Despite my overt disapproval of anything Rain, I sacrificed 12 hours of my life to see what’s up with his new drama, “Runaway: Plan B” and here are a couple of thoughts.
Daniel Henney should not be allowed to speak in Korean
Daniel Henney has shown no signs of improvement in his Korean or acting since his debut in “My Lovely Samsoon” in 2005.
Half a decade later, I still cringe when I hear him speak in Korean or even tries to act. Runaway was bearable when he delivered his monotone English lines for the first couple of episodes, but as the viewers complained about too many subtitles, he was responsible for more Korean, which equals FAIL.
Don’t you think it’s weird that Jin-yi (Lee Na Young) and Kai (Daniel Henney) are able to converse in the drama when they clearly do not have one language in common? Or is it absolutely-no-chemistry love that brings them together?
Henney should pick roles that maximize his good looks and downplay his speech. I hope that Henney plays a mute next.
(Note from Amy: It took me nearly a month to get through Daniel Henney’s first scene in “Plan B” — meaning, I started, and then stopped out of sheer second-hand embarrassment, so I stopped again, waited a day or two, went back to it, couldn’t do it, and ultimately just stopped and never went back to it. At the moment, I’m not as far into the drama as Young-ji is, but despite that, every time there is a lengthy Daniel Henney scene, I will most likely have to fast-forward it. He’s been in this industry for a good five years now, and the only Korean he can manage is “Are you hurt?” and “Where are you right now?” and “Can we trust this guy?” Seriously?)
Cheesy fighting scenes should be curtailed
It appears that the Runaway writers believe that their viewers have an utmost tolerance for cheesy fighting scenes per episode, for half the episodes involve either fighting or running. Just because the drama’s title has “run” in it, doesn’t mean that the actors have to run a marathon per episode.
Instead of showing Rain cleverly get out of 1 vs. 12+ fight every single episode, the writers should have Rain bust out his dance moves during fights or runs.
Imagine Rain punching a guy and then start singing “Rain is coming down through the rooftops”.
Or how about dancing to “How to escape the sun” as he runs away from all his enemies. And they should seriously consider renaming the drama to “Dance: Plan C”.
Romance needs a bit more oomph!
Finally after 12 episodes in, I see some signs of Jin-yi starting to contemplate whether or not Ji Woo is more than just a private investigator motivated by greed and fame.
There were some cute moments here and there where the viewer can tell that Ji Woo’s feelings for Jin-yi is slowly developing (i.e., jealous behavior when Kai is around, trying to sympathize with Jin-yi’s disturbed sleeping habits due to fear, etc.,), but those moments are too few and far in between. Hopefully with the latest twist in the drama involving Kai, we will see more romance to develop between Jin-yi and Ji Woo.
As for relationship between Do Soo and So Ran, at first, it seemed very one-sided but as the story develops, Do Soo’s emotions get revealed once in a while. Some may perceive So Ran’s persistence as cute or even courageous, but it’s increasingly becoming irritating for me to watch. I say Do Soo start revealing his feelings for his co-worker soon!
Now on to the good stuff
Despite these critiques, I’ve continued to invest my time following this drama for its lightheartedness and laughs. After major epic cuteness overload drama filled with horrendous acting, “Playful Kiss“, ended, I was looking for a mindless replacement, and “Runaway Plan B” fit the bill.
The storyline of Runaway is not as simple, complicated by themes of revenge and mystery surrounding Melgidec, but overall, Rain’s comical character provides enough laughs, trivia and sci-fi technology for me to plow through it.
Who knew that faith is mentioned in the Bible 338 times and that you can unleash handcuffs with a straw?
Ah, how much I need to thank Rain for enlightening me with his infinite wisdom and washboard abs necessary to enlighten drama watchers like me.
