Asian Addicts Anonymous

더 뮤지컬
The Musical
16 Episodes
Airing on SBS from 2 September  2011
Starring Gu Hye Sun, Choi Daniel, Park Ki Woong, Ok Joo Hyun, Ki Eun Se, Park Kyung Rim, Kim Hyun Sung Oh Jung Se

Basics: Go Eun Bi is a young medical student who is passionately in love with musicals. After a chance meeting with famous, drunk musical composer Hong Jae Yi, she drops out of school to pursue her dream and show him that she has what it takes to be a musical actress after all. After a year of failures, Eun Bi is desperate and decides to do a last attempt audition posing as a boy. Things look promising, but when she is ousted as girl and told to stop wasting time and go back to school, she reluctantly goes to reapply when another chance encounter with a self-professed musical expert from New York, Christine (Sa Bok Ja), makes Eun Bi decide to give her dream another shot.

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We open with Go Eun Bi [Gu Hye Sun] talking about her love for musicals and how she is always seeing and hearing them everywhere. In fact, Eun Bi lives in her own little musical world which often puts her in embarrassing situations, like when her one professor calls on her to name a part of the body and Eun Bi starts singing a musical number, continuing the fantasy in her head. Needless to say a lot of people laugh at her and Eun Bi is mortified.

Meanwhile, Hong Jae Yi [Choi Daniel] returns to Korea from New York and is greeted by Goo Jak [Oh Jung Se] who kind of hijacks his old friend to ask a favor. Eun Bi goes to watch a musical and is enraptured by the performance of the female lead, Bae Kang Hee [former FinKL member and actual musical actress Ok Joo Hyun]. Also in the audience are Yoo Jin [Park Ki Woong] and his grandfather [Park Geun Hyung] who are also pleased with the performance.

After the performance Yoo and Yoo Jin go backstage to surprise Kang Hee who is surprised to see the president there. Yoo introduces his grandson to Kang Hee in hopes that they can get along and get close as Yoo Jin will be working in the musical sector as part of his grandfather’s business. Yoo Jin looks quite taken with Kang Hee. At the same time, Goo Jak is trying to convince Jae Yi to help him with a musical. Jae Yi wants no part of his friend’s scheme as he is through with the musical industry and wants to focus solely on producing more popular music.

On the way home, Eun Bi looks in a store window and all of a sudden sees the male lead from the musical. He holds out his hand and pulls Eun Bi through the glass onto the stage. Eun Bi is suddenly transformed into the lead actress and begins doing the same number we saw Kang Hee do earlier. Let’s face it, Gu Hye Sung has an okay voice, but nothing amazing when compared with Ok Joo Hyun’s stellar vocals. As Eun Bi gets to the highlight of the song, her voice breaks and the fantasy shatters and we learn that Eun Bi isn’t really all that good of a singer. She has the passion, but not the talent it would seem.

Jae Yi is still insisting that he is no longer interested in working on musicals. Goo Jak asks if Jae Yi quit because of what happened with him and Kang Hee and that just annoys Jae Yi and he abandons his drunk friend, leaving Goo Jak to pay the bill. We don’t get an explanation of what happened, but I am sure it’s a nasty breakup, maybe with some time of backstabbing or betrayal thrown in.

Eun Bi has gone off to practice the song that she was fantasizing about performing earlier by the Han River, with no better luck than before. Unknown to her, she has an audience member. Jae Yi is lying down, drunk, and can’t help but hear her performance. He says that she isn’t singing it right and then finally speaks out. Eun Bi does listen to him, but after his complaining, she finally asks who he is. Jae Yi explains that he is the man who wrote that song. Eun Bi doesn’t believe that he is really Jae Yi and says that if he is, then she is Baek Kang Hee. She goes back to trying to sing and Jae Yi, angered, says that she will never make it as a musical actress.

This encounter enrages Eun Bi to the point where she takes a year of absence from school. She begs her grandmother not to tell her father as she will give up after a year if she can’t make it. We then fast forward a year and Eun Bi blows the dust off her boxed up medical books and then closes the closet on them again. Her year is almost up, but she has not given up her dream. She tells the poster of Kang Hee to wait as she will make it. Right.

At this time, Kang Hee and company are celebrating the success of their recent musical The Queen. Yoo Jin announces that the musical will begin a nationwide tour and then praises Kang Hee, the queen. He is then approached by a man hoping to make him a different type of investor, but Yoo Jin will have none of it. He is a business man and the reality about the musical industry is pretty harsh. While other areas are growing, musicals have seen a decline and the investment level the man talks about would not bring in good returns. This shocks the man to see just how obsessed with numbers Yoo Jin is.

Eun Bi is working one of her many odd jobs and trying to find a musical production to audition for as her deadline is drawing near. She finds a promising one, but it is for a male chorus. Eun Bi decides to go for it and pretend to be a male as she is desperate at this point. Eun Bi goes to the audition where the ribald talk from the other contenders embarrasses her greatly. When Yoo Jin goes to enter the office, the startled Eun Bi quickly crosses her arms over her chest. Talk about a dead giveaway. Yoo Jin gives her a strange look and Eun Bi finally gets out of his way. The flustered girl then goes to the bathroom where she runs into Christine [Park Kyung Rim] who scolds her for trying to use the ladies’ room. When Eun Bi tries to go to the men’s other auditionees enter and she slinks into the ladies’ room once the coast is clear.

The audition starts and Eun Bi is doing well keeping up with the boys in dancing. She catches the eyes of the audition board who ask her to come to the front. Yoo Jin arrives at this moment and says that there is no need, she can remain in the back. He then asks what a girl is doing at a male-only audition. This surprises the rest of the committee who had no idea. Eun Bi tries to bluff out of it, but can’t when Yoo Jin asks her to take off her shirt so they can see her physique. She apologizes and says that she can work as hard as any boy, but Yoo Jin stands firm and kicks her out of the audition.

Eun Bi reluctantly leaves and ends up dropping her stuff. Yoo Jin follows after and notices her student i.d. We then get Eun Bi begging for him to give her a chance. Since he is an investor and has a say, can’t he let a female slide through. Yoo Jin, of course, is having none of this. He then gives Eun Bi an earful about having no talent [Eun Bi confessed to failing 80 auditions] and wasting people’s time when she should be concentrating on becoming a doctor. Poor Eun Bi just doesn’t no what to say to this. Jae Yi’s criticism spurned her on while Yoo Jin’s completely smashes her spirit [well, almost]. This conversation is overheard by Christine.

Eun Bi changes back into normal clothes and wonders if her auditioning really was a waste. Christine comes in and says that it isn’t a waste and then says that what Eun Bi really needs is training. Meanwhile, the auditions continue on and we get to see mediocre talent. The guy doesn’t want to stop and wishes to continue, but Kang Hee finishes the song for him and sufficiently shows just how far he is from being good. This amuses her husband and the two have a chuckle over her antics.

Eun Bi takes Christine out for lunch to talk more about training. Christine totally pigs out and talks about her time in New York. She also says that Eun Bi could stand a chance if she did have the proper training. This really seems to interest Eun Bi, but what to do? Her year is up. Christine asks if she really wants to be a musical performer and Eun Bi says of course. Christine then takes her to karaoke and has her sing and then the two go out to dinner where Christine says that she will train Eun Bi for free. Needless to say, Eun Bi jumps at the offer. I have to say, Eun Bi is really stupid, naïve, innocent, and gullible. Who  trusts a random stranger who says they are in the musical business and will train you for free?

Yoo Jin is busy working late when his older brother Jin Young [Cha Kwang Soo] pays him a visit. I am not going to go into the details of their talk. It’s obvious that these two have no real love between them and love to bait each other. Looks like there might be a succession war thrown in this drama for good measure. Yoo Jin points out he has his grandfather on is side and is better than his older brother who loses more money and plays more than anything else. After this meeting, Yoo Jin sits in a darkened office and throws Spider-Man clingy toys at the window. They stick and fall down. All depressed, Yoo Jin states that falling slowly is still falling. Drama, drama, drama.

Eun Bi goes to her school with two forms. What to do, what to do? Eun Bi then sees a hallucination of Christine egging her on to do the training. Eun Bi decides to turn in another leave of absence instead of returning. A family friend sees this and rips the application out of the registrar’s hand and tears it up. Eun Bi fights with him, and gets the upper hand after he calls her grandma to tell her about the extended leave. Eun Bi gets the phone and says that she has of course signed back up for school and hangs up. Eun Bi, Eun Bi, lying to family to pursue her dream is not a good thing and will probably cause a major explosion later.

Christine then makes her way to Eun Bi’s house, luggage in hand. Yeah, definitely could’ve seen that one coming. Only Eun Bi didn’t. She is shocked to see Christine show up on her doorstep. Christine says that living with Eun Bi will make the training go even faster and better. The only thing Christine asks for in exchange is to sleep in Eun Bi’s bed. She then walks over to Eun Bi’s keyboard and starts playing scales, encouraging Eun Bi to sing. Eun Bi reluctantly does and then Christine makes a mistake. Christine then sends Eun Bi off to buy Korean beef for a barbecue because stamina is important, so that means lots of protein. What a mooch.

Han Sang Won [Kim Hyun Sung], Kang Hee’s husband, goes to discuss business with Yoo Jin. Yoo Jin wants to buy musicals overseas as they are more guaranteed hits than original productions. Han understand this, but thinks the investment in an original production wouldn’t be so bad. To Yoo Jin, there is too much risk with little hope of a return. Even though the imported musical means quite a hit in profit, it is still more of a guaranteed success. Han understand this and then mentions a musical competition which is already being promoted. The fliers are being put up for the competition and Goo Jak brings one home to Sang Mi and Jae Yi. Goo Jak wishes to enter the competition and win it big. Jae Yi, of course, wants no part of it and just walks away with Goo Jak saying his friend better keep buying him alcohol.

It looks like Eun Bi delivers milk, too. She stops at one house and writes a long note. Could she be delivering milk to her idol Kang Hee? She smiles and then rides off. Eun Bi then goes to a tutoring job. This girl works a lot! Meanwhile, Christine is at home pigging out and watching TV. She quickly hides her food when Eun Bi arrives home and pretend to be practicing. She complains about Eun Bi’s busy schedule not leaving enough time for training. The two then get down to practicing once more. Christine is trying to teach Eun Bi how to sing using her “stomach.” Eun Bi says she  talked to a friend who does opera who mentioned singing from the diaphragm, but Christine shows her ignorance as she has no idea what Eun Bi is saying in either Korean or English.

Christine then gets a call and next thing we see is Eun Bi dressed as Sailor Moon to promote a shop. Christine says it is a part of training [but really its just a way for Christine to get money]. Eun Bi is very uncomfortable, but does her best to try to overcome embarrassment and put on a show. While Eun Bi puts on her show, Goo Jak and Sang Mi get together to discuss their musical. They need two guys and three girls for the play. Goo Jak says they have the guys, but are down a female, which is a problem. This upsets Sang Mi. What to do if they can’t find a third female actress for their production?

Christine is napping at a café when she gets a call from none other than Goo Jak. Christine goes to tell Eun Bi that she is taking off. Eun Bi has overcome her embarrassment and is putting on quite the show. She has even managed to draw a large crowd. Eun Bi isn’t happy to see her teacher leave, but soldiers on. Meanwhile, Goo Jak has gathered a group of people to help him work on the musical. Christine automatically begins schmoozing Jae Yi who informs her that he will not be doing them music, but the other guy across the table will. We then learn that Christine’s real name is Sa Bok Ja and she only stayed in New York for a week where she went to two different schools. She hopes to land a lead, but can only managed to get in the female chorus. Big shocker there.

Yoo Jin and his girlfriend, Seo Ra Kyung [Ki Eun Se] hold a business meeting with Han and Kang Hee to discuss the competition. Yoo Jin tells them that they must be even more objective and look for a production that can be a success and make money. They understand and will use their own company for the cast and of course, the script will need to be rewritten. That just leaves a music judge. Is there an expert in the field? Kang Hee smiles a knowing smile and says there is one person who fits the bill. She is obviously talking about Jae Yi.

After Goo Jak’s meeting, Christine will not let go of Jae Yi. She has a radish in one arm and Jae Yi’s arm in the other. Goo Jak refuses to help and leaves Jae Yi at Christine’s mercy. Jae Yi asks for her phone and calls Eun Bi to pick the drunk woman up. Eun Bi is shocked to answer the phone and hear a man’s voice instead of Christine’s, but she rushes out to get her drunk teacher.

Eun Bi arrives at Jae Yi’s house as he managed to get Christine up to his place and on his couch. Eun Bi is let in and tries to wake up her teacher. When Korean fails, she tries English. This amuses Jae Yi who knows the truth about Christine. He asks if Christine is really her teacher. Eun Bi says yes, her musical instructor. So is Eun Bi a musical actress? Not yet, but she will be. Jae Yi sits down at his piano while Eun Bi tries to wake Christine up again. He then asks for Eun Bi’s help with a song. Eun Bi goes over and there is no lyrics. He tells her to make up her own – how about the story of how she met Christine? Eun Bi starts singing about her 80 failed auditions and pretending to be a boy and then meeting Christine.

Jae Yi compliments her ability to read and memorize music. This makes Eun Bi happy. Her singing has improved and isn’t as bad as it was a year ago, but still not the best. Jae Yi wonders if they have met before as something seems familiar, but Eun Bi says that they haven’t – she clearly doesn’t quite recall that the Han River guy was him. She is then at a loss of how to continue as the story with Christine is over. Jae Yi keeps playing until Eun Bi starts singing about the Han River incident. Jae Yi is horrified. He still remembers after a year, and to think he has found out that he is the reason Eun Bi is pursuing her dream. He stops and asks if she was the girl by the Han River and Eun Bi, remembering recalls that he is Jae Yi.

End episode. Can’t wait to watch episode two!

Not what I thought, but not bad. Although, I have to say that Eun Bi is bit touched in the head as she sees musical performances everywhere and sporadically breaks out into song and dance. Yeah, definitely not normal.