Keep On Trying Until You Get It Right: Mirroring Devices in Oh! Young-sim

Photo of the drama’s poster from official streaming distributor KT (Genie TV), reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

 

 

The recent rom-com K-drama Oh! Young-sim (오! 영심이, ENA, 2023) is based on a well-known animated character created in 1998 by Bae Geum-taek, first in a manhwa and later in tv and film adaptations. The 2023 live action version imagines the title character as a struggling television producer in her mid-30s whose teenage admirer suddenly comes back into her life as a popular contestant on the dating show she’s producing. Formerly timid and uncool, Wang Kyeong-tae became a confident and successful CEO after spending the last 20 years in America, but he still hasn’t gotten over Young-sim. Although they bicker constantly, working together on the tv show raises the possibility of a happy ending for their curtailed teenage romance, but they seem unable to make it happen. As we watch Young-sim and Kyeong-tae’s story, the drama presents us (and them) with their story mirrored in other stories, and seeing their reflections helps them (and us) understand their own relationship more clearly.

 

Song Ha-yoon plays Young-sim, who is struggling to produce a hit tv show but never stops trying. Photo from official streaming distributor KT (Genie TV), reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

One of those reflections is a couple from the dating show. Ki-ho has been in love with his coworker for seven years, and she knows how he feels, but she has never clarified what type of relationship she wants with him. Kyeong-tae selected Ki-ho to appear on the show because he wanted to help someone whose unrequited love reminded him of his own past with Young-sim. He coaches Ki-ho so that he has the best chance of winning his coworker’s love, and so that he can move on without regret if she rejects him. Unfortunately for Ki-ho, his coworker has decided to leave Korea to explore her Buddhist faith in Nepal, but luckily for him, a viewer becomes interested in him after his appearance on the show, and they find love together. This ending where the man and woman both find happiness but not with each other is presented to make the characters consider that possibility for their own relationship. However, the mirror does not give a perfect reflection, because Young-sim does have feelings for Kyeong-tae, unlike Ki-ho’s coworker.

Super Junior’s Lee Donghae plays Kyeong-tae, who was determined to become a man that Young-sim wouldn’t look down on. Photo from official streaming distributor KT (Genie TV), reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

Another couple from the dating show also mirrors Young-sim and Kyeong-tae’s romance, to the point that they could be the protagonists’ younger selves. After a snotty student acts disdainfully toward the shy boy who likes her, he leaves for America and comes back a year later, suddenly having become cool. Now the girl wants his attention, and he agrees to go on the dating show, but then he haughtily ignores her the way she used to do to him, so that she can see how mean she is. Kyeong-tae coached the boy to do this so that he could release the emotions that had been festering, but nothing is really resolved between the high school couple after that. Like the high school couple, Kyeong-tae has been acting haughtily toward Young-sim since coming back from America, because he is still hurt by her behaviour toward him when they were teenagers, but they don’t resolve anything at this point, either. Near the end of the drama, Kyeong-tae advises the boy to move on and find someone else to love, so that he doesn’t become like Kyeong-tae, who has been unable to move on from Young-sim for 20 years. But the boy and girl begin to repair their relationship, which suggests that Kyeong-tae and Young-sim can do so as well.

 

After meeting again as adults, Kyeong-tae and Young-sim bicker constantly, and they only agree to work together on the tv show in order to benefit themselves. But as the drama progresses, they start to have warm feelings again. Photo from official streaming distributor KT (Genie TV), reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

 

The third way that Kyeong-tae and Young-sim’s relationship is mirrored through another story is literally through a story written about them by Young-sim’s father, a manhwa creator who used to draw a series about Young-sim and Kyeong-tae when they were teenagers. During one of their most honest moments, Young-sim jokes to Kyeong-tae that her father is probably going to recreate their entire conversation in a manhwa, because every time something important happens to her, he somehow finds out and draws it. This is a cute allusion to the origins of the characters, but in the drama, the manhwa does play an important role as a mirror, when Kyeong-tae reads it and learns more information about what happened when he left for America without a word. By reading their story in the manhwa, he understands Young-sim better and gains a vital clue which helps him figure out what their story’s ending should be.


A fourth example of mirroring can be found in the character of Gu Wol-sook, one of Kyeong-tae and Young-sim’s former classmates, who ends up working with them on the tv show. She pursues Kyeong-tae, but he rejects her, explaining that he does not agree with her attitude that love is something that can be won through conquest, resulting in a romantic relationship where one person has the power and the other meekly follows. Here, Wol-sook is a reflection of Kyeong-tae, or, more precisely, of Mark Wang, the persona he adopted when he became successful in America. Kyeong-tae admits to Wol-sook that he tried to have the same attitude as her, but now he has realized that that’s not who he is or what he wants.

 

Jung Woo-yeon plays Wol-sook, who views Kyeong-tae as a possible conquest. Kyeong-tae tried to approach love like Wol-sook does, but ultimately, he realizes that such an attitude doesn’t suit him. He admires Young-sim, who believes in sincerity over strategy, and who keeps on trying to achieve her goals, no matter how many setbacks she encounters. Photo from official streaming distributor KT (Genie TV), reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

 

After having seen all the different reflections of and possibilities for his and Young-sim’s relationship, Kyeong-tae finally figures out that he’s still the same kid who loved Young-sim but wasn’t confident enough to believe that she could love him back. After losing his wealth and status due to a situation at his company, he comes back to Young-sim, not as CEO Mark Wang, but just as her old friend Kyeong-tae. Now that they both understand themselves and each other better, they are able to make a romantic relationship work. Kyeong-tae starts to rebuild his career with Young-sim supporting him, the way it should have been the first time around, and her father starts drawing stories about them again, this time reflecting their happy ending.

 

At the end of the series, Kyeong-tae realizes that Young-sim and her family love and accept him regardless of his wealth and status. Photo from official streaming distributor KT (Genie TV), reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.