idiosyncreant | (no subject)

I'm about to watch the finale of My Princess.

This show is utter fluff. However, it's fluff that takes its artful aspects seriously, and knows where its charm lies, so that it was fun to watch the whole way through.

The sets are not only gorgeous, but the shots are set up so that comes through. Most of the opening shots of important scenes are painterly in composition. The mix of new palace grandeur and old royal style don't clash. The music is subtle.

My favorite thing about the music is that they never overused it. There are several scenes that would have been looped with the themed emotion soundtrack song in most dramas. In this, they trusted the actors to carry the moment, and there was space because of it. (I also get to enjoy the songs after looking them up, because I have hardly heard them!)

The usual summary makes it seem like a rip-off of Princess Diaries or many other similar tales, so I'll recap what I think is the actual plot:

(mild spoilers for the first few episodes...)

Seul Lee has spunk and self-confidence, though she drools over her history professor in class rather than hearing anything he's saying.

She's more gratified than surprised to find out she's a descendant of the royal family of Korea—but when the big business tycoon who's trying to reinstate the monarchy confesses to this is the cause of father's early death and fugitive life, she wants nothing to do with it. This suits his grandson, since his inheritance was going to be given to the Royal Foundation, and he offers to pay for her to leave the country until it's a moot point.

Seul thinks she can go to Egypt and bump into her history professor there, like the Indiana Jones she's imagined him to be—but after her dramatic goodbye notes to her mom and said professor are delivered, they discover she's been barred from leaving the country.

As with all good stories, Hijinks Ensue.

And now I've finished it...javabeans at DramaBeans.com mentioned there was tension, and of the right kind, to the end, and I am kind of awed by how they managed that. I mean...there was even an airport in it, and no one cried or kissed or was dragged back out of the airport itself. IN THE LAST EPISODE.

This alone gets a drama shiny star stickers in my book. I mean, seriously, the carrying-on-in-the-airport scene is so overdone I dread seeing airports in dramas. In “My Girl”, the heroine staging such a scene to get past security is hilarious for the very reason that you recognize it and know everyone else does, too.

And of course, because there are men in My Princess who are professionals, they have some excellent suits...