[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Drama Special - Unfamiliar Story"

Soo-bong (played by Jung Yoon-suk) is a boy who visualizes life as being a storybook. This isn't because Soo-bong has a particularly vivid imagination. Rather, Soo-bong and his brother Jae-bong (played by Gil Jung-woo) are currently living without a mother, and Soo-bong thinks its his responsibility as the older brother to "rescue" their mom. Being a kid, Soo-bong has not considered the possibility that the reasons behind his mother's departure may not have been a result of external factors.

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"Drama Special - Unfamiliar Story" plays out like a standard rescue story, but with multiple parts shaded and altered. One obvious example are the sidekicks Soo-bong picks up in his quest. These sidekicks are not, in fact, people Soo-bong should be hanging out with. Something the young boy finds out just a tad too late, even if it was obvious from the beginning that these guys were sneaks up to no good. At the time, the animated segue seemed a more convincing explanation.

But the greatest irony of all in "Drama Special - Unfamiliar Story" is that the real critical explanation behind Soo-bong and Jae-bong's living situation is not the fairy tale narrative of rescuing a lost mom. Rather, it's the struggle their father Sang-goo (played by Kim Jung-tae) has to go through to recover the copyright behind the story. A story he wrote, presumably, to comfort his children about their absence of a mother.

All in all "Drama Special - Unfamiliar Story" is a kid's tale about growing up, specifically finding out for the first time that cheerful happy stories aren't real life, and that parents often tell lies to protect their children. The timing was kind of bad. The last drama special I saw ("Drama Special - The Brothers' Summer") quite literally has the exact same theme. The conflict is the main difference, since the boys in each story try to achieve different things before finally learning to accept that family is about love, not adherence to standards.

Accidental repition issue notwithstanding, "Drama Special - Unfamiliar Story" is still fairly touching and sweet. The drama makes good use of a talented child cast to tell a story largely through the eyes of a child. Soo-bong is noble-hearted and wants to do the right thing, he just doesn't really know how because the little guy's still just a kid. The important part, though, isn't necessarily success as it is the idea of making peace- and that's the heartwarming moment where "Drama Special - Unfamiliar Story" closes.

Review by William Schwartz

"Drama Special - Unfamiliar Story" is directed by Park Jin-seok, written by Sin Soo-rim and features Kim Jung-tae, Jung Yoon-suk, Gil Jung-woo and Jung Hee-tae.