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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "The Sound of Your Heart" Episodes 9-14

Bong-i (played by Jung So-min) is Seok's soon-to-be-girlfriend and eventual wife. For the ninth and tenth episodes of "The Sound of Your Heart", though, the drama explores their existing relationship and backstory. It should come as little surprise that Seok's memory of their first encounter is...inaccurate. But as usual "The Sound of Your Heart" brilliantly blends subtle clichés with explicit visual gags, resulting in constantly shifting expectations that create some pretty incredible laughs.

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...That's a lot of complicated words to praise maybe five minutes of flashbacks but what can I say? The joke to time ratio in this drama is amazing. I was laughing out loud every single minute at least except for eleventh episode. The eleventh episode was a weird miss for me, because although it's the same kind of humor it just didn't grab me that well, even though these were also the gags apparently so genius as to prove to be the entire foundation of "The Sound of Your Heart".

Then it's on to the twelfth episode, an extended gag wherein everyone is forced to speak English for dubious reasons. Is this episode watchable without English subtitles? Well, um...I want to say no, because the English is so worthless it needs Korean subtitles. But then I want to say yes because the characters aren't speaking Korean either. Then I definitely want to say yes because the gag at the end with Cheol-wang's maniacal laughter is priceless in any language.

Oh, the final set, by the way, gives us a taste of what a night out looks like for Cheol-wang and Jeong-kwon. It turns out these two are completely insane and driven to inexplicable psychotic behavior even when just hanging out with each other. This brings a pretty excellent spin on the elevator scene way back in episode ten, which similarly depicts Seok and Bong-i managing to find outrageous disproportionate crisis before even managing to realize what's happened.

As for Joon, he's a slob. And an idiot. He's endearing, though, even as his hopes for promotion are flushed away. I mean really, of all the people to ask for tips, Joon goes to his idiot brother Seok? How is it that these characters are always able to act in such a deeply uncomfortable way, yet come off as charming in the process? Is it the tight slapstick? The inspired performances? The fast-paced dialogue? The source material? Whatever the cause, I want more!

Review by William Schwartz

"The Sound of Your Heart" is directed by Ha Byeong-hoo, written by Kim Yeon-ji, Kwon Hye-jo, Lee Byeong-hoon-II and features Lee Kwang-soo, Kim Dae-myung, Jung So-min, Kim Byung-ok and Kim Mi-kyung.

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