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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Three Color Fantasy - Queen of the Ring" Episodes 3-4

Mi-joo (played by Yoon So-hee) is Nan-hee's old friend, who is conventionally attractive without the help of a magic ring. Mi-joo is, somewhat counter-intuitively, actually the most interesting part of "Three Color Fantasy - Queen of the Ring" because she comes off as weirdly insecure. There are good backstory reasons for this, but beyond that, it's mostly just kind of odd to watch Mi-joo clearly need her looks for validation. It makes Nan-hee visibly uncomfortable.

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"Three Color Fantasy - Queen of the Ring" appears to be setting us up for the moral lesson that looks aren't everything. Sure, Mi-joo's beauty allows her to attract men- but are these good men, who care about her as a person, or are they just after mutual validation? Mi-joo's flashback is especially interesting because it shows how, coy though she might have been at the time, the obvious nervousness of Se-geon in their meet cute moment was a lot more attractive than his looks, because of the implied sincerity.

And that's what completely and utterly lacking in the current relationship between Nan-hee and Se-geon- inscerity. Recall that Se-geon already knows Nan-hee as a completely different person, with actual quirks. Did Se-geon like Nan-hee romantically? Well no. But in his current state, completely obsessed with Nan-hee's physical appearance, we never get to see very much of the real Se-geon anymore. Nan-hee can't even try, because she's too worried that Se-geon will find out who she really is.

So overall "Three Color Fantasy - Queen of the Ring" is moving along the same general trajectory as before. The main unfortunate effect of this is that the drama continues to feel predictable, almost to the point of being painful. It's hard to imagine how this situation could possibly end with Nan-hee and Se-geon together, so what we're left with is just impatiently waiting for Nan-hee to get a clue and stop trying to win love with the help of a magic ring.

The incidental setpieces are, I suppose, adequate compensation for the predictability. They do kind of oversell just how unattractive Nan-hee supposedly is. Although I have to admit, the picture that ends up getting taken at the end of episode three is fairly glorious in just how ridiculous it looks. Nan-hee looks like a deer in the headlights, absolutely baffled by an apparently inexplicable change of events. And I have to admit that, likewise, Yoon So-hee does a great job capturing Kim Seul-gi's fundamentally absurd expression.

Review by William Schwartz

"Three Color Fantasy - Queen of the Ring" is directed by Kwon Seong-chang, written by Kim Ah-jeong and features Kim Seul-gi, Ahn Hyo-seop, Yoon So-hee, Hwang Jung-min-I, Jeon No-min, Lee Tae-sun, Choi Tae-hwan, Kim Min-young and Hwang Jae-keun.

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