Hello! Miss (2007)

Hello! Miss
헬로 애기씨 / Hello! My Lady
(Mar – May 2007)

who’s in it
Lee JiHoon
Lee DaHae (My Girl, Chuno)
Ha SukJin (Merchant Kim Manduk)
Yun MiJoo


what’s it about
Lee DaHae plays Lady Lee SuHa, the young steward of her clan who is charged by the elders to uphold the cultural traditions of her family lineage, and more importantly, to preserve and maintain the family estate Hwanandang, a crumbling hanok manor. She is given little aid financially from the clan and finds herself in dire straits as the nearly bankrupt property is considered too high risk for any legitimate bank to offer a loan. The option to designate the entire place as a national cultural asset is available to her, but she loathes the idea of relinquishing control to the government regarding the manor’s every administrative decision.

Off and away in another corner of the peninsula, the aging founder and owner of Top Group, an aptly named company sitting at the financial top, wants to buy Hwanandang in order to live out his retirement in the master suite of the estate, a place he had once been a servant. He sends his grandson Hwang DongGyu to do the dirty work and wrest the property away from the current owners; played by Lee JiHoon, who is a young man not completely comfortable with his rich kid status and regularly switches identities with his assistant. As expected, it would only be over Lee DaHae’s dead body that she’d give up the place to the rich kid from Seoul. She scoffed at the notion of even relinquishing financial oversight to the government, it is highly unlikely she is ever going to agree selling her home to a corporate entity, especially one owned by a servant who stole their cow to start his enterprise (apparently a grave offense back in the day).

Ha SukJin plays the second heir to the Top Group fortune and Lee JiHoon’s cousin, but this good-looking operator is nothing like his cuz, the collected and responsible CFO of Top Group. Everybody has a black sheep in the family and this one is a model and a playboy, as they often are, and he takes an instant liking to the unique charms of Lee DaHae (by instant, we’re literally talking seconds). The love square is finished off by Yun MiJoo who plays an ambitious nipped/tucked model who’s got her eyes on success, which includes the handsome and rebellious grandson of Top Group as a part of her benefits package.

commitment 
16 episodes

network
KBS

wildcard factor
Do you enjoy the under-appreciated art of facial and vocal acrobatics and consummate overacting? If so, you’ll love Lee DaHae in this one.

after the first episode
oO < — that would be my eyeballs popping out of their sockets

gave up
If the purpose of Hello! Miss was to warn of the dangers of stupid love or the game plan was to present viewers with a compelling example of how completely inexplicable love can be, like that of a completely illogical kdrama plot, they succeeded leaps and bounds. Is love as dumb as a dumb kdrama? Maybe it is! Or was this show actually about the ill benefits of stealing cows and letting your home sit for so long in disrepair? When I say this is one of the worst dramas I have ever not-finished, it’s not hyperbole. Even a Lee DaHae fan couldn’t possibly argue with me on this…could you? Could you really? What did you like about it!? Truly, I want to know! This show is bad—bad bad bad bones, I have nothing nice to say, I’m afraid. I sincerely apologize if this review offends any die hard fans of Lee DaHae or Lee JiHoon or Ha SukJin or…um, hanok enthusiasts.

Lee DaHae redefined the word “theatrical” and s[t]unk it to all new lows. Just like her tacky wardrobe, she was the epitome of a painful cry for attention. The volume and pitch of her line reading ran the whole gamut of irritating extremes, from whispering to whining to blaring to screaming. For some reason, almost every other sentence ended up sounding like some form of petulant aegyo. What is aegyo? If you’re not sure…well, it’s similar to what we in the States would call baby-talk and can be defined as the act of intense cuteness in order to charm and flirt and elicit giggling euphoria from the targeted victim, this weapon often directed at boyfriends, girlfriends, parents, and kpop fans (by pretty idols). Back to Lee DaHae—unfortunately, her out of control aegyo was not limited to voice alone but also carried over into her facial expressions, which were way too expressive, something that could have been considered a positive acting point had she not been channeling some Jim Carrey. In that vein, she also took this role as an opportunity to let loose with gumby-like physical comedy and it was simply not that fun to watch.

Aside from Lee DaHae’s acting, the story itself was a rebellion against logic. Lee DaHae couldn’t get a loan to save her home and that apparently rendered her completely incapable of intelligent thinking. She was constantly falling for the schemes of con artists, from outright fraudulent loan lenders to a pyramid scheme that entailed selling jade mats for $3000 a pop. Basically, Lady SuHa was written out to be a brain dead idiot that was not only naïve, but lacked even a shred of common sense. As everyone in the show seemed to implore of her, I too must beg of her, please go watch the news or at least pick up a newspaper! Why this daft woman was left in charge of the welfare of the family manor was a question foremost on my mind. She clearly lacked any ability to make a rational decision. Bottom line, the show was insulting, to the actors/characters and to its viewers. They painted this character as someone who stood on a barely discernible line between innocent and stupid, characteristics mostly explained away by the fact that she was from the countryside. Just because a person grows up in the country does not immediately make them some irresponsible dumb hick that can’t tell the difference between light bulbs and candlesticks and it was painful watching this girl portrayed this way. As the head of an historically significant household, it was a stretch to imagine such a woman would have been raised to be so foolish and immature.

The plot took us all over the place…including a notable detour where Lee DaHae flipped about her long locks and sashayed her skinny little self down a catwalk in a lingerie-like satiny number after entering a “Dream Body” contest for money…and, naturally, her top came loose. Mmm-hmm. Just imagine that for a moment and contemplate why such a scene should even exist in the plotline I’ve outlined above.

Somewhere during all of this nonsense, both Top Group heirs fell for her irresistible country charisma (mmm-hmmm), which in turn worked out nicely for their grandfather who was all for the match as the manor would then come into his hands through marriage.

I didn’t really have a problem with any of the other actors as far as acting went, although none of their characters were especially well-written either. If you think you can handle (or if you happily welcome) hours upon hours of Lee DaHae doing her every damn thing to charm the pants off you, by all means, watch away…

Disclaimer: As I mentioned, I did not finish this so it’s possible the drama does a complete turnaround and becomes brilliant. Possible but highly unlikely.