We’re back with a brand new series to chat about. This time we’re featuring the K-drama ‘Jugglers’.
‘Jugglers’, an office rom-com, has about 16 episodes and was started airing in December 2017. So this review might be a tad late, but I don’t think that really matters with K-dramas.
The name comes from the painting of Georges Rouault which through some googling I discovered is actually displayed in the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul. So if you’re there, go take a look.
Plot
Our leading lady Yoon Yi is played by Baek Jin-Hee who you might know from her previous role in ‘Let’s Eat 3’. Yoon Yi is a personal assistant who’s going through a rough patch because of her boss, who’s quite the conniving bastard.
He’s sending Yoon Yi on errands like buying underwear for his affairs, he asks her to lie to his wife,… As you can tell, not a great boss. But she endured. Until he’s up for a promotion and through a couple of misconstrued pictures everyone in the office she’s actually having an affair with her boss.
The things is, a relationship like that wouldn’t be against company policy. But because she’s ‘only’ the personal assistant, she gets reassigned and loses out on the chance of being a PA for a vice president.
Something that I find interesting is that the series actually talks about the fact that it’s quite sexist. Yoon Yi has a bunch of girlfriends who help her through that moment because losing a job that’s been your life and has led you to have little to zero social life, is hard.
Then she meets her new boss, who is completely against the idea of personal assistants. They get off to a very rocky start. You know, because life is never easy.
Overall, I’d say the plot is actually quite interesting. There’s lots of backstabbing and the likes. But what I found even more interesting was the dynamic between the friendships of the girls. Also I feel like the writer really fleshed out all of the characters.
‘Cut’
Cho Cutter portrayed by In Gyo-jin, who is one of the main villains of the series is at times, completely ludicrous and over the top. It’s sometimes hilarious, other times I was cringing. Nonetheless, even he gets a little backstory that explains some of his acts, though that’s only at the very end. Even the cheated wife, played by Jung Young-Joo gets a redemption arc.
I’m not the biggest fan of love triangles for the sake of love triangles, but in ‘Jugglers’ they make it a bit more interesting. Yoon Yi can be a hilarious bad-ass. Obviously there’s romance brewing between her and her new boss, played by Daniel Choi. And for the love of God, look at him with glasses on. He’s a snack.
Humor
As a last note, I want to say that ‘Jugglers’ can be hilarious at times, very often actually. The use of sound effects when they’re just glancing at each other or when they use stuff like day dreams of the characters, are very well implemented.
I’m also quite happy with the fact that they fleshed out even the minor characters. There’s even a deaf and mute character and those are not parts of his story line. I love the inclusion of that.
I also want to give a quick shout-out to two actors in this show. First off is Jung Young-Joo, she’s a total bad-ass. Every scene she has, she’s the main star. Maybe it’s partly due to the fact that her character is like that, but she 100% lives up to it.
The second shout-out is for Jung Hye-In, who portrays Park Kyung-Rae, one of the more fierce friends of Yoon Yi. Her acting is great and I just really loved her character. Also she looks cute.
In the end, despite its flaws here and there, I would totally recommend ‘Jugglers’. It’s fun, it has a lot of great female roles and despite some cringe, it is hilarious.
Go check out the trailer:
Also be sure to listen to the OST, it’s great!
