[HanCinema's Drama Review] "The Man In My House" Episode 10

After the big confrontation we find out the evidence is ambiguous and unreliable. So Na-ri and Nan-gil stop caring and discuss a more pressing matter- if the bad guys' plan involves annulling Nan-gil's marriage to Na-ri's mother, is that good since it means Na-ri is no longer dating her stepfather? It's times like this that "The Man In My House" feels like two completely different plots. One has a gangster conspiracy. The other is a bog standard romance.

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Then again there are so many plots in "The Man In My House" that it's hard to keep track of them all. The drama appears to be pushing Deok-bong and Yeo-joo as a couple for some incomprehensible reason. It's like the production team realized that Deok-bong has very little to do anymore, and what with Yeo-joo getting sympathetic character traits all of a sudden, well, she has to end up with someone. Too bad I still don't particularly like her all that much.

Elsewhere the bit with film crew doing a story on the dumpling restaurant ends up having a point. Nan-gil is hoping that he'll be able to use the publicity to solve the mystery and uncover more obfuscated backstory, conveniently without expending effort on his part so he can hang out with Na-ri some more. Also there are jokes, including more lovely wide shots of the robot museum, which I'm assuming is based on a real location because where else would they get a giant "Robot Taekwon V" model?

You may have noticed that my various attempts at plot summary are horribly disjointed, like I'm describing the plots of several completely different dramas at once. Well...that's what it's like watching "The Man In My House" at this point. It's just more stuff happening just quickly enough to keep the plot moving and just slowly enough to be increasingly, tremendously irritating.

Take the cliffhanger, which classically stops mid-sentence. The camera lingered on Na-ri for so long I was sure that maybe we'd at least get some kind of hint but alas, no such luck. Although really, it's hard to get all that interested in legal mumbo jumbo when it's not all that clear how or why these courtroom proceedings are going to affect the greater situation with Na-ri's property. While I can get how plot details have to be hidden for dramatic reasons, "The Man In My House" is so excessive about its secrecy that it just ends up killing most of the tension.

Review by William Schwartz

"The Man In My House" is directed by Kim Jung-min-XII, written by Kim Eun-jeong, and features Soo Ae, Kim Young-kwang, Lee Soo-hyuk, Jo Bo-ah, Kim Ji-hoon-I and Kim Mi-sook.

 

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