Oohlala Couple

Oohlala Couple (i.e. Ohlala Couple): A 20 episode KTV rom-com drama aired in late 2012 It's another fantasy story that's become increasingly prevalent over the years as a creative way to tell a standard K-drama tale.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Here's your story: A middle aged married couple goes through their daily routines as typical Korean bread winner & homemaker,. Whatever love & respect they once had for each other is dissipating quickly, and, their passion for one another has long since vanished. Husband starts an affair, wife soon finds out, so it's off to divorce court. Along the way, they get into an accident and their souls switch bodies as a result of their near death experience. Then, it's a matter of them finding a way to switch back over time while figuring out if they can reconcile their differences, find love again. live happily ever after, etc...

This show is divided into two distinct halves. The first half is primarily a wildly hysterical satire of typical K-drama, and, it's often incredibly hilarious. Once the estranged couple switch souls/bodies, the 2 leads do everything they can to play up every stereotype one might associate with this genre; the lead actor (who's now "inhabited" by the wife) prances around like a little girl who's frightened of everything, can't drive, knows nothing outside of being a housewife, etc. The lead actress (who's now "inhabited" by the husband) lurches around like a primitive nose picking monkey who's an overly assertive, breast ogling, pervert.

The leads do excellent work as outrageous caricatures of themselves while their souls/bodies are switched. The acting here is WAY over the top, and, each star seems determined to "out act" the other, and they both ham it up Big Time. The 2 stars (Kim Jung Eun and Shin Hyun Joon) really deserve some credit here;they are equally entertaining, and they both looked like they were having a lot of fun playing these roles. There's also several side character stories that add to the absurdity, one of which involves the immortal "God of Fate & Goddess of Love" (or whatever) who oversee the lives of our estranged couple; respectively, these 2 are played by veteran actor Byun Hee Bong, and K-Pop idol Narsha. Just the idea of pairing these 2 together cracks me up! Byun Hee-Bong delivers his old fashioned wisdom while utilizing his signature deliberate tone, and Narsha espouses her modern beliefs while frolicking around in what amounts to sexy Halloween costumes.

Eventually (SUPER SPOILERS), the 2 leads stumble into a way to switch back to themselves at about the halfway point of this show...then, this series inexplicably pulls a 180 degree turn and changes its tone from all-out comedic fantasy satire, to a full on melodrama the rest of the way. As a result, the second half of this show is so disconnected from the first half that it feels as if you're watching 2 entirely different shows altogether. I've seen this before to varying degrees with other shows; it rarely works well, and, it most definitely does not work here!

Second half of the show is standard melodrama stuff about a couple that has to choose whether to get back together, or choose another readily available love interest on hand. I don't think this part of the show is written all that well and it takes a long time to play out. I also couldn't really ever get behind either of the 2 leads during this part of the show, and that was a big problem! Neither one is really all that likable enough to root for. I did want the ex-wife to finally be happy, and I wanted the ex-hubby to become a better man and make out all right in the end, but I was never convinced either party sufficiently grew enough as a character nor made the right relationship decisions in the end.

As usual, there's lots of crying once the heavy duty melodrama kicks in, and everybody is sick in some fashion as well; just off the top of my head, there's an instance of stomach cancer, liver cancer, recurring asthma, a miscarriage, anemia or something that requires dialysis, and 2 people need organ transplants. Mind you, we're only talking about 4 total people that collectively have all these problems. Ahhhh! Korean's in TV shows are almost always guaranteed to simultaneously look great while dying of something! The melodrama is pretty repetitive too down the stretch, and the penultimate dramatic scene of racing to save one of the cast member's lives near the end of the show is one of the silliest and most absurdly contrived things I've seen in any K-drama.

The whole idea of this show was to have a broken couple perhaps reconcile by forcing them to spend time in each others shoes via some mystical means; as a result, they're supposed to learn to understand & appreciate, and ultimately love, each other more. This first half of the show is damn funny, and I thought the melodrama embedded within this part was far better done, and much more effective, than it was when the "fantasy/comedy" side of the show was over and done with. I think this show would have worked much better if it were either: A) An all-out comedic satire from start to finish, or, B) A total of 12-16 episodes (with only about 4 episodes or so being devoted to the "serious" back end melodrama).

As it is, breaking the show into 2 disparate halves just feels too weird and disjointed, and, thus, this series therefore does not work very well overall as a "combined whole". Still, I can't really hate it too much because I did rather enjoy at least half of it, and I always appreciate the rare efforts to focus a K Drama on overlooked age groups & lives.

Bottom Line: 6 of 10 stars on the KTV scale! A bit of a wasted opportunity to really stand out though!