A misunderstood first encounter in Legendary Witches

by javabeans

With a few weeks left till its premiere, new MBC drama Legendary Witches has released the first stills from the drama, which look rather moody and picturesque for a show (1) that’s about chaebol machinations, ex-convicts, and underdog fights; and (2) supposedly lighthearted. I suppose it’s not impossible to be all those things at once, but I’m still waiting to see what tone the show will take. (It could be cheery, but since it comes from the the writer and director of Hundred Year Inheritance, it’s a fair guess that makjang will be a key component.)

Legendary Witches is the prisoners-find-new-lives-in-bread drama starring Han Ji-hye, which girlfriday and I have taken to calling the bbang-bbang drama, because we have the sense of humor of twelve-year-olds who giggle at lame puns. (Bbang is the Korean word for bread, and is also the slang term for prison, and bbang-bbang is the onomatopoeic sound of a honking car. So you can imagine all the stupid-joke potential awaiting us.)

The drama centers around four ladies who are sent to prison wrongfully for various crimes, who learn how to bake in prison thanks to the volunteer work of chef Ha Suk-jin, and then set up a bakery together once they’re back in the outside world. The other three ladies, who are being called (endearingly?) “witches” in the show’s promo descriptions, will be played by Go Doo-shim (Mi-rae’s Choice), Oh Hyun-kyung (King’s Family), and Ha Yeon-soo (Monstar).

The setup reminds me a bit of the relationship between the women ex-cons in Secret, whose small business was something of a halfway house for their fellow ex-cons, and who gradually became a makeshift family. (It’s also like Jung Woo’s Bread Man character in You’re the Best, Lee Soon-shin, who got his life together after a brief stint in prison and found a new path in running a neighborhood bakery.) That’s the part of the show that I find promising, because I just love stories of motley individuals bonding together into families.

On the other hand, the story does have a familiar chaebol-giant-crushes-the-little-guy conflict built in, because the bread shop will face competition from a major corporation — and that corporation happens to be the one that Han Ji-hye had married into, which may have had something to do with her wrongful prison sentence. But I do enjoy the idea of Han Ji-hye and Ha Suk-jin being paired together, and these stills depict a scene at the beach where the two characters meet. Both of them (independently of each other) seek out a sanitarium near the seaside, but after both their goals are thwarted, they head to the beach.

That’s where Ha Suk-jin sees her heading into the water for an unknown reason, mistakes it for a suicide attempt, and rushes in to save her. But as he’s struggling with her, she grows angry at him and slaps him. Poor guy, just trying to help.

Legendary Witches will be an MBC weekend drama premiering at the end of October.

Via Ten Asia

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