[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Family Outing" Episode 1

Kkeut-soon (played by Park Won-sook) is just returning to Korea after a long sojourn overseas. It isn't until the end of the episode that we find out why, but it's to the credit of the storyboarding of "Family Outing" that, given Kkeut-soon's behavior to date, this is actually a pretty rational explanation. Normally an obviously zany premise like this is just a thinly veiled excuse for wacky sitcom antics. For better or worse, Kkeut-soon appears to actually want to live in a sitcom.

Advertisement

It would be nice if it was actually a funny sitcom. I can't recall laughing once during the entire episode. The jokes are there it's just...well, predictably zany is the best way I can describe it. So the rude guy on the plane gets his comeuppance. All right. So a man's room is littered with cartoonish drawings and references to nerdy comic books. Sure. And there is of course a mix-up at the airport regarding identical luggage. Those are all definitely comedic tropes. It's just, there's not really a punchline.

At least the characters are all clearly defined. Dong-seok (played by Jin Yi-han) is a man who's working mostly miserable part-time jobs in an effort to one day arrive at his dream. He's a decent guy, but not particularly good at long-term reasoning. At one point Dong-seok is straight up given the money he needs to succeed and ends up dumping it due to pride. The man is obviously the product of a dysfunctional family- while he tries to do well, ultimately, everything has to turn into a fight with him.

As for that family...let's see, I can count a grandfather, a father, a mother, an aunt, two sisters, a brother-in-law, and a niece. It would seem that everyone in this family gets married young, and also that twins are common. This is important for the sake of keeping the timeline straight. The story appears deliberately designed to thrust together a large number of characters who are eager for fighting mostly because they've figured out by now that, for better or worse, this family's stuck together for the long haul.

Nothing about this initial episode is good enough to particularly make me care or bad enough to make me angry. So to that extent it's fortunate that by the end we at least have a clearly established premise and lots of characters with clearly defined motivations, with obvious ways for them all to run violently afoul of each other. That's a pretty low standard to clear, but nonetheless, "Family Outing" clears it.

Review by William Schwartz

"Family Outing" is directed by Joo Dong-min, written by Kim Sin-hye and features Lee Jung-hyun, Jin Yi-han, Oh Sang-jin, Park Won-sook, Jung Han-hun and Park Jun-gyu.