The Little Sun Is Also a Star: The Second Female Lead in Master's Sun

 

Image of the drama’s promotional poster was taken from IMDB and reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

In my last post, I talked about the love triangle in Princess Hours. If you’ve seen the drama or looked closely at the images used for marketing it, you will notice that the main cast is actually made up of four characters. Having four main characters, male and female leads and male and female second leads, is an extremely common structure for K-dramas, and when there is romance involved, the four characters often pair up into two couples. There are two ways this type of storyline can be articulated: either the lead couple and the second couple develop separately, neither couple interfering with the other, or different romantic configurations of the four characters are presented as possibilities before the main couple and second couple solidify their relationships. I didn’t mention the second female lead in my discussion of Princess Hours, but in this post, let’s take a look at the second female lead in another popular K-drama with this four-character structure, Master’s Sun (주군의 태양, SBS, 2013).

 

Promotional photo for Master’s Sun, featuring (from left) Seo In-guk as Kang Woo, Gong Hyo-jin as Tae Gong-sil, So Ji-sub as Joo Joong-won and Kim Yoo-ri as Tae Yi-ryung. Photo from IMDB, reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

Master’s Sun is the story of Tae Gong-sil, a woman who can see ghosts, and Joo Joong-won, a rich shopping mall president who is “cursed” by the ghost of his first love who died years earlier when they were both targeted in a kidnapping and ransom conspiracy. Gong-sil and Joong-won are the title characters of the drama, and most of the focus is on them, but the drama does have second leads: Kang Woo, the security chief at Joong-won’s shopping mall, who keeps an eye on Gong-sil for both professional and personal reasons, and Tae Yi-ryung, a famous singer who is the shopping mall’s brand model and a former high school classmate of Gong-sil’s.


Yi-ryung always resented Gong-sil, who was prettier and smarter and more popular than she was. This relationship of superiority and inferiority was immortalized in their high school nicknames: because they had the same last name, Gong-sil was known as 큰 태양, meaning Big Miss Tae and also Big Sun, and Yi-ryung was known as 작은 태양, meaning Little Miss Tae and also Little Sun.

The height difference between the actors also works to reinforce the Big Sun/Little Sun contrast. Photo from SBS’ official Entertainment News website, reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

For a “main” character, Yi-ryung receives minimal character development, a fate shared by the second male lead Kang Woo, even though he is more involved in the resolution of the mystery and gets more screen time with both leads. Much of Yi-ryung’s character development relies on her positioning as the Little Sun to Gong-sil’s Big Sun during their high school days. That relationship is easy to understand and does not require the drama to spend any time on the details of Yi-ryung’s past. The rest is summed up by Yi-ryung herself: “I’m a top star (나 톱스타야),” as if no one needs to know anything more. It’s almost as though Yi-ryung doesn’t think there is anything more to herself than that.


And upon first glance, viewers might think she was right: she is often portrayed as an insubstantial character who mainly exists to provide comic relief, as she swears revenge on Gong-sil for ruining her wedding, sneaks around in disguise, and chases after Kang Woo, insisting that he should like her instead of Gong-sil because she’s beautiful and famous–and she can’t figure out why he doesn’t like her because her head starts to spin when she uses her brain (“나 머리 쓰면 렌즈 돌아가는데”). Interestingly, it is in Yi-ryung’s capacity as a top star that we begin to see her character growth. She is a singer who is breaking into acting, but by all accounts she is not very good at either. At first she brushes off these criticisms by pointing out that she is pretty, but in later episodes, her perspective changes. Her manager proposes that she move to the US for a film role with a famous director, but Yi-ryung admits she’s no good at acting. The manager reassures her that the role only requires a pretty face and a nice body, a justification that Yi-ryung repeats when Kang Woo criticizes her past acting performance. However, we can see that she is no longer satisfied with her work as an entertainer riding only on her looks. Kang Woo encourages her and expresses confidence that she can improve her acting. In the second-last episode, Joong-won asks Yi-ryung to help him by acting out a scene in front of Gong-sil. Because she has been practicing her acting, she completely fools Gong-sil, impressing everyone, including herself. Yi-ryung is no longer just a pretty face and a nice body; she has put in the effort to improve her skills, so that she can call herself an actor in all seriousness.

 

At first, top star Yi-ryung depends on modelling jobs like this over-the-top frying pan advertisement, but after she improves her acting skills she can aspire to serious acting roles. Photo from the drama’s official website (SBS), reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

Yi-ryung changes for the better as a person as well, which we can see by contrasting our first and last views of her. The first episode features Yi-ryung’s wedding to an elite soccer player, which gets ruined after Gong-sil helps the groom receive a message of encouragement from the ghost of his first love. While they are posing for wedding photos, Yi-ryung’s fiancé announces that he is planning to restart his playing career in Europe, despite his advancing age and history of injury. This is news to Yi-ryung, who tries to convince him to stay in Korea and become a celebrity couple with her instead, as he led her to believe he would do. While it is understandable that she would be upset to learn that her fiancé’s vision of his future has changed, the way she reacts does not put her in a good light at all. She points out that a failed attempt to play in the European league could tarnish his star image, and as his partner–the Victoria to his Beckham–she would not support that. “I know that you’re not confident in your abilities, either (당신도 자신 없잖아요),” she says, exploiting his self-doubt, and she continues to undermine him by repeating rumours that no team wants to sign him. When she confronts him after he shows up late for their wedding, he stands firm in his decision to keep playing soccer, bolstered by the fact that his first love continues to support him from beyond the grave, even though Yi-ryung, his current partner, does not. While the relationship might have ended anyway due to differing life goals, Yi-ryung’s failings as a partner are clear for everyone to see.

Yi-ryung does not support her fiancé’s career goals. Photo from SBS’ official Entertainment News website, reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

In the final episode, which takes place after a time jump, Yi-ryung asks her new love Kang Woo to walk the red carpet with her at a film festival. Although she is again trying to find a partner who will live the celebrity lifestyle she wants with her, this time she is much more attentive to her partner’s feelings. She understands that Kang Woo is still uncomfortable being in the public eye and she gently encourages him instead of simply whining or, worse, undermining him to get what she wants. When she proposes, “Let’s go together (같이 가자),” her tone is completely different from the way she spoke to her former fiancé. She is sincerely asking Kang Woo if he can be her partner in the lifestyle that she wants. She tells him that if he’s scared, he can hold onto her, and she promises that she will also be holding onto him tightly so that he doesn’t get lost (“무서우면 나 잡아. 내가 너 안 잃어버릴게 꼭 잡고 있을게”). She will be by his side as a true partner to help and support him as they walk their path together.

 

Promotional photo from singer Jung Dong-ha’s OST for the drama, a track called “Mystery.” The lyrics, while possibly intended to evoke the main love story between Joong-won and Gong-sil, are also apt if considered from Kang Woo’s perspective: the singer speaks of someone whose smile burrowed its way into his heart, even though he tried to push her away. She is like the sun and he can’t stop her from shining or himself from loving her. The chorus repeats the phrase “step by step (한 걸음 한 걸음),” imagery that dovetails nicely with the fact that Kang Woo and Yi-ryung commit to their relationship by stepping together onto the red carpet that represents Yi-ryung’s life, which they will now walk side by side. Photo from IMDB, reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

This drama is the story of Master Joo Joong-won and his Sun Tae Gong-sil, but just as many solar systems have more than one sun, this drama gives us the character of Tae Yi-ryung, who, despite short screen time and minimal character development, learns to shine from the inside as well as the outside. So we can truthfully say that the Little Sun is also a star.