Sly and Single Again aka Cunning Single Lady is a16 episode KTV drama from early 2014.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Story: Young couple gets married and sets out on their perfect family life to come. Not so fast though! Husband abruptly quits his bread winning job to try to start his own business, wife tries to support him while running the household & paying the bills, tensions rise as they fall deeper in debt with no hope in sight, etc. Eventually, wife gets fed up with what little husband is offering to the marriage, so she divorces him.
A decade later, ex-husband has since become hugely successful with his business startup, and this makes ex-wife more than a little resentful. She sets out to get even and make his life miserable while planning to make him regret that he "let her get away". In order to accomplish her task, she takes a job as an intern at his company in order to get close to him and set her plan in motion. What she fails to realize though is that he's still bitter that she didn't stick by him years ago, and he's equally determined to now make her jealous of his new found fame & success.
The premise here is fairly modest and easy to follow. Two former spouses each still have some feelings, both good and bad, for the other. Now that they're older (and sometimes wiser), you observe their push and pull relationship unfold in typical K-drama fashion; first they try to get back at each other for past slights, then they get over it and start to move on, then they grow to understand each other better and consider starting over together if it's meant to be. It couldn't be any more simplistic or orderly, and as a result, the first part of the show is mostly comedy drama, second part is mainly regular drama, and final part is primarily melodrama with some romance and maybe love along the way.
Lee Min Jung & Joo Sang Wook play the two lead characters. Both performers are in their prime and they have no problems handling their respective roles. Joo Sang Wook is a highly amusing just to look at when he's portraying his younger self, complete with atrocious hair style. He's pretty effective throughout as his modern day eligible bachelor self, who's still a bit dorky and unsure of his feelings underneath. Lee Min Jung has primarily been taking on a number of these similarly themed K-drama female roles in the last several years, and she is quite good at this stuff; she has a nice comedic touch to go along with all the other attributes expected of a lead actress in this type of role.
Potentially standing in the way of our estranged couple at every turn is the 3 stereotypical chaebol family members that comprise this story's antagonists & other potential love interests; they include the self-serving family patriarch with typical ego & pride, the carefree handsome young son who likes the female lead, and the wounded older daughter who likes the male lead. They are all pretty standard characters for a K-drama; the Dad is somewhat emotionally distant and primarily obsessed with his own legacy, the son is perpetually stuck at the age of a boy trying to become a man, and the daughter can't get over a tragedy that happened to her in the past. Each of these family members is intended to be a sympathetic figure to some degree while simultaneously irking the viewer on numerous occasions.
The first couple episodes focus on the leads as their younger selves, and are used mostly for background and setup purposes. Then, the two leads get re-acquainted with one another again in the present where the rest of the series takes place. Things are kept pretty lighthearted and are rolling along pretty well for a while until the tone of the series begins to shift, and it's all mostly melodrama from there on in. The tonal shift was not unexpected, but it just reeks of too much familiarity that suggests it's coasting down the standard K-drama checklist of scenes to accomplish in order to wrap up and move on to another show, and that is my primary problem with this show.
I love the Hallyu entertainment industry in most all its forms, but I'm often baffled by how reluctant they seem to be to take a chance on something new, particularly when they would clearly be so good at it. This is especially true when it comes to Korean TV shows, as you basically have variety/reality programming and stuff like this show, and very little else. I know these shows are under enormous pressure to simply churn out copy, hit a certain ratings number, and "cover all the bases" as best as possible...but, I can't help but think this show would have been fantastic as primarily a romantic-comedy from start to finish, and, I know I'm not the only one who thinks this. There must surely be a market for KTV viewers who could do without another cookie cutter melodrama that insists on falling back on typical characters and clichés in order to tell a story. And, if given a chance, I'm sure the writers of this show could have figured out a way to include an appropriate amount of love, loss, & melodrama without invoking the same tired and silly antagonist & love interest angles.
Summary: I don't mean to come across as being too harsh on this particular show, It's not that bad at all, and I will recommend it. But, it is one of those K-dramas that makes me long for the day when the heavens align to allow for each particular KTV show to just do what it does best, and leave the "formulaic/one size fits all/status quo" method of storytelling behind.
Bottom Line: 7 out of 10 stars on the K-drama scale.
