My Name Is Kim Samsoon gets adapted for the stage

86 January 2, 2011January 1, 2011

by girlfriday

Beloved hallmark rom-com My Name Is Kim Samsoon is being revived, six years after the drama aired on MBC back in 2005. If you’re anything like me, that drama embodies everything that a good k-drama is about: heart, humor, and a cracktastic romance between two endearing leads.

It’s the drama that garnered 50% ratings at a time when those sorts of numbers were a thing of the past, and besides catapulting Kim Sun-ah and Hyun Bin to massive fame, it was one of the early dramas in a wave that changed what the k-drama heroine could be. Suffice it to say, it’s near and dear to many fans’ hearts.

This year it will be adapted into a stage play, based on the original novel of the same name, by author Ji Soo-hyun. If you’re new to k-dramas and haven’t seen Samsoon, it’s about a pastry chef with a foul mouth who is turning 30, and struggles with some of the most basic things all women face: how to lose weight, how to meet the right guy, how to ditch the wrong guy, and how to survive in a flailing economy with your dreams intact. Kim Sun-ah famously gained weight for the role, and was pitch-perfect as the first k-drama heroine I didn’t want to hit over the head with a reason stick, but actually wanted to be.

The stage adaptation doesn’t boast any big stars, so it looks like a smaller production, but I’m happy to see Samsoon being revived, in whatever form. My Name Is Kim Samsoon will premiere January 21 at Sang Myung Art Hall in Seoul.

Now I’m all nostalgic. Time to break out my DVDs.

Via My Daily

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Tags: My Name Is Kim Sam-soon

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51 mrskimchee

January 3, 2011 at 1:06 PM

You read my mind...I was about to rewatch this again after SG ends...which is very soon *crying*
falling in love all over again with binnie...and haven't seen sunah in a new drama since CH..so it's time to revive...to survive....

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52 Kate

January 3, 2011 at 1:18 PM

Hyunbin's a good actor. Joowon and Samshik have many resemblance, but he acts out two very differently, so I feel like they're totally different ppl. Well, I was rewatching Samsoon few weeks ago triggered by Secret Garden, and I realized Hyunbin was a total baby which I didn't notice when I was watching it in 2005.

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belleza

January 3, 2011 at 10:31 PM

Secret Garden kinda takes a bunch of Binnie and Ha Ji Won's roles and blends them up. Joo Won is a parody of Sam Shik. Richer, DOUCHIER, better dimples. Ga Ra Im is a 50/50 mashup of Chae Ok (Damo) and Soo-Jung (WHiB) Hell, the plotline loosely feels like a rom-com version of WHiB with KSS tit-for-that, what with how love, money and class obligation are rotisserie episode to episode.

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53 jaja

January 3, 2011 at 8:58 PM

wow! i just finished re-watching all 16 episodes 2 nights ago. this is awesome!

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54 SL

January 3, 2011 at 9:18 PM

Really nice to see fellow K drama fans saying that MNIKSS holds a special place in their hearts...cos it surely is the case for me! :) Sam Soon was the everyday woman on the street, especially when she was complaining about her life, or rather the lack of it....

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55 belleza

January 3, 2011 at 10:26 PM

Kim Sam Soon story itself is a parody of melodrama; in deconstructing the mechanics of melodrama, the story also shows the difference between being 20-something people and 30-something people.

You had an arrogant rich prince; you had a sick girl who may or may not live; you had a competing foreign prince. That's your melodrama triangle. You had a comic relief character who was observing how crappy and stupid and silly this triangle was (in a Mystery Science 3000 sort of way), and was inevitably pulled in because at the end of the day, Sam Soon wanted to be loved too.

Sam Shik doesn't evolves that much as a character. But I guess that's the point. The unique conclusion the show makes is that Sam Shik IS a fantasy and that him falling for her betrays Sam Soon's role as metadrama outsider AND "chosen one" among the normal people. it is as if Sam Soon winks at the audience and goes "yeah, this never happens in real life, but why stop a good thing?" That Sam Soon and Sam Shik are meant-to-be is irrelevant; it's more important and everything that Ajumma finally got The Guy.

I think what distinguished this drama with, say, What's Up Fox (the writer's next project) or Woman Who Never Gets Married is that there's real anger in the writing. That you get to a "number" and wow your options are now limited, and like it or not, your priorities have been changed for you.