[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Happiness - Drama" Episode 4

We start out the fourth episode of "Happiness - Drama" having finally arrived at the core premise. The newlywed but not exactly lovey-dovey cop couple of Sae-bom and Yi-hyeon are stuck at their brand new apartment complex under quarantine. Colonel Han has forbidden anyone to leave the complex for a week. But in some fairly appropriate social commentary, Colonel Han is less the unreasonable person here as are the resentful apartment owners more worried about declining property values than the epidemic of madness rabies.

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The explicit condescension the owners have versus the renters and even the staff is particularly galling as we already know the working class denizens of the complex aren't the source of the local outbreak. The mysterious drug that causes madness rabies was initially distributed as a performance enhancing drug for the gymnasium, which is only accessible by owners, not renters. Even as other more stereotypically impoverished locations are also noted to be experiencing quarantines, the insistence of treating the epidemic as a class signifier rather than a public health crisis is noteworthy.

This is not politically correct messaging on COVID by any means- at least not to Americans, where culture war discourse has completely overwhelmed any serious policy discussion on how to combat COVID's resurgence. In "Happiness - Drama" the characters advocating the most severe restrictions for dirty people are also the ones least likely to be personally proactive in their own containment measures. Everyone just takes it for granted the crisis will resolve on its own, and they can get back to sniping over homeowner association issues.

While this all sounds fairly amusing in the abstract, "Happiness - Drama" is for the most part entirely serious about its economic social drama. It almost feels like a soap opera. Every episode Sae-bom loses just a little more patience with Representative Oh, with her technically correct but entirely unconstructive complaints. This episode also sees the introduction of her husband, Pastor Seon (played by Cha Soon-bae), whose poorly timed prosletyzing undermines the urgency of the situation.

Our lead characters aren't necessarily blameless either though. Their unwillingness to take a more proactive role in managing the quarantine ultimately results in some unfortunate consequences, as every individual apartment building starts acting in their own self-interest- to the detriment of the complex as a whole. Meanwhile, in the outside world, we learn, in a somewhat ham-handed manner, that even the source of the epidemic may have been caused by similarly selfish motivations.

Review by William Schwartz

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"Happiness - Drama" is directed by Ahn Gil-ho, written by Han Sang-woon, and features Han Hyo-joo, Park Hyung-sik, Jo Woo-jin, Kang Ji-eun-I, Lee Joon-hyuk-I, Park Joo-hee. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2021/11/05~Now airing, Fri, Sat 22:40 on tvN.