ArvisJaggamar
Thank You, But No, Thank You
When it's 2021 and you decide to watch a drama from 14 years ago, you really have to go into it with an open mind. Unfortunately, not even the most open mind can save Thank You, which, despite having some value, is almost entirely a dismal, dull, and directionless experience with only sparse amounts of real entertainment value to be found throughout its 16 episodes.
STORY
The concept of the story here is a good one: writing around an adorable little girl living with AIDS (Lee Bom, played by Seo Shin Ae) is a brave premise, and using it tackle head-on the overwhelming fear and superstition surrounding AIDS that the Korean population at large struggled with at the time is very interesting. As if that wasn't enough, Thank You also tries to take on dementia/aging as main themes as well, so you get a cornucopia of uncomfortable subjects to chew on here.
The problem is that the show doesn't surround these themes with enough heart, and the entire plot is told with all the joy of a funeral service. Make no mistake: this is 16 hours of miserable people being miserable. Every time you think they will break the agony up with some joy, they ruin it in short order, usually with one or more characters behaving idiotically with zero justification.
Another huge problem is the problematic portrayal of paternity and the rights of fathers presented here. One of the characters in the show is, in fact, the biological father of the Lee Bom character, but at no point does the show address or explore his rights as her father. Indeed, it seems that the audience is meant to view it as *a matter of course* that he has no rights at all. This is not exactly a balanced view of the subject, and an omission in the writing made all the more glaring by the fact that much of the rest of the drama does actually achieve a level of nuance and thoughtfulness in some of the themes.
Overall, though, there is a LOT of wasted time in this drama: characters behaving like idiots for no reason, characters who don't matter *at all* and have nothing of interest to contribute getting entirely too much screen time, and of course lots and lots and lots of the main characters just staring at each other endlessly.
The best part of the story is Lee Bom, not just because she is achingly precious and easy to love with your whole heart, but because she is the most genuine and straightforward character in the show. She is almost an audience surrogate, saying and doing the things we all wish everyone else was saying and doing but aren't because they are deeply stupid (and/or poorly-written). Lee Bom is an excellent communicator in a drama full of some of the worst communicators in the medium.
And the stupidest and most infuriating character of all? The female first lead, Lee Young Shin, played by the wonderful Gong Hyo Jin. This character takes the "woebegone doormat" trope of first-leads and cranks it all the way to 11: she consistently takes every possible abuse with head bowed and a "thank you" on her lips (the title of the drama is literally a reference to this), and yet whenever literally anyone even attempts to offer her some actual support and love, she responds with anger and rejection. And what is her justification for this? There is none, and she makes no attempt to have one. She is just painfully, terminally stupid. That's it.
While the story does indeed build to a few moments of beauty and emotional payoff, it is on the whole a letdown and a test of patience to get through.
ACTING/CAST
The one "saving grace" of this show, if you can call it that. The four lead characters are all perfectly cast and they all do their best, but even though three of them are absolute legends, even they don't quite live up to their potential. Or rather, perhaps they have not yet fully mastered their craft. I will say that Gong Hyo Jin is pretty much exactly as good as you'll ever see her, but both Jang Hyuk and Shin Sung Rok haven't fully captured their famous magnetism and charisma just yet. Jang Hyuk is very far along in his maturation by this point, but Shin Sung Rok was exceptionally poor here. He honestly barely acts at all, and the few times he pulls something real out on camera, the poor directing and editing nearly ruin it. It should be pointed out, though, that he doesn't have a lot to work with in the script.
Of course, the real shining star of this drama and the one thing that kept me watching until the end is Seo Shin Ae as Lee Bom. At the tender age of 8 years old, it's absurd how engaging and genuine her performance is. Consistently funny, consistently heartbreaking, and believable throughout, Seo Shin Ae brought to life the most perfect little angel, and if you decide to watch this (don't) despite reading my review (don't watch it, really), I can at least guarantee that you will love and adore and want to protect little Lee Bom every time she is on screen (but don't bother watching this unless you hate yourself). Despite being an 8-year-old, she does the fewest stupid things out of everyone in the show, so very little gets in the way of fully and deeply adoring her, like I did.
MUSIC
Even the music in this show was annoying! There's a song that plays for basically *every* "sad scene" and it is incredibly obnoxious. It's just a man humming something that is supposed to sound mournful, but it's annoying the first time you hear it and then so overused that it actually made Wife and I *laugh* during sad scenes. I imitate the song at home now whenever I want to get a reaction from Wife. It's literally become a meme in our home.
The rest of the OST here is.... forgettable, and far too many sequences go by with no music at all. Overall, not great efforts here.
REWATCH VALUE
Why in the name of all that is good would anyone watch this a SECOND TIME??? I know the answer to that: Seo Shin Ae is stupidly adorable and could merit going back to gawk at how good she is here (hence, all 5 points of the 5/10 score I gave this here). There is also a scene where Jang Hyuk chops firewood where he is clearly doing a lot of ad-libbing and it's pretty great. But that's about it for memorably good scenes.
But seriously, this drama was painful enough the first time, I cannot imagine having such a small amount of respect for your own limited lifespan as to waste finite hours on REWATCHING this deeply flawed, largely boring, and ultimately miserable show. I'm annoyed enough at myself for not only finishing it, but taking the time to even review it. Ugh.
OVERALL
Thank You can really be summed up in one of its final scenes: the two lead characters, still not having communicated anything of importance to one another at any point, stare at each other for what feels like a solid two minutes. And they say nothing. And nothing is resolved. It is the final infuriating missed opportunity that this show lets go whooshing by without utilizing.
Do not watch Thank You. Don't. Just don't. Unless you want to hate watch, or you just *really* want to see some of your favorite actors doing their thing except 14 years younger. If that describes you... fine, give it a shot. But if you want good kdrama? Skip this, forget it exists, and watch these amazing actors in literally anything else.
STORY
The concept of the story here is a good one: writing around an adorable little girl living with AIDS (Lee Bom, played by Seo Shin Ae) is a brave premise, and using it tackle head-on the overwhelming fear and superstition surrounding AIDS that the Korean population at large struggled with at the time is very interesting. As if that wasn't enough, Thank You also tries to take on dementia/aging as main themes as well, so you get a cornucopia of uncomfortable subjects to chew on here.
The problem is that the show doesn't surround these themes with enough heart, and the entire plot is told with all the joy of a funeral service. Make no mistake: this is 16 hours of miserable people being miserable. Every time you think they will break the agony up with some joy, they ruin it in short order, usually with one or more characters behaving idiotically with zero justification.
Another huge problem is the problematic portrayal of paternity and the rights of fathers presented here. One of the characters in the show is, in fact, the biological father of the Lee Bom character, but at no point does the show address or explore his rights as her father. Indeed, it seems that the audience is meant to view it as *a matter of course* that he has no rights at all. This is not exactly a balanced view of the subject, and an omission in the writing made all the more glaring by the fact that much of the rest of the drama does actually achieve a level of nuance and thoughtfulness in some of the themes.
Overall, though, there is a LOT of wasted time in this drama: characters behaving like idiots for no reason, characters who don't matter *at all* and have nothing of interest to contribute getting entirely too much screen time, and of course lots and lots and lots of the main characters just staring at each other endlessly.
The best part of the story is Lee Bom, not just because she is achingly precious and easy to love with your whole heart, but because she is the most genuine and straightforward character in the show. She is almost an audience surrogate, saying and doing the things we all wish everyone else was saying and doing but aren't because they are deeply stupid (and/or poorly-written). Lee Bom is an excellent communicator in a drama full of some of the worst communicators in the medium.
And the stupidest and most infuriating character of all? The female first lead, Lee Young Shin, played by the wonderful Gong Hyo Jin. This character takes the "woebegone doormat" trope of first-leads and cranks it all the way to 11: she consistently takes every possible abuse with head bowed and a "thank you" on her lips (the title of the drama is literally a reference to this), and yet whenever literally anyone even attempts to offer her some actual support and love, she responds with anger and rejection. And what is her justification for this? There is none, and she makes no attempt to have one. She is just painfully, terminally stupid. That's it.
While the story does indeed build to a few moments of beauty and emotional payoff, it is on the whole a letdown and a test of patience to get through.
ACTING/CAST
The one "saving grace" of this show, if you can call it that. The four lead characters are all perfectly cast and they all do their best, but even though three of them are absolute legends, even they don't quite live up to their potential. Or rather, perhaps they have not yet fully mastered their craft. I will say that Gong Hyo Jin is pretty much exactly as good as you'll ever see her, but both Jang Hyuk and Shin Sung Rok haven't fully captured their famous magnetism and charisma just yet. Jang Hyuk is very far along in his maturation by this point, but Shin Sung Rok was exceptionally poor here. He honestly barely acts at all, and the few times he pulls something real out on camera, the poor directing and editing nearly ruin it. It should be pointed out, though, that he doesn't have a lot to work with in the script.
Of course, the real shining star of this drama and the one thing that kept me watching until the end is Seo Shin Ae as Lee Bom. At the tender age of 8 years old, it's absurd how engaging and genuine her performance is. Consistently funny, consistently heartbreaking, and believable throughout, Seo Shin Ae brought to life the most perfect little angel, and if you decide to watch this (don't) despite reading my review (don't watch it, really), I can at least guarantee that you will love and adore and want to protect little Lee Bom every time she is on screen (but don't bother watching this unless you hate yourself). Despite being an 8-year-old, she does the fewest stupid things out of everyone in the show, so very little gets in the way of fully and deeply adoring her, like I did.
MUSIC
Even the music in this show was annoying! There's a song that plays for basically *every* "sad scene" and it is incredibly obnoxious. It's just a man humming something that is supposed to sound mournful, but it's annoying the first time you hear it and then so overused that it actually made Wife and I *laugh* during sad scenes. I imitate the song at home now whenever I want to get a reaction from Wife. It's literally become a meme in our home.
The rest of the OST here is.... forgettable, and far too many sequences go by with no music at all. Overall, not great efforts here.
REWATCH VALUE
Why in the name of all that is good would anyone watch this a SECOND TIME??? I know the answer to that: Seo Shin Ae is stupidly adorable and could merit going back to gawk at how good she is here (hence, all 5 points of the 5/10 score I gave this here). There is also a scene where Jang Hyuk chops firewood where he is clearly doing a lot of ad-libbing and it's pretty great. But that's about it for memorably good scenes.
But seriously, this drama was painful enough the first time, I cannot imagine having such a small amount of respect for your own limited lifespan as to waste finite hours on REWATCHING this deeply flawed, largely boring, and ultimately miserable show. I'm annoyed enough at myself for not only finishing it, but taking the time to even review it. Ugh.
OVERALL
Thank You can really be summed up in one of its final scenes: the two lead characters, still not having communicated anything of importance to one another at any point, stare at each other for what feels like a solid two minutes. And they say nothing. And nothing is resolved. It is the final infuriating missed opportunity that this show lets go whooshing by without utilizing.
Do not watch Thank You. Don't. Just don't. Unless you want to hate watch, or you just *really* want to see some of your favorite actors doing their thing except 14 years younger. If that describes you... fine, give it a shot. But if you want good kdrama? Skip this, forget it exists, and watch these amazing actors in literally anything else.
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