LTM is the first and only drama to make me re-live my own love story. It wasn’t because my own romance has any similarity to the LTM narrative. It was simply that watching two people fall in love in such a undeniable way triggered my own memory. ‘Twas not a pining for some dramatic or grand love that can only exist onscreen, but rather a remembrance of love that exists in a grounded reality that nevertheless feels so magical to the person in love.
When the love you see onscreen feels undeniably real, suddenly the heart takes over and the mind is content to be a passenger on the journey. LTM is not about the plot, it is about the connection. If you felt it, it transformed your viewing experience. In the drama, our male lead says to the woman he loves: “Love is the constant. One can rediscover the true value of love through one’s memories. Thank you for helping me figure that out.” I would gift that quote right back to LTM (and its two leads).
This review is a reflection of both the qualitative and subjective impact of LTM as dramatic fiction and as real connection. Our heroine writes a note tucked into an empty necklace case for her beloved, allowing words on a page to sweetly express words she isn’t certain how to say aloud. This is my love letter to LTM, tucked into Thundie’s Prattle, capturing a moment in time so when the feelings fade the memory remains.
Are you a Mariane or an Eleanor?
In the Spring/early Summer of 2011, there was a K-drama that appeared to divide the drama-watching world into two camps. You either loved it or loathed it. There was hardly any in between. Vascillating between those who watched with their hearts and those who watched with their minds, LTM became quite possibly 2011′s version of Boys Before Flowers. You know, a polarizing drama. For such a low-rated drama starring two big actors (but no idols in the mix), I was stunned by how explosive this drama became. Are people who enjoyed LTM truly mindless fangirls? Are people who hate this drama genuinely patronizing jerks? Does it have to be either or? I posit that LTM can exist perfectly peaceably in the dramaverse.
The question of how you reacted to LTM might come down to whether you tend to live with your heart or with your mind. Almost all of us are both, of course, with the difference between the varying degrees and circumstances where one drives our decision-making process more than the other.
While the analysis of the quality or lack thereof inherent in a piece of entertainment is purely a sense-driven endeavor, the enjoyment of entertainment remains squarely a sensibility-affected connection. The schism with LTM is that some perceive the quality to be so lack it preludes the ability to genuine love it. That is not so.
While my sense allowed me to see the inherent flaws in this drama in terms of pacing, narrative, characterization, and spotty logic, I was nevertheless governed by a surfeit of sensibility when I watched it. I can’t fathom the need for some to repeatedly deride LTM for its flaws rather than simply writing it off the way I do for dramas I don’t like.
My personal experience cannot transcend beyond the boundaries of my heart, but I like to be reminded of my own terribly trite but nevertheless cordial way of accepting diversity in opinions in any context. My feelings are for me to cherish and you to respect. My experience is for me to savor and you to allow. My love is for me to decide and for you to accept.
Perhaps it might be a welcome diversion to view LTM through my eyes, maybe seeing some of the wonder I felt, or maybe seeing still nothing of particular distinction. What I see is a drama so brimming with the palpable energy of love that it’s time feel the euphoria of falling in love again alongside Hyun Ki Joon (Kang Ji Hwan) and Gong Ah Jung (Yoon Eun Hye).
Have you ever seen acting that felt so real?
Kang Ji Hwan and Yoon Eun Hye are two are my personal favorite actors. I love them for their expressiveness in making me feel whatever their character is feeling. While not technically the most precise of actors, they make up for it with heart. The news that they were doing a rom-com together turned me practically rabid with want. While LTM was not my most anticipated May 2011 drama (that would be Best Love), I had an inkling that I may end up more obsessed with it. My Koala instincts turned out to be wholly accurate.
The first four episodes of LTM was a major disappointment for me in terms of narrative flow (so slow), character development (none whatsoever), and a palpable lack of sparkling energy. It took four hours to set-up the story when it could have done so in two. I think this was the single most critical death knell for whatever happened to the plot of the drama from that moment forward, a domino effect that affected everything to come. Reality pointed to my expectation not being met. But something kept me hanging in there.
LTM attempted to use the contract marriage concept to create yet another drama around something overused and hard to execute properly. A series of events occurs to entangle 5th level civil servant Gong Ah Jung in a fake marriage with hotel president Hyun Ki Joon. The whys and hows are not important as the real story starts when they start orbiting each other’s vastly different worlds. Uptight and in control Ki Joon finds himself befuddlingly intrigued by emotion-driven and prideful Ah Jung. Been there, seen that. So why couldn’t I stop watching? Because while the plot was substandard, the acting chemistry was so powerful it blew a fuse in my brain and activated my heart.
“Sense will always have attractions for me”
The two main characters in LTM starts off embodying the two extreme opposites of sense and sensibility. Our male lead Hyun Ki Joon is governed entirely by a surfeit of sense, running his hotel with precision, deciding his own emotional future with sensible clarity. Here is a man who broke off his own engagement because his beloved younger brother was in love with the same woman. Never mind the woman in question wanted Ki Joon and not the younger brother. Logic dictated a future of awkward family dinners, so Ki Joon picked family over female.
On the other hand, we have a woman governed almost entirely by sensibility. Our female lead Gong Ah Jung isn’t wildly romantic as some heroines are wont to be. She is exceedingly prideful, an emotional crutch that serves as her downfall. When her pride gets trampled on by a betrayal whereby her best friend steals the man Ah Jung likes, it becomes the loose screw just waiting for the trigger to come off the wheels. Years later, faced with the realization that the other couple is happily married while she’s still been unable to move on, Ah Jung casually lies that she’s married as well.
Just one lie told in the heat of the moment becomes the flimsy foundation on which an entire drama is premised on. No wonder LTM wobbled, swayed, and ultimately toppled as a narrative presentation. If I were governed entirely by sense, the lack of it in LTM would have made me check out in a heartbeat. How can a girl lie that she’s married when that lie can’t possibly be sustained? But I am a creature of an excess of sensibility, so I looked become the flawed construct and saw something utterly divine within.
While narratively the lie takes too long to get set-up and the OTP hardly have enough interaction in the first few episodes, the natural and as-yet-bubbling-beneath-the-surface chemistry between Kang Ji Hwan and Yoon Eun Hye anchor the drama during the early moments with a heady possibility of what’s to come. I sensed something was potentially explosive between them. I stopped dwelling on the hows and whys of the lie and its impact, curious to see if another reason to watch LTM would draw me in. Starting from episode 5, I found my faith validated.
“Is love a fancy or a feeling…?”
It turns out LTM is not a story about lies or consequences, it is simply a love story. That’s it. Asking more of it and you shall be greatly disappointed. I’ve been so conditioned by K-dramas to expect a love story to be surrounded by, well, a lot of ancillary story that I almost forgot that a well-written plot cannot be more important than a mesmerizing love when it comes to this genre. In a field of field of flowers arranged artfully with precision, the love story in LTM became the single most perfect flower that took my breath away. I didn’t need a tableau, it was simply one bloom (and one love) that touched my heart.
Episodes 5 and 6 of LTM are what I consider the critical turning point of the drama’s (very limited) narrative. For reasons that defy logic and common sense (which can be a defining attribute of love, no?), Ki Joon and Ah Jung agree to stay in their fake marriage. But even pretend marriages require some pretend couple interactions, so they end up hosting a housewarming party at Ki Joon’s grand home.
In a moment of either wild romantic passion or sheer what-the-hell-was-that, suddenly the normally staid Ki Joon gives into his attraction to Ah Jung and kisses her (oh how he kisses her) in front of all her friends. This is either the moment the sensible fellas all check out of this drama because the leap of logic inherent in the kiss submarines the love story for them, or the emotional romantic in you feels the attraction in the air, rationalization of how the moment arrived bedamned.
If love is a fancy, then it naturally needs some reason to strike our interest and keep our curiosity. A well-constructed drama love story does that, it keeps our interest from the inception to the conclusion, taking us on a journey that is both linear and validated. We understand the love story. But if love is but a feeling, then it naturally needs no reason to capture our hearts and keep our affections.
For me, Ki Joon’s interest in Ah Jung (which he explains very clearly much later in the drama) was really present from the moment they first met. It wasn’t predicated on anything other than who she was (so diametrically opposite of his upbringing) fascinated him and touched him. It’s not merited on it making sense insomuch as it’s predicated on it resting on pure feeling.
Just like Ki Joon likes Ah Jung so seemingly abruptly, the drama takes an abrupt turn from screwball comedy to love story the end of episode 6. What makes this razor-sharp tonal shift for the romantic in me is because Kang Ji Hwan and Yoon Eun Hye transformed and evolved their characters to match the love story.
At that critical juncture, they become Ki Joon and Ah Jung falling in love so believably it felt like blending fact and fiction. You don’t have to accept it’s anything other than acting, only understand that they make it feel completely and utterly real. So would you want to watch a well-constructed narrative that feels like two people acting like they are in love, or could you derive intense satisfaction from watching a middling story where two people make you believe 100% that their characters are completely in love?
While an either/or choice feels like it’s a cop-out (why can’t I have both you ask – a good story and a palpable connection of love?), I posit that many rom-coms fail at one or the other with more fervor than LTM ever did. So to have the Solomon’s Choice is not a novel requirement, but merely that the two poles appear so utterly divergent for this particular story.
“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”
Starting from episode 7 onward, LTM becomes no longer a drama attempting to tell a story. It becomes a medium simply to showcase the palpable developing love story between Ah Jung and Ki Joon. Stripped of a coherent narrative, the drama flows from pure OTP-driven moments alone that impart the sensation of love without any justification of time or experience. Occasionally it dips a toe into pointless angst, but never once does any plot machinations feel like any threat to the OTP.
We have Ki Joon’s clingy ex-fiancee Yoon Jo (Jo Yoon Hee) wanting another chance with Ki Joon, who promptly shoots her down flat. We have younger brother Sang Hee (Sung Joon), who actually likes Ah Jung before Ki Joon does, but never does anything until he’s lost his chance. These two second leads might as well be replaced by cardboard cut-outs and the story would still function. I hardly bemoan their lack of three-dimensionality, since at some point even the most kick-ass second lead ultimately fades into our memories behind the OTP.
The inherent possibilities in stocking LTM with so many other secondary characters such as Ah Jung’s first-love-stealing frenemy So Ran and her first love sunbae Jae Bum, Ki Joon’s Aunt, Ah Jung’s dad and his own thwarted second love Ae Kyung, none of these folks ever get their proper due. Everyone ends up lightly orbiting the collective Sun that is Ah Jung and Ki Joon, some of them burning up by the wayside as their characters fade into oblivion.
While the inability to execute that portion of the story galls me on a principle level, really on a gut level it becomes pointless to dwell over. If the drama already lacked a compelling and consistent story, then second characters failing to be utilized becomes a rather mood point to argue for. I simply point out the sad fate of every character not named Ah Jung and Ki Joon in this drama, but at the end of the day, it was never about them in the first place.
LTM was always about Ki Joon and Ah Jung, and their love story moves forward in ways that dramas almost never show. Since it’s not grounded in any discernable plot, it’s instead free to luxuriate in the details of what a relationship feels like. Once our OTP decide to be together, they actually spend time dating and moving their relationship forward.
They talk, they tease each other, they work through their insecurities, and ultimately, they find that their love is precious and unique. Watching LTM is akin to taking a walk down any happily married couple’s own memory lane – triggering the same “ah-ha” moments of falling in love, building the love, and choosing the ever after together.
When Ki Joon looks at Ah Jung, it’s not with any theatrical gaze of a man in love. Rather its with such tenderness and passion, a longing that is so bone deep because this man has found the woman who makes him feel alive. When Ah Jung is around Ki Joon, she blushes constantly, her shyness the very reaction many woman experience around the man who engages every part of the heart. They behave like a normal albeit stunning gorgeous couple in love without any of the plotted baggage that comes with needing to tell a substantive overarching story.
“Esteem him? Like him? Use those insipid words again and I shall leave the room this instant.”
What makes Lie to Me so unique and special in my mind? It’s because it can’t be viewed in the prism of a drama. I’ve already intimated that it’s pretty much a complete and utter failure as a drama based on the requirement that dramas have a well-constructed plot. Too bad it was billed as a drama, because it turned out to actually be a 16-episode Season of We Got Married starring Kang Ji Hwan and Yoon Eun Hye. WGM is a scripted reality show that has two stars pretending they are a couple. The scenarios are scripted each week as to where they go and what they do, but the rest is primarily the stars being themselves onscreen putting on a reality show.
So while one drama watcher is furious about being bait-and-switched a drama for a pseudo reality show, another drama viewer is conversely thrilled at seeing something unexpectedly addicting. The wails of disappointment from half the drama-watching universe is conversely echoed by the sheer screams of excitement from the other half of the drama-viewing world. Does everyone need to re-adjust their expectations? Of course not. But when something works when viewed from a different perspective, then it’s accomplished a viable goal regardless.
I watched LTM with a love for the drama increasing exponentially with how much this drama increasingly rekindled the fluttery feelings of love. With that said, my appreciation for LTM requires neither a validation of quality nor a defense of its merits. I have spent the last month listening solely to the LTM OST, finding every single song perfect and satisfying the romantic in me. It quite simply makes me utterly and completely happy.
The journey of Ah Jung and Ki Joon from pretend married strangers to the most heartfelt in love K-drama couple I have ever watched renders so many mild love stories seen in a dime-a-dozen rom-coms feel like such a waste of celluloid. Watching their love story belies the sensation of seeing something take your breath away.
“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. Or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken.”
A weakly constructed and later hastily cobbled together plot nothwithstanding, I objectively found LTM to be quite charmingly competent when it came to most everything else. The OST was excellent, an expansive combination of cute pop songs for the peppier scenes and lovely ballads for the more introspective moments. While it won’t win any awards, as a viewer it really connected with me rather than taking me out of any scene. The musical cues were well integrated and never intrusive or jarring.
The cinematography was very solid, though with two PDs at the helm the difference in styles was evident. The first PD who directed the first half of the drama had a more whimsical style and slower pace, emphasizing mood over delivery. The second PD who took over midway (it wasn’t due to a PD change, LTM was always scheduled to have two PDs at the wheel) was much more procedurally focused, making each interaction more critical than the overall atmosphere.
With the first PD, we got lots of lovely lingering scenes. With the second PD, we got tons of memorable yet fast-paced moments between the OTP. Watching LTM with premise being that this drama isn’t aiming for any award-winning or awe-inducing production quality, what it does deliver is something very easy to watch. It’s pretty, it’s calm, and above all else, it’s allows the camera to take a backseat to the characters.
As the love story takes a turn for the surreally realistic, the camera becomes the viewers’ proxy, a voyeur or sorts peeking at the private and oh-so-intimate moments between a pair of lovers without once feeling like its hovering. For a drama with such low stakes yet such high emotional connection, the two PDs together did a commendable job of just being the guy holding the camera and not over-directing everything.
My Daddy says: If it doesn’t work as planned, then build something else.
LTM started off as an ensemble drama. So much so that the entire extended cast was trotted out at the press conference when normally only the four leads get to attend. I suppose there is a certain amount of irony when LTM completely devolved into the Ki Joon and Ah Jung show midway through, with pretty much every other character getting chucked out the window to make time for more relationship moments between the OTP.
Does that offend the drama purist in you? To witness the utter collapse of a drama structure for the sake of what might seem like fan service? I beg to consider this in a different light. Have you ever built a Lego set? The new ones are all filled to the gill with custom pieces that fit perfectly, but really lack imagination of the builder. When I was growing up I built ridiculously misfit Lego sets based on my whimsy and the story I wanted to tell. It wasn’t very professional, but there was a certain amount of amateurish charm to it. Or so I was told.
LTM the drama is akin to a custom fancy Lego set where the specialized pieces just didn’t fit right because maybe it was misassembled. So rather than throwing it away, the drama decided to tackle the conundrum but focusing on what was working in the story, namely the love story. Not the lie story, not the family story, not the friends story, not anything outside of the affection and growing love between Ah Jung and Ki Joon.
What followed was episode after episode of dates, gestures, moments, and stares that utterly captivated a diehard group of LTM-fans. Whatever Franken-plot remained was accepted for the contrivance needed to get this drama to a basic conclusion, but what was paramount was that the love story must be allowed to progress naturally. It did. It was akin to watching two beautiful and perfectly-matched people fall in love before your eyes.
The drama switched writer midway through in hopes of resuscitating the ratings, but it was to no avail. I actually like the first writer’s rather deliberately paced style, but nevertheless found the second writer’s brisk narrative used to cushion the developing relationship also worked in its own way. The sensation of love isn’t anything that the world’s best written description can hold a candle to an image of a caress and a smile that hits you right in the heart region. Rather than read it, it makes more sense to show it to you know. Below is 100% spoilerrific, so stop now if you actually want to watch this drama armed with a shred of surprise.
A Scrapbook of Love’s Journey
Who knew a chance encounter (bee venom+alcohol mixed with looking-for-missing-brother = midnight hospital visit) between two strangers could become something unforgettable?
He thinks she’s a freak, she thinks he’s a jerk.
Are you my wife?
>
She finds having an important conversation in the middle of the lake a good idea. Without realizing it, he’s already getting dragged around by her.
She’s thinks she’s a victim in the fake marriage scandal, he finds everything she says completely odd.
Yobo, I’m over here!
Can I borrow wuri Jungie for a little while?
Let’s agree to be pretend married then. At least until we both get what we want.
“Why do men cheat? It’s not even my own husband, so it’s ridiculous that I’m even upset.” But he sees through her attempt to smile through her tears.
Sometimes attraction can’t be explained, and needn’t ever be. First comes the connection, then let’s figure out the reasons for it.
Every time he learns something new about her, it affects him.
A song about ice-cream leads to a kiss that can melt a thousand cones.
If there has to be a lie, I will do the lying!
He’s not just acting, she’s not just unaffected by him.
A pen in exchange for a movie date?
They say drinking lowers conversational inhibitions. So does liking the other person.
A bout of food poisoning compounded by stress is a convenient reason to stay the night.
I wanted to text you back, but I didn’t know what to say. If I said I was well you wouldn’t come. If I said I was unwell you would worry about me.
I will never see a bottle of coke the same way again. Neither will Ki Joon and Ah Jung.
Can your heart break when it’s just starting out on a new love? It most assuredly can.
Do you like me a little, and that girl a lot?
Mountain rescues are stupid, but time spent together is priceless.
Why are you having a matseon at my hotel?
I like you. I said I like you, so please don’t like her!
Ah Jung-ah…..
I am here to escort Ms. Gong Ah Jung to Jeju.
Wipe, wipe, wipe, keep on wiping the water off her shirt.
You act all in control, but there is a little boy who loves making miniature models that still resides inside here.
If we apologize for how we got started, can we start over again, and this time the right way?
I want to know everything that happened to you every single day.
How can she resist?
Do you know hard it was for me today? Do you know how much I missed you?
Ice-cream – better eaten or shoved in the face?
Flirting across a table at work – unprofessional or totally hot couple foreplay?
I want to spend tonight with you? What? I mean let’s go sweat (at a jjimjalbang).
An airport farewell has never ever seemed so sweet and poignant.
I will take all the blame for you because I love you.
Did you eat? Did you have a good trip?
I, Hyun Ki Joon, love Gong Ah Jung.
Dating Korean celebrity style.
The entire world knows about us, do you want to break up with oppa?
When one gets terrible news, it’s nice to have a caring and considerate boyfriend who will give you a perfect piggyback ride.
Don’t worry, it’s not like these slippers are made of glass.
I will do everything in my power to support you, Ah Jung.
Write down your top ten things you want in your significant other.
I have always lived for others, but now I want to live for myself, and share it with you. Will you marry me?
Don’t think too much. A love that wants to last forever needs to have patience.
Jeju cannot be as beautiful as Ah Jung and Ki Joon when they are together.
I just want to hold your hand and sleep. Don’t you trust oppa?
A diary is a good reason to pounce on your boyfriend.
I don’t dislike you, I like you a lot.
If your doting boyfriend drives you to work, you have to reward him.
Time has no limit and leaves no trace. Space is infinite and leaves no mark.
I found what I was looking for – the memories of our love, and the realization that our meeting and falling in love in the infinite time and space is a miracle. Thank you for waiting for me. And I love you.
I’m sorry for coming so late. I’m sorry for making you wait.
We both realized that within the lie there is a truth more passionate than fact.
