Plot:
Mother with a troubled past finds her daughter is being bullied at school and goes undercover as a student to find out what is going on.
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| Kang Ja, titular Angry Mom |
Main Characters:
Jo Kang Ja: second drama mom ever to get the Black Hat Award from me, and the first to get it for being an undercover punk a la City Hunter, Healer, and all my other favorite heroes. XD Her past and her daughter's present and her family's future are all tied together...she had no one to fight for her when she was a teen, but now that her daughter is in trouble, she refuses to back down.
Oh Ah Ran: Kang-Ja's daughter...troubled teen who realizes exactly how much her mother has not told her, once they begin fighting together.
Han Gong Joo: Kang-Ja's best friend...the one who knows almost all her secrets, and who is willing to join the fight however she is needed
Park Noh Ah: New teacher at Ah Ran's school, whose innocent view of the world makes him of no use whatsoever...until he learns how to fight darkness with righteousness.
Go Bok Dong: fellow student of Ah Ran's...and someone who finds himself in a very similar position to where Kang-Ja was when she was his age - because of the same person who tormented her. Further complicated by the fact that he gets a crush on Kang-Ja, thinking she is his age.
The main villains you'll learn quickly enough... :P
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| Bok Dong |
Cautionary notes:
Be warned: It's dark. It starts out with a teacher/student relationship (one that is finally played for the utterly creepy thing it should be, instead of some of the more cutesy love-lines sometimes seen in dramas), major school bullying, and murder, in short order. Quickly moving on to brutal beating, more murder, and attempted rape in flashbacks. Depending on how you count it, 8 teens died during the drama...and the repeated physical abuse of one woman was a lot easier to skip than watch.
I don't think any of the above is overdone or gratuitous, though - it's what the story is about and the story is very well done. (I might think it was overdone if things like the Sewol Ferry disaster were not obvious signs that these things are actually happening and attention needs to be drawn to them.)
Otherwise, there are the usual modern kdrama problems - excessive drinking, bathroom humor, etc - plus some attempts at seduction that are supposed to be more funny than successful, and some oddness, given that Kang-Ja's best friend runs a very weird business and is technically a gangster. (Don't ask me how or what business exactly she runs.)
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| mother-daughter scenes also my favorite... |
Favorite Scene:
Bok-Dong moving from offender to defender, so basically any scene where that happens. :)
Least Favorite Scene:
....I wasn't a huge fan of the awkwardness between Bok-Dong and Kang-Ja (for one, she's married; for another, she is absolutely old enough to be his mother, which is probably why she did not notice the crush starting; for a third, mom or not, she shouldn't walk in on people in the bathroom). But the abuse scenes probably were the pieces that bothered me the most.
Quotes:
Do you know what the fate of the best one is? In Chinese, it’s a four-character idiom “Live alone, die alone”. No matter what others say, just live your own way. Be strong to people who are strong, and be weak to people who are weak. You must be loyal and fight against injustice! If you’re that kind of person, then no matter what anyone says, you are the best, even if you are alone.
"In a land of one-eyed people, the one with two eyes is the strange one."
"All this time, in your greenhouse, I lived very warmly. Because of you, I believed that there still was warmth in the world. Because I had that belief, I didn’t get hurt and I could stay strong until now. Thank you, father. But now I will go out of your shelter. I won’t remain like a kid where my father’s words are my entire world. Because my children are in a cold place with no one to protect them. Because they are in a dangerous place."
"I’d like it if there were many more strong ones [kang-jas], and I’d like if it would hurry up and come sooner—the world where the ones who love more win."
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| Noh Ah and Kang Ja |
Overall:
So, so, so much love for the mother-daughter relationships and all the female friendships and the general message of moms having power and a;lsdkfja;sldkjfa;lsdfjk
I love that while it has that strong message - sometimes coming right out and bluntly saying it, almost to the point of preachiness - yet there are boy-crazy girls and girls who betray their friendships and moms who don’t care enough about their children and moms who care too much about their children and not enough about others and other women who are simply horrible people. And the awesome female characters all have their own flaws and weak spots. Plus, I adored the concept of a mom going undercover to school to protect her daughter. And it really is flat-out awesome to see her decking the bullies, no matter their rank or place. XD
And, while there are many lousy male characters (okay, the number of truly terrible fathers is a bit overkill...), there is still the shining light that is Noh Ah, who once he decides to step out of his hothouse and refuses to allow himself any longer to be blinded/shielded from the evil around him, is completely beautiful. And there is Bok-Dong, adorable child who’s been given every reason to go wrong, and then is given a chance to go right…the other characters I ended up really liking I won't say, because of spoilers. :)
I also loved how the dynamic between the strong woman that is Kang-ja and the weak man that is her husband ended up playing out. You don't get a mom going undercover in an attempt to save her child when her husband is any kind of a protective force...but how their relationship worked was fascinating, and incredibly well done.
I really enjoyed that the drama is able to so strongly give its message, but without totally resorting to making it an all-men-are-evil-all-women-goddesses propaganda film - it doesn't stoop to falsifying the story to make a point.
Verdict: 3/5
It's not a perfect drama...but if you're looking for something different, particularly a female-centric drama with tons of awesome friendships and a beautiful mother-daughter story...this one stands out.
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