1% of Anything is a South Korean story about rich chaebol (Family Owned Business) owner (Ha Suk Jin) who discovers that his grandfather gave the family inheritance to a teacher (Jeon So Min). The only way to regain the lost fortune is to marry the teacher.
This is a remake of the same-named 2003 drama.
Let me start out by stating that this was a fun drama and it started out with the usual romantic comedy plot. What we have in this plot is the transformation of a spoiled, arrogant man into a kind and understanding man while plotting to get what he believes is rightly his.
Ha Suk Jin is our protagonist, and he played the role to perfection, showing how the character changes over time.
His counterpart, the lead female role is played by Jeon So Min. As the teacher, Kim Da Hyun plays a typical screen style heroin that is not interested in family squabbles or money (as if in real life…) and she agrees to take on the inheritance and date Jae In for six months, with the deal being she can then walk away. As with Ha Suk Jin, Jeon So Min is a powerful actress and plays the not so subdued, and strong-willed teacher to perfection.
1% of Anything is strong because the lead actors deliver strong performance and the plot and script are fun. The couple is believable in their initial bickering annoying opening, and slowly develops into an awkward and soon to make you sit on the edge of your seat waiting for the romance to explode situation.
The only two issues with this series were the 2-dimensional rest, the characters beside them were flat, the depth of the business and the teaching world were grey, and while the two lead characters supplied the story, you did expect the supporting cast to help, well, support them. It was like watching a soccer match where only the goalie and the forward played the game; the others were just there trying to kick the ball.
The second issue was annoying but may be true to life situations where people get dragged into their own storylines, In this case, it was we can’t be in love because we have a contract” situation. I have seen this many times in many films, and I understand the concept of a character feeling trapped in a situation, but this is comedy romance, not real life. The idea is to make us fall in love with falling in love, not make us frustrated. We get enough frustration in real life; otherwise, why would we bother escaping into the TV?
The bottom line is that I, and I expect many more viewers just wanted to get up and bash them both into submission. You love each other, get together, marry, have babies, build a life. Nope, instead, we get the standard floppy separation period followed by a consternated viewer considering watching or not.
However, with all this frustration, the end is good, the acting is excellent, the supporting staff needs to improve, and the series won me over only because it was a nice concept acted by two great performers.
