TV Show/Drama Review~My Name Is Kim Sam Soon

Title: My Name is Kim Sam Soon/My Lovely Sam Soon

Writer: Kim Do Woo

Director: Kim Yoon Chul

Producer: Kim Sa Hyun

Main Cast: Kim Sun Ah as Kim Sam Soon, Hyun Bin as Hyun Jin Hun, Jung Ryeo Won as Yoo Hee Jin, Daniel Henney as Dr. Henry Kim

Genre: Romance, Comedy

Original Run: June 1, 2005 – July 21, 2005

Running Time: 60 minutes

Original Channel: MBC

No. of Episodes: 16

Language: Korean

Links: IMDb/MDL ~ Wikipedia ~ Amazon ~ Viki/DramaFever ~ TV Show/Drama Site

Synopsis: Kim Sam Soon is a baker who has a talent in making pastries and cakes. On Christmas Eve, she caught her boyfriend, Min Hyun Woo, cheating on her and breaks up. On that same night, she accidentally went into the men's restroom and met Hyun Jin Hun. By sheer coincidence, Jin Hun needs a baker for his restaurant Bon Appetit and Sam Soon is unemployed. Sam Soon is hired as the restaurant's chief baker and the two fights like cat and dog.

Trailer: 

MNIKSS Promo Trailer by honeynutcheerios

My Rating: 6.5/10

My Thoughts: I have very mixed feelings about this drama... I liked it enough that is didn't bore me, but I was very frustrated with the characters.

This was a noona romance but it didn't feel like it and I'm glad it didn't! Because I'm not much of a fan of noona romances. It was a typical chaebol romance story. It reminded me a lot of Bridget Jones... But this drama was very... real. Like, the story and the characters were very life-like. And while I do like real, relatable characters, these characters seemed too real. Too flawed. I see enough of that in real life, I don't want my drama characters to be selfish and so complicated as well.

I honestly don't know how to review this drama... I'll just list down the things I liked and the things I didn't like.

Things I liked:

• The story was, in a way, interesting. I didn't like the plot repetition and some things were pretty unbelievable. But the story was still interesting enough to keep me watching.
• Henry. He was honestly my favorite character. He was funny and so adorable and I was rooting for him from the beginning!
• The restaurant staff. The were funny and I really liked them.
• Sam Soon's sister. I really liked her! She genuinely cared about her sister. Plus her relationship with that Bon Apetit chef was funny.
• The kisses! This drama had, if not the best, then some pretty good kiss scenes. And the chemistry between the lead couple wasn't bad either. Though, Jin Hun and Hee Jin looked better together.

Things I didn't like:

• Jin Hun. I love Hyun Bin! And I really tried to like his character. But I couldn't. He was selfish and I couldn't accept his actions, whatever the reason.
• Sam Soon. People say she stood up for herself and was a strong character. Yeah, she did have a backbone sometimes. For like, 0.1 seconds. I really liked her when she did stand up for herself and was cheering for her. But then she would throw away her self respect and do something that made me so mad at her!
• Hee Jin. The main reason why I didn't like her is because she couldn't see how amazing Henry was. I also didn't like her because everyone said she was strong but to me she seemed weak. 
• The violence. Honestly, I've never seen so much violence in any Korean drama! Everyone loved to beat each other up and that annoyed me a lot! I know it was supposed to be funny but they used it one too many times. The amount of times poor Hyun Bin was beaten up, I lost count. I think he got beaten up twice or thrice in the first episode alone. And an episode wasn't complete unless someone got beaten up. The only person who wasn't violent was Henry. He fought only once and it was because Jin Hun punched him.
• Scene repetition. The match-making date scene happened, I think, 5 times. The "Don't look at anybody else!" scene happened, I think, twice or thrice. And I bet there were many other scenes that were repeated. It was at those moments I wanted to stop watching the drama.

Final Verdict: Even though there are more things I disliked about this drama than liked, it was entertaining and I would recommend it if you can look past the flaws.