Strong Woman Do Bong Soon (2017)

Just So Much Fun!

I’m actually reviewing this show after my second time watching it with its sequel due out sometime next year, I believe. I never realized that I hadn’t written a review yet.

Strong Woman Do Bong Soon is a delightful series that combines romantic comedy with a thriller twist. Koreans are masters of utilizing more than one genre within a series, and they do it so effortlessly that you wonder why more TV shows around the world don’t try to do the same. It takes a special kind of writer to be able to integrate genres that seem so opposite.

Bong Soon is a young woman endowed with super-strength—strength that seems to rival Wonder Woman, at the very least. Bong Soon is a charming character, even if she’s a bit lazy and not very bright. However, none of these things prevents her from enacting justice where and when needed, although she’s much like a young Clark Kent from Smallville. She just wants to lead a normal life. However, like most heroes, she has a weakness: if she ever harms an innocent person, she will lose her powers. Her gifts are ancestral, handed down among the women of her family.

As the series begins, Bong Soon only has eyes for Lieutenant In Gook Do of the police force. Gook Do is a former classmate who doesn’t seem to see Bong Soon as anything other than a silly girl who often makes poor decisions. Gook Do is a hard-nosed officer who can be a bit brutish and chauvinistic. He has no qualms about telling Bong Soon what to do and how to live her life, even when such advice isn’t asked for.

Bong Soon finds herself entangled with Min Hyuk Ahn, the CEO of a gaming software company when he comes across her beating some thugs to pieces. As he is being stalked and blackmailed, he hires Bong Soon as his personal bodyguard, which works out well because he’s now one of the very few who knows her secret. Min Hyuk is almost a polar opposite to Gook Do. He’s boyishly charming but also tends to be a bit immature, self-absorbed, and a bit possessive and insecure. This completes our “love triangle” as Mr. Ahn and Gook Do are soon rivals for Bong Soon’s affections and interest.

What really rounds out the series is a quite disturbing psychopath who becomes obsessed with collecting women off the street and holding them in an underground dungeon below an auto junkyard. And frankly, this aspect is done just as well as the comedy.

Plenty of moments will have you on the floor with laughter. Kim Won Hae nearly steals the limelight from Bo Young Park in his dual role. First, as a thug who gets beaten up so many times, that his gift for comedy is priceless. Second, he also plays the role of the Strategy Team Manager at Ainsoft, a very effeminate man whom you can only compare to Nathan Lane’s role in “The Birdcage.” I’ve seen Kim Won Hae in a number of roles, and he can wear any hat and do any role that is asked of him.

Bo Young Park may well be one of the cutest actresses I’ve seen in 45+ years of watching shows. She is so tiny and has an almost childlike innocence, that you can’t help but be pulled in by her vulnerability. She is also so adept at wearing her emotions on her sleeve, especially when she’s crying, that you forget she’s acting! The scene when she’s sobbing while being chained to a bomb is especially heart-wrenching, as she begs Mr. Ahn to leave her so that he can save himself, but he refuses. I have seen Park in several series now, and if she has one flaw, it’s in her chemistry with her male love interests. She just never seems entirely comfortable with them. It’s in this area that her vulnerability is often transformed into walls, which makes are appear guarded. Still, she is a phenomenal actress.

While the series may be a bit predictable, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. People have loved superheroes for a long time, and Bong Soon may well be one of the most charming and delightful ones to come down the pike in a long time. And while we’re enamored with her powers, it’s always the human element—those aspects that people can relate to—that makes her character shine! Bong Soon is simply just another young woman trying to navigate her life and figure out what she wants to do with it. She does have a propensity to take the easy route when it comes to work rather than go through the necessary steps, which is why she’s perceived by family and friends alike as being a bit lazy and not very goal-oriented.

Some parts of the show actually don’t quite fit, such as the mob boss’s interactions with a Korean Hindu, which was a bit humorous but never really did anything for the story. Bong Soon’s little groupie kids were funny early on, but they more than wore out their welcome as the series progressed, leaving the viewer to wonder why they were still there.

Overall, this series is simply a ton of fun. Aside from the thriller aspect of the show, it never takes itself too seriously. Like Min Hyuk Ahn and Gook Do, you may well find yourself enamored with Bong Soon Do too!

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