City Hall (review timeeee)

Like I've mentioned in the previous post, I'm in love with this series. Why? Well, there's a couple of reason:

1. It featured GREAT chemistry between Cha Seung-won and Kim Sun-Ah, or maybe like what my friend once said, "You could actually hold your breath from seeing those characters exchange something as simple as a glance". Great chemistry as in deep love chemistry, not teenager love-story chemistry kind of thing. Great chemistry as in even in real life, you'd enjoy seeing them interact cause they're both so endearing to each other. Great chemistry as in it's about the dreamer vs the realist, what would be better? Great chemistry as in each dialogue, each expression, you could and would feel what they think without them actually saying it, without any third party voices sounding from out of nowhere. Even their eyes can speak, if I must say. Great chemistry as in they could both still behave as fools fell in love, even in their thirties.

2. It has no insignificant side plot. Even I got to admit, I love the entire side plot. Whether it's about political play between The Big Brother and Deputy Mayor, the cold-yet-funny marriage relationship between Deputy Director and City Council, the continuously election scenes, or even the heart-warming friendship between the Lady Mayor and her Family Planning Biro Director.

3. It has lovable antagonist character. I didn't mean lovable as in I like them and I want to be their friend, but lovable as in they're stick to their character, not with over-the-top acting and expression (i.e. eyes bulging out). Even the bad guys has soft side, so I'm helplessly fall into their charm, whether it's BB, Joo Min-Hwa the City Council, Go Go-Hae the fiancé, gyaaah, I like them all.

4. The plot is addicting. Watching it is like riding a roller-coaster. Even within one episode, you'd go from teary eye to laughing your ass out. Seriously.

5. The kiss scene /is/ good. ‘nuff said ;)

6. The soundtrack is amazing, always well-placed and not annoyingly and gruesomely boring (for its repetition). Its lyric is gorgeous (as always) and they at all times matched the scenes (or even better, some scene would seems like fresh out of some video music clip)

7. You'd have three eye candies in one movie (Jo Gook, Soo In, and Lee Jung-Do). Ah, bless the PD for casting delightful and charming actors!

8. The dialogue and the quotes, for all time will be tremendously captivating. The hottest place in hell will be reserved for those, at times of great crisis, remain neutral. Tsk tsk. Very-very catchy quote from Dante.

Ah, there will be no word describing how infatuated I am to this series, so the only line I'd say is I'm grateful I'm watching "You're Beautiful" first. Hahahahahaha, considering that I also enjoyed that one, I might have been taken aback at how childish and ridiculous the YB's plot is given that I watched City Hall first.

So, yeah, thank God.


Back to the review, City Hall is a political drama (or at least the major plot of it is political) about one guy, Jo Gook, determined to climb the ladder to the highest position in Korea (the Blue House, similar with White House in US). He bowled over the fact that the scheme his role model (BB, a.k.a. Big Brother, the man behind the presidency candidate) had for him was not align with his wish. Instead of putting Jo Gook in provincial election level, BB put him in one small insignificant city called Inju City whose citizen is not even that interested in politic.

Jo Gook represented the entire passionate politician, I mean even his breathing and talking is all politic. He's manipulative (but not in cunning manner) and full of schemes, with standard fake public laugh and all small talks that politician has. Seriously, if he hadn't got that tall genes and sexy voice and lazy puppy eyes, I'd smack him with one brick.

Anyway, in Inju City, there's one woman, Shin Mi-Rae, who works in City Hall for the Mayor as one of his secretaries, devoted to remain neutral and not-sided to anyone, even to her mom or dad. She hates to vote and even more reluctant to get involve in politic. She chose to focus on her task instead, which is making great coffee for everyone in City Hall.

Life is pretty simple for Shin Mi-Rae. Should she ever getting caught in a middle of a brief political play (say, discussion over who wants to eat where), she'd chose to step back and follow the majority.

Shin Mi-Rae practically represented the ignorant people in the world, including me. The politic is way too high for her to grasp, and she might be the happiest person in earth when the Non-Aligned Movement was formed. She's so simple that she stumbled into political play when she needs money. ‘fcouse, what else would lure someone out of their nest?

And so, when the two different people from two different worlds met, what would happen? Aaaaah, suki desu…