I’ll confess to being completely uninterested in the upcoming tvN drama Witch’s Romance, the remake of the popular TW-drama My Queen starring Ethan Ruan, Cheryl Yang, and James Wen. My Queen is one of those rare TW-dramas that was truly qualitatively excellent, though the usual extension to milk the stellar ratings ruined the second half momentum. But the acting and chemistry of the three leads were burning and the romance made sense any way you sliced it. Korea has done so many noona-dongsaeng romances I really don’t see the need to remake a TW-drama one, especially since there are tweaks to it that I really don’t like. The original was about a 33 year old workaholic emotionally closed off career woman and her unexpected romance with a 25 year old young man with uninspiring career aspirations. The remake goes overboard with the age different and throws in Uhm Jung Hwa playing a 39 year old old while Park Seo Joon remains 25 years old, making the age difference now 14 years rather than just 8 which was already quite big. Han Jae Suk takes on the role of the ex-fiancee to the leading lady, a role that made James Wen famous in his own right and chucked him over to leading man status after doing My Queen. The poster and first teaser is out and I can’t say I’m impressed other than hearing that Witch’s Romance will be directed by the PD who did Cruel City (Heartless City). The story is about a woman dumped on her wedding day by a no-show groom which closes her heart off to romance but years later it’s reawakened by a young man seemingly adrift in life but nursing his own emotional scars. I don’t have a problem with the cast, or the age difference, or even the umpteenth noona-dongsaeng romance in recent memory, but I just don’t see how this cast could out-do the near perfect original which was marred only by a writing blip. I’ll check out the first episode but worry I’ll end up sporting my “Not impressed” face by the end. Continue reading →