In Mu-sim, the Korean folk religion that predates Buddhism, female spiritual practitioners called mudang (shamans) perform rituals to cleanse you of sin, asks the gods for special favors, predict the future, and so on. So naturally I was interested in the Korean series Cafe Minamdang, about a shaman who solves crimes, in spite of the disturbing icon of an overly-made up doll.
Scene 1: Nam Han-jun (Seo In-guk), a rather feminine young man in a red suit, enters a giant tower hotel, followed by his assistant. In his gigantic office, he drinks tea, sniffs on an air freshener, then uses a hidden camera to judge the physiognomy and auras of applicants for a managerial position: "He let someone else take the fall for him; she's a kleptomaniac; he's lying about his fluency in French." A gender-atypical male shaman must be gay-coded.
When the Westerner Steve is interviewed, his aura is so strange that Han-jun can't read him remotely; he goes into the interview room and performs a shamanic ritual with a rattle and a fan. Everyone is terrified.
The weird aura is not from Steve, it's from manager Ko Jun-won: "An angry ghost tells me that you coerced her into sex by promising her a full-time job, then fired her. She killed herself because of you!" The scoundrel is dragged out, and everyone applauds. But why didn't Han-jun notice the angry spirit earlier?
Commercial: Han-jun and his entourage skip through the streets of Mindamnang (apparently not a real place), spreading the word about his shaman service: parenting issues, romance, friendship, finances, any problem you have, he can solve. Plus, he says, he's the most handsome man in the universe!
Wait -- if he was just working as a consultant at the hotel, why did Han-jun have a gigantic office there? I'm confused.
Scene 2: While groupies (both men and women) wait breathlessly outside his compound, Shaman Han-jun finishes his shower (no beefcake). He wakes up Hye-Jun, a woman who does surveillance for the National Intelligence Service out of his spare room, for some reason, and complains about her bad smell. Obviously Han-jun is not interested in girls.
After getting coffee from his even more femme assistant, Nam-dan (Baek Seo-hoo), Shaman Han-jun winks at the crowd of groupies outside the gate. Two girls faint. "Sometimes it's tiring being so popular" he complains.
Scene 3: The Cafe Minandang is really a coffee house, serving only Americanos to the giggling groupies. A middle-aged man and a cop come in. Assistant Su-cheul makes the cop wait outside, and leads the Middle-Aged Man through a maze of corridors to Shaman Han-jun's throne room -- he's sittng on a throne beneath pictures of Korean gods, holding a fan
Shaman Han-jun already learned his problem from internet sleuthing and deduction: Middle-Aged Man cheated on his wife with a woman who turned out to be a con artist, and stole all of his company's money.
Scene 4: Computer Girl conducts online research to find the con artist and her boyfriend. Assistant Su-cheul is assigned the task of tracking them down. He's busy on another case -- running alongside a "pervert's" car, then punching through the windshield! But then he finds the con artists in a parking garage, carrying luggage, getting ready to leave the country.
Scene 5: Back at the interview, Shaman Han-jun yells at the Middle-Aged man for sinning against the gods, and then forces him to perform various silly, humiliating rituals. I know they are silly because Han-jun is a fraud; he doesn't really communicate with the gods at all. When he hears from Assistant Su-cheol, he sends Middle Aged man down to the "north entrance of the parking garage." Wait -- thc con artists are in the same building?
Middle Aged Man rushes down to the parking garage with two cops. They don't believe in this shaman nonsense, but sure enough, the con artist couple emerge through the north entrance! The cops are now true believers! But he's a fraud
Scene 6: The two cops at work, discussing how great Shaman Han-jun is. Apparently they are main characters, played by Joon Man-sik and Heo Jae-ho (left). A new recruit comes in, hidden so we don't see that it's a woman until the last minute. They sneer and scoff at the idea of a lady cop, then tell her to go make coffee or file something while they rush off to a case.
Scene 7: The two cops chasing a suitcase-carrying suspect through the warehouse district. Wait -- is this the con artist? Did he somehow escape custody? If it's someone else, why have them both carrying luggage? Really confusing!
The cops are out of shape, and can't keep up. Suddenly The New Recruit rushes past at super-speed, leaps over a truck, and grabs the perp. Four of his cronies, armed with lead pipes, jump out of a van and attack. She clobbers them.
Back at headquarters, Computer Girl and Shaman Han-jun are watching. He gets a goofy expression: a superwoman! Just his type! "I'm in love," he announces. Darn, I figured he was gay.
Beefcake: None.
Gay Characters: Shaman Han-jun gay-teased us right up to the moment where he fell in love with superhero New Recruit. Maybe the super-femme assistant?
Superheroes: Assistant Su-cheoul and the New Recruit exhibit superpowers straight out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there's no indication that they are actually superheroes. I'm confused.
My Grade: Han-jun is a sham shaman; his rituals are ridiculous; people who believe in him are superstitious fools. This strikes me as rather disrespectful of the real spiritual tradition. C.
If you watch the whole series, which I unfortunately did, there's not only no beefcake but no romance. Or at least no romantic action behind a chaste kiss here and there. All of the characters interact with the opposite sex like 30 year old virgins. It's very strange.
ReplyDeleteKorea is rather conservative, so K-dramas, even romances, rarely show anything other than a chaste kiss. Which is quite a relief from the constant bedroom scenes in American dramas.
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