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The Heirs (or The Inheritors) is a South-Korean drama or television series starring Park Shin Hye, Lee Min Ho, and Kim Woo Bin as the main characters that hit very high ratings in 2013. It also won many awards and was broadcasted in many countries. The story ended with a happy ending, but for me, there were some things that made this drama so irritating.
In the first episode, it was revealed that Kim Tan (Lee Min Ho), the second son of Jeguk Group's president, was exiled to America by his step brother, Kim Won (Choi Jin Hyuk). He didn’t have a good communication with his father and brother because he was actually the son of his father’s mistress, but people knew him as the son of his father’s second wife. He liked to surf, so he spent most of his time at the beach until he met Cha Eun Sang (Park Shin Hye), who wanted to meet her sister, Cha Eun Suk. Cha Eun Sang’s sister just wanted her money and then ran away. Kim Tan helped Eun Sang then by letting her sleep in his home. One day, Kim Tan took Eun Sang to his school. I thought at first, Kim Tan was already in college, but after he went back to Korea, he actually was just a senior high school student! That was when I started thinking that the main characters for this drama were too old to be put in a high school age. They were almost 10 years older than the actual age of high school students. The drama then told the story of how Cha Eun Sang got a scholarship from Kim Tan's father to go to Jeguk High School in Korea with Kim Tan. The prestigious school had so many heirs and heiresses of companies that Kim Tan had to lie, saying Eun Sang was rich too because he tried to protect her from bullying. Other students eventually realized the truth and Eun Sang was bullied for her low social status. Choi Young Do (Kim Woo Bin), Kim Tan’s former best friend who turned into his rival, was one of the worst bullies. He tried to hurt Eun Sang, in order to hurt Kim Tan. But soon, he fell in love with Eun Sang because he found out that hurting Kim Tan wasn’t his only reason to bully her. They fought all the time then because of Eun Sang. Now, this whole bullying and fighting shouldn’t be done by high school students. It could give a wrong perception to real high school students and it could also be imitated.
The next thing that annoyed me is how this drama told about such a ‘Cinderella and The Prince’ story where Kim Tan was the son of Jeguk Group’s president and Cha Eun Sang was the daughter of Jeguk Group’s house maid. They loved each other and never wanted to be separated, but people around them did not approve their relationship. This was a classic formula that had been told by many other stories and it got predictably boring.
Kim Tan’s father, who at first seemed supportive of Eun Sang, later threatened and asked her to leave Kim Tan for good. Kim Tan was mad knowing this. He started to self-destruct like he wanted to die. He couldn’t do anything because there was no Eun Sang by his side. Kim Tan's reaction was too much for me, like there was no other priority in this world except love. Everything was too dramatized.
The ending of this drama was a bit odd too. It revealed a contrast between the Kim brothers. Kim Won, who put wealth above love, became so successful in leading Jeguk Group but cried all night long. He was depressed because he couldn’t marry his girlfriend, Hyun Joo, and had to follow his father’s order to have a business marriage with a girl from another company to make Jeguk Group stronger. Kim Tan, on the other hand, could live happily together with Eun Sang even though he always rebelled to his father and dissolved his engagement with another school mate, Yoo Rachel (Kim Ji Won). In a way, it told us that rebelling to parents was okay and following to what they say was not.
I believe the moral value of this drama is not so good for young people. Students can’t just put love over others and ignore what they should really do in their age, which are learning and studying. Even if Kim Tan could get what he wanted after the long rebellion, how could he and Eun Sang live their own life without his parents’ money? Again, they were still second grade students in senior high school, they weren’t adults yet. All of their money came from their parents. What then if their parents were really upset about it and cut all ties so that they really didn’t have any money? Surely they had to work and struggle with their education. They might even end up not graduating from high school, which was a shame to think that they did it for love.
I think, the whole drama was not supposed to tell about senior high school students to begin with. Their acts of romance in the whole drama were too brave to be done by students. So, even if this drama’s rating was so high, I would not recommend it to my student peers. |
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