Let everybody eat cake

I told myself I wouldn’t start another drama, but I did anyway. Reading all those SoEul fics has made me obsessed with Kim Bum, so I chose East of Eden. I heard that he was only in the first few episodes so I thought I could watch those and just stop, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Though I’m enjoying watching Kim Bum, I also want him to hurry and grow up into the hot adult version of his character so the plot can really start moving along.

I had actually wanted to watch EoE prior to Boys Before Flowers, but its extreme length put me off. The synopsis seemed to place the show right in my genre: angsty, family ties, secret relations (one of my favourite tropes), gangsters…anyway, here’s a short recap/review of the first three episodes.

Episode 1 begins in Macao 1980, which made me think that Kim Bum might show up right away, but then the adult version of his character Dong Chul appeared on screen and I realised why this show was going to take 50+ episodes to tell its story. Also, I started to get a strong feeling that I was going to get sucked into this show early, only to get bored halfway through and have to slog through the remaining episodes just to know what happens.

Anyway, in the teaser, adult Lee Dong Chul fails to kill the evil Shin Tae Hwan whom killed his father. From only Ep. 3 hindsight, I can already tell that not killing that guy was a huge mistake; however, I’m not far enough into the show to tell whether Dong Chul’s actions make him a good guy, an idiot or a hypocrite.

The teaser ends with Dong Chul in a spot of trouble. I’m not that worried about his survival, but from Ep. 3 hindsight, I am worried about how long the show’s going to take to affirm that outcome, as after the teaser, the show dissolved into flashback, and has yet to come out of it.

The first two episodes revolved around mining and babies. It was a little confusing as it seemed every woman character in the show was in various stages of pregnancy. Lee Ki Chul, father to an apparently 5 year old Dong Chul, had knocked up both his wife, and his first love/stalker. Evil Shin Tae Hwan had a pregnant wife and mistress. Finally, the station master’s daughter was pregnant with a daughter of unknown fatherhood (I thought initially that maybe Tae Hwan was also this baby’s father, which may take the secretly related theme a little too far, but then again the show did blow a lot of potential twists in the first few episodes, so they may be keeping this one under the belt).

So, Tae hwan’s mistress Nurse Yoo didn’t remain pregnant for long as Tae hwan had her kidnapped, the baby aborted and after the surgery, just for kicks, dumped poor Nurse Yoo by the side of the road in the pouring rain. Well, Nurse Yoo’s delusions about Tae Hwan were swiftly shattered and, as standard in this show, she vows eternal revenge.

So, Nurse Yoo returns to work, which happens to be in the maternity ward of the local hospital where Tae hwan’s wife and Ki Chul’s wife have each just given birth to a son. Her initial revenge scheme is to go after Tae hwan with a scalpel, but after that failed, she decides to strangle his new born son. Fortunately she’s unable to go through with that, so instead she swaps baby Shin and baby Lee.

As far as revenge goes, baby swapping is a weak idea, as the dude still ends up with a son, but then again, Nurse Yoo had just been through a massive trauma, and it was a spur of the moment decision. If she had time to plan out her revenge, I’m sure she would have come up with something better. However, as luck would have it, her baby-swapping turned out to be a master revenge plan because unbeknownst to her, the Lees and Shins were about to engage in a decades long feud.

Ok, I didn’t pay much attention to the mining storyline, but I think the gist of it is that Tae hwan’s in-laws own the mine and TH is keen to show that he’s man enough to be heir, unfortunately, the miners are planning a strike, which would seriously undermine TH’s leadership and profits. So TH plans to stop the strike by arranging a mining accident that kills the union head, Ki Chul, and thus stops the strike. So, Ki Chul is killed. Unfortunately for TH, young Dong Chul overheard his plan to kill his dad and thus TH has now earned DC’s eternal enmity, not to mention Dong Wook’s future eternal enmity (DW being DC’s brother and TH’s biological son, oh, Nurse Yoo, you psychic genius).

So, ten years later and we’re at Episode 3. Fifteen year old Dong Chul is now played by Kim Bum–it’s about time. I was sure Ki Chul wouldn’t survive the first episode, but they dragged it out over two; however, while I was eagerly anticipating Kim Bum, the actor who played his younger version (while I can’t quite believe he was only five year old) gave such a fantastic performance. I was tearing up during the funeral scene where DC was too distraught to speak and could only manage the cute ‘I love you’ hand gesture that he used to do with his dad.

Anyway, Episode 3. The Lees still hate the Shins, and while Tae Hwan is still an arsehole, his son (Myung Hun, I think) has managed to grow up (as much as 10 year olds are grown up) into a lovely and polite young boy. Meanwhile, as we’ll soon see, Dong Wook has grown up to be an arsonist. I was afraid they’d do this. The nature always wins trope is not one of my favourites.

Anyway, the Lees are an angry family. However, I was pleasantly surprised that Mrs Ki Chul’s (Chun Hee? I’ll go with that) revenge plan that she promised Tae hwan was coming, was to raise her sons to become top notch lawyers and get TH the legal way. Unfortunately, this plan is screwed up when Dong Wook sets the Shin’s house on fire and Dong Chul takes the blame and becomes a fugitive.

Also, Ji Hyun (station master’s granddaughter) seems to crush on Dong Wook, which is unfortunate if they do turn out to be related; however, it would work out well for Myung Hun in the long run as he also has a crush on her. However, I reckon Ji Hyun will actually fall for DC, and DW will fall for her, causing brotherly friction which would be amped up by the revelation of DW ‘s (and maybe JH’s) parentage. Or, maybe I’m soapifying this show to much, but the soap elements are what is keeping me watching right now, so I hope there’ll be a major pay off.

So, I think the show would have worked better if the flashbacks had been slowly revealed throughout its run, instead of dumped in one go, but I guess this show is meant to have a saga feel, conflict spanning generations and all, which makes me think DW and MH’s secret parentage is going to be drawn out, which is sad; however, any love stories are going to be consummated fairly quickly so the conflict can really span generations–I can already see poor JH knocked up to MH and being forced to marry him.

Am I not giving this show enough credit?