Sweet Stranger and Me (The Man Living in Our House) #review

Woorijibe Saneun Namja / 우리집에 사는 남자

Released -  Oct - Dec, 2016
Episodes -  16
Network - KBS2
Writer -  Kim Eun jung, Yoo Hyun sook (webtune),
Genre -  Family, Comedy, Romance
Original -  Based on 2015 webtoon (same name)

CAST

SYNOPSIS

Hong Na ri, a flight attendant, returns to her hometown to visit her mother's grave. There, she sees a young man. Go Nan gil introduces himself as her father. He now lives in Na ri's house and runs her mother's small dumpling restaurant.

REVIEW

This did NOT start out great and I was tempted to drop it after the first two episodes.

Jo Bo ah's Do Yeo joo and Kim Ji hoon's Jo Dong jin made me angry and had me thinking this would be another melodrama about infidelity and how simple it is for vacuous bitches to steal someone's lacking-character man.

It was also really eerie to keep seeing little Lee Eun sul all grown up as Soo Ae!

Lee Eun sul                                                                                    Soo Ae                               

Also, the annoying recaps seemed to go on and on and on . . . at the start of almost every episode, and then in the middle when one of the characters 'remembers' something...

Annoying and pointless.

Imagine trying to read a novel written this way (and yes, I've read a few, actually) where the author rewrites a scene you've just read, or that you've read a few chapters back again and again until you want to throw the book at a wall or stop reading the story or delete it from your Kindle.

The director also chose to chop up the story, which makes no sense and throws off the viewer who is trying to understand what is going on.

Wouldn't it be better to give the viewer a REASON for jumping around instead of just skipping 2 or 4 incidentals and then going back to cover them 3/4 of the way through an episode?

A lot of why are we here when we were there just a minute ago? type directing that I'm not fond of and will never grow to like or understand.

THEN they threw the creepy stepfather/daughter thing into the mix and I was like no, just... no.

And, AGAIN, this is another KDo that stars super-sexy, sexy, syrupy-voiced Lee Soo hyuk NOT as the leading man but as another second.

Another second who didn't manage to give me a moment of 2nd Lead Syndrome.

Lee Soo hyuk as Kwon Duk bong

However!

The reason I rated this as high as I did is for one reason only.

Despite all of these issues, as the story of a jilted lover who returns home to find peace and answers but instead discovers her ultimate fate, the plot became more interesting.

I stopped constantly comparing Soo Ae to little Eun sul, and the infrequent clashes between Soo Ae's Hong Na ri and her unfaithful Jo Dong jin weren't as in-your-face as I had anticipated.

The stepfather/daughter thing, though? That took some time to get over and try to ignore.

It became interesting to watch Na ri and Go Nan gil get to know one another better and slowly become drawn to one another.

I especially liked how the writer handled the infidelity issue.

Little Miss Special wasn't rewarded for her bad behavior, and Mr. Thinks-He's-Hot-Stuff ended up in a pile of remorse and regret instead of being able to strut his stuff in the hurtful aftermath.

But, that wasn't the gist of this story and it ended up being dropped entirely after only a few episodes in.

What really mattered was the little Dumpling Shop currently being run by Nan gil, a boy who grew up in an orphanage who befriended Na ri's mother and was always secretly in love with Na ri.

This is the second KDo I've watched where single men are permitted (somehow) to 'adopt' children, which is highly disturbing for an American to try and grapple.

This guy adopts tons of young boys and raises them to be gangpae for his debt collection company fronting as a lender while dipping into all kinds of illegal activities.

After Nan gil ends up behind bars, he's a changed man upon release and runs back to his 'mom', Na ri's mother, to help at the Dumpling Shack.

I can't really say anymore without giving away too much, but there is a ton of intrigue, plot development, and a very slow but strangely fulfilling romance between Nan gil and Na ri.

And like most every KDo I've ever watched, there are a ton of aside characters with their own stories and problems, and extended family members who aren't all worth bragging about and who manage to ruin things for their children.

Let's just call it 'typical' and leave it at that.

The romance was believable, but Na ri tended to behave manipulative and a little too bossy for someone her age, which was a minor let-down.

However, she did manage to possess just enough redeeming quality in her character to make me want to root for her and Nan gil.

Nan gil's badass performances were sexy, thrilling, and poetically sad, which helped to draw me to him and make me want to see him end up happy.

Lee Soo hyuk did a marvelous job portraying a high-fashion attorney against his family's fortune and bad habits who starts out wanting one thing from Na ri and then another before ending up in an altogether different place at the end.

The ending was about 30 minutes worth of recap and pregnant pauses but still managed to work itself out -- as did all of the minor characters and their issues.

I watched this in two days, which says something about the dynamic content of the story, so I think you'll find it just as interesting if you give it a chance to prove itself.