Happiness

Happiness is an action-thriller starred by Park Hyungsik and Han Hyojoo. It is a comeback project for both actors, Hyungsik who was just discharged from the military while it is Hyojoo’s small screen comeback after 5 years since “W: Two Worlds”. The series is set after the COVID-19 pandemic when things are about 80% normal. No need to wear masks (nor faceshields like in the Philippines). It is a series where I constantly had to remind myself that it is a thriller and not a romance drama. Anyways, the story is again post-COVID scenario wherein a drug developed to cure COVID apparently has some very undesirable side effect - and yes it is the rumored “zombifying” effect. So, if you’re knowledge on drug development  is not that solid and if you’re quite doubtful close to being an anti-vaxxer I recommend you tread lightly and not take the drama to the heart (trust me, I’m a doctor).

The drama starts of with a little peek of how Yi-hyun (Hyungsik) who is a supposed high school baseball player star whose career is cut short due to an injury and Sae-boom (Hyojoo) a high school student who was hospitalized and was delayed from graduating, meets and how Yi-hyun falls for her (he literally fell). Fast forward to years after, post-COVID, Yi-hyun is now a violent crimes detective while Sae-boom is a special operations officer. The two have been friends since the incident back in high school. The two work in separate departments but somehow get tangled in a related case as Yi-hyun starts to investigate on a murder case. Allegedly, the murder suspect has no recollection of what happened and as Yi-hyun investigates further the murderer is somehow related to Sae-boom’s new recruit. Sae-boom also tries to investigate on her side and she gets somehow exposed to an “infected” person. Sae-boom gets quarantined and while on quarantine, Sae-boom meets Lieutenant Han Tae-sook played by Jo Woo Jin. Lieutenant Han knows of Sae-boom’s lifetime wish of obtaining a home of her own and thus suggests the idea of getting married to get brownie points for her to qualify for the Government’s housing grant for civil servants. This idea intrigued Sae-boom, and Yi-hyun popped out of nowhere solving Sae-boom’s problem. The drama then pans out as they live in their new apartment where one resident is infected and how they will manage to live with the other residents as they are placed in a lockdown.

Seyang Forest Le Ciel

Seyang Forest Le Ciel is an elite apartment complex with a number of buildings and the building where our lead characters live have 15 floors. The first 5 floors are for those who availed the special housing grant while 6th floor and up are for the “elite” residents. Their building is fairly new and has only a few residents. Along with the residents are a few nonresidents like the cleaning team, the gym trainer, Yi-hyun’s colleague and the convenience store clerk who happened to be in the apartment during the lockdown. The drama would delve unto the best and worst of humans in times of desperation. Aside from which it also deals with some social issues like how in society the rich gets the best treatment and could go unscathed (hello Gwyneth Chua). The different actors had excellent portrayal of their characters as one would definitely be irked by their actions and decisions in the drama.

In the drama we could see different types of individuals, relationships and leadership. The different residents portrayed the seven deadly sins - pride, sloth, gluttony, greed, lust, envy and anger. And these people whom you’d get to meet in the drama would definitely make you pull your hair out in frustration. Notable characters in the series include Oh Yeon-ok played the versatile actress Bae Hae-sun, Oh Ju-hyung played by Baek Hyun-Jin and Na Soo-min played by Na-Chul.

Oh Yeon-ok, one of my least favorite character is the representative wannabe of the residents who sees Sae-boom as a rival for the position. The viewers would see the contrast between her type of leadership and Sae-boom’s - one being image centered while the other is member centered. 

Oh Ju-hyung, a character who would easily become one of your least favorite. If I’m not mistaken there is no episode where he shows any characteristic that could redeem him for all his evil deeds - from murder, deceit and manipulation. Truth be told, I really hoped that he’d get infected along the series and gets what he deserves like how Yi-hyun bathed him in blood.

For me,  Na Soo-min wins the “best in character development” award. He matures from being a brother who tries to leech off his sister to a brother who would rather stay  outside in the cold and dark basement parking space than stay indoors and risk infecting his sister. Soo-min definitely redeemed himself in the end and also showed some comedic skits here and there.

I’d also like to point out the different types of husbands there are in the series. There are notably very bad husbands like Oh Ju-hyung, redeemable husbands like Han Taesok who without fear hugs his wife, and the husband any women would say yes to that being Yi-hyun.

If I am to choose between Sae-boom and Yi-hyun, I’d choose Yi-hyun as my favorite. Sae-boom is a very strong and independent character that she becomes too reckless at times without even planning things out. She goes an extra mile for the people that she cares about but Yi-hyun ends up saving her in the end. It is adorable though that even a strong person like Sae-boom would need a Yi-hyun whom she can show her weak side like how she crumbled and hugged Yi-hyun at the start of the lockdown (definitely one of my favorite scenes). Yi-hyun on the other hand always looks out for Sae-boom and does not do things without thinking things through. He is an upright and good character but he should not be messed with.

Since the setting is during a lock down, the scenes are mostly shot indoors so there is not much picturesque scenes that were notable. Still, the shots were pretty good. The make up on the infected people were pretty good and not as gore as those in other series like that of Kingdom. Action wise I guess it was pretty good. Han Hyo-joo and Park Hyungsik did some pretty combat action like that of the pretty bad-ass car sliding Hyungsik did. Chemistry wise, despite not being a romance drama, was over the roof. Maybe it was because of Han Hyo-joo who never had a series where her chemistry with his male lead is bad or maybe it was Park Hyungsik who is so good in pulling a very whipped man in love, either way their chemistry is good that it’s a shame that the drama does not have romance tag in it.

Overall, I’d rate it as 9.5. There were just some things that I guess wasn’t taken up properly like that of the drug developer issue, Sae-boom’s colleague, the judgement for the bad guys and Sae-boom’s backstory about her not being held up a year in high school. But it was well paced for a 12-episode drama. There are no confusing flashbacks. Each episode makes you look forward for the next one. It is a commendable drama with well written script and good story telling. A hidden gem of 2021.

How about you, what do you think of this drama?