Amazon Prime K-drama Wedding Impossible: Jeon Jong-seo stars as a struggling actress in romantic comedy with an LGBTQ twist
- Jeon Jong-seo plays an actress who will do anything to make it, including marrying the gay older brother of her love interest, who is played by Moon Sang-min
- The closeted homosexual element of Kim Do-wan’s character keeps the series fresh and it will be interesting to see how the theme is dealt with going forwards
Lead cast: Jeon Jong-seo, Moon Sang-min, Kim Do-wan
Latest Nielsen rating: 4 per cent
In Wedding Impossible, she plays struggling actress Na A-jung, who busies herself with anything that falls under the rubric of “acting”, be it background acting work, reality TV or children’s theatre, while she waits for the big break that never comes.
We first meet a bright and smiling A-jung on stage at a wedding where she is serenading the couple as the bride’s best friend. Only this turns out to also be an act – she has been paid to pose as the bride’s friend.
This foreshadows a very big role that she will play in the show, as she will once again pretend to be someone for the benefit of a paying customer.
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A-jung’s desire to be an actress is a common dream shared by many other downtrodden K-drama heroines, not to mention many viewers watching at home. Like the characters that have preceded her, A-jung is driven and doesn’t give up on her dream despite repeated failures.
What sets her apart and gives her a comic edge are the many skills she acquires, “just in case”, as she repeatedly explains. In her off time she has learned how to scuba dive and how to ride a horse, both of which are skills that come in handy when she steps up to become a double for leading actors who can’t or won’t.
Her skills also come in handy in real life, such as the martial arts she uses to fend off a group of young pornographers who tricked her, claiming they were shooting an indie film.
There’s also the rather specific skill of jumping out of a moving car, which she executes perfectly to get away from a character, only to roll right into a lamp post that knocks her unconscious.
A-jung’s unique set of skills may seem amusing, but they also reflect a difficult reality for youths in South Korea today, who have to find increasingly specific ways to set themselves apart from an already well-trained pack.
This new series is far more traditional; while Jeon does put her unique spin on the familiar gutsy K-drama female lead, the project is the most conventional one she has tackled thus far.
It all comes dangerously close to being old-fashioned, but there is one aspect that sets it apart: Do-han’s sexuality.
Do-han is gay and very much in the closet. The social stigma of homosexuality has forced him to hide his identity from everyone around him, save for A-jung, who only found out by chance back when they were in high school together.
In a rarity for a Korean drama, Do-han’s sexuality is the key that sets the whole story in motion. Since Wedding Impossible is destined to become a love story between A-jung and Ji-han, the fake marriage that will soon take place between Do-han and A-jung will have to eventually fall apart.
That means he will have to both come clean and come out to his family, and it will be very interesting to see how the show deals with this, and also how it depicts Do-han’s love life going forward. So far there have been hints of relationships, but he has yet to even share a word on screen with anyone that could be a potential lover, let alone a kiss.
Wedding Impossible is streaming on Amazon Prime.
