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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Three Color Fantasy - Queen of the Ring" Episodes 5-6

Now that the magical powers of the ring have been exposed, Nan-hee can not in good conscience use it anymore. Even so, she rather inevitably has to give it a final go if only to give Se-geon the special present she ordered, and then just do her best to drop out of Se-geon's life for good. Predictably this does not go as planned, and the fifth episode closes out rather ominously with a major confrontation between the four main characters over what, in truth, attractiveness really is.

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I seem to used the word "predictable" a lot when describing "Three Color Fantasy - Queen of the Ring" and in full perspective this probably isn't fair. The fifth episode seems, at first superficial glance, to actually be the last one then the sixth episodes has to go and be a lot of awkward conversations. All right, I suppose there are all those shenanigans on the catwalk. I got the impression that if I knew anything about how catwalks work that section would have offended me.

That's the overall level of mild offense I'm taking toward "Three Color Fantasy - Queen of the Ring" overall. I can definitely appreciate that the drama's heart is in the right place, and the points it makes about how knowing a person individually is more important than whether they match an arbitrary physical "type" of attractiveness. But the plot device of the magic ring somewhat undermines that, since Se-geon only ever really paid attention to Nan-hee when she was attractive.

More than that, Se-geon was kind of a jerk any time Nan-hee wasn't wearing the ring. He wasn't a monster and beyond that Nan-hee deserved that treatment anyway once Se-geon realized how she had deceived him. Although I guess the more sympathetic take would be that Se-geon's main flaw was his being so superficial about physical appearance when he doesn't actually care about that stuff, and his adventures with Nan-hee helped him grow out of that.

Likewise, Nan-hee's main problem was her sense of crippling unwarranted insecurity. I mean shoot, I thought she looked pretty cute straight on from the first episode, and the way the final episode unravels all of Nan-hee's fundamentally unreasonable assumptions was cute, thematically relevant, and also humorous. So...OK, maybe "Three Color Fantasy - Queen of the Ring" does hold up pretty well under critical scrutiny. At the very least, it's good enough it just doesn't feel right for me to nitpick the flaws of an overall fairly sweet drama.

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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