"If you were given a chance to exchange your life, would you choose poor dad or rich dad?"
The MBC golden soil drama "Golden Spoon" starring Lu Xingcai and Zheng Caiyan, adapted from the webtoon of the same name, tells the story of a poor soil spoon boy, Li Chengtian (played by Lu Xingcai), who buys equipment with 30,000 won from a mysterious roadside stall grandma. The golden spoon that swaps the functions of his parents and his classmate Hwang Tae-yong (played by Lee Jong-won), who is a real golden spoon, exchanged identities, and turned into an adventure story of a rich boy.
"Golden Spoon" stills
The setting of exchanging lives is not new. The problems of class solidification and the gap between the rich and the poor that "Golden Spoon" wants to express are also common themes of Korean genre dramas.
On this end, the poor and lowly husband and wife grieve for everything, and the Li Chengtian family of four, who bear huge debts, is living a tight life. Li's father is a sullen cartoonist. He has talent and talent, and it is difficult to bring a stable income to the family. He is a useless old bean. Li Chengtian, who has insight into everything, has to work in a convenience store to make money to maintain his studies and basic life.
Lu Xingcai as Li Chengtian
At the other end, Huang Taiyong's father is Huang Xiandao (Cui Yuanying), the chairman of Dangtang Daoxin Group, a big man at the top of the Korean pyramid. But the indifferent and strict father wants his son to become a dragon, and demands his son with the most stringent standards every day. The stepmother is also a femme fatale who is warm outside and cold inside. dare not resist.
Lee Jong Won as Hwang Tae Yong
The sudden death of his friend shook Li Chengtian's heart; the helpless and aggrieved father knelt down and begged for mercy to Huang Taiyong, which was the trigger for Li Chengtian to become crazy in seconds. In his eyes, the golden spoon he bought with huge sums of money was like the only lottery number left in the hands of a gambler, and it became a life-saving straw. A teenager facing the pressure of life and the other facing the pressure of survival, betting on completely different lives.
"Golden Spoon" is not without bugs. For example, it is somewhat unrealistic for the poor boy and the top rich second generation to have classes in the same class. Although the character of the male protagonist who is a business genius and crazily criticizes the villain is very interesting, the screenwriter seems to want to make him a living person with flesh and blood. After changing his identity, the male protagonist is eager to use the big house in Jiangnan District to relieve his guilty conscience.
Li Chengtian asked himself: What is the price of betraying his conscience and abandoning his parents?
The advantage of "Golden Spoon" is that the plot progresses rapidly, and the operation is as fierce as a tiger, especially when the male protagonist decides to take the golden spoon to the second male's house to ask for a bowl of rice (you can change his body after eating), when he is disliked by the second male's parents The embarrassment and helplessness reminded me of the deep tingling feeling when watching "Parasite". And he once wanted to blacken the high-energy segment of the counterattack. The ratings soared from 5.4% in the first episode to 7.4% in the second episode. After four episodes were broadcast, the Douban score was 8.0.
Here I must mention Cui Yuanying, who plays the second male father. In the past, in "The Heirs", Cui Yuanying acted as a secretary who was dependent on others and saddled with the president. At that time, his aura should not be underestimated. Now playing the president himself, even a few words and a light pat on the shoulder can make his son tremble with fear, and he has a strong deterrent power. What he values is whether his son can become a kind of person who will do anything to keep the family property.
Huang Xiandao's criteria for selecting heirs
Compared with the cold-blooded rich dad, the poor dad's story line is much warmer. Although knelt down and begged for mercy, snot and tears, it was still the poor father's normal operation to deal with big and small matters, but in the face of the forced demolition of the evil company, the poor father bravely stood up. The second male behind him also shares his interests with his poor father in the field of comics. The appearance of the family getting along happily makes the male protagonist outside the window feel sad and feel that he is superfluous.
The second male feels the longing for affection by his poor father.
To be honest, the story direction of "Golden Spoon" is still very routine and labelled, and the ratings also fluctuate due to the development of the plot. Because of this transformation, the male protagonist gained the trust of his rich dad, and was quickly broken; the second male protagonist gained the love of the female protagonist and the long-lost affection. Just like in 80% of Korean dramas, the upper class is always intriguing and ruthless; no matter how hard the lower society is, there will always be a heartwarming reversal. The confrontation between the two worlds is an eternal theme.
What is lacking and what is needed is also a suffocating life, but the choices of the two are just the opposite.
How to play tricks in the routine depends on the screenwriter's ability. From various foreshadowings, it can be seen that there are at least three groups of people who have been or are changing their bodies in "Golden Spoon". There is a knife on the head of greed, just as the old grandma's warning said, "Any choice must mean a price." Some people gain money and status, they are bound to suffer pressure and lose love; some people become beggars, begging for the next opportunity to change their bodies. Eating salted fish is worth thirst, greed and punishment, always go hand in hand. Of course, there are also fathers who face domestic violence and are forced to flee. The compass of fate, because a spoon keeps spinning, never stops.
The appearance of strangers makes the plot gradually become suspenseful.
Fortunately, most of the leading actors in this play are active idols, but their acting skills are not jerky, which is commendable. The simmering of Xipi between the four protagonists is also a highlight of "Golden Spoon". On the one hand, the sense of fate that "no matter how you change, I will fall in love with you for the first time", whoever eats it knows. On the other hand, after watching the four episodes, what the author is most looking forward to now is the line of the black-bellied female second, and the Xipi line of the male protagonist is not conventional. The shooting methods of campus bullying are very intriguing.
The controversial point of this play is that the character of the male protagonist is somewhat different from the comic version. If you completely take the black and eat black route, you may still be able to make a breakthrough. How to maintain the character design of the career criticism, maintain the freshness of the "villain", and not forcibly whitewash it, is what the screenwriter needs to scrutinize the most.
