With the midterms approaching and as mentioned in number 4 in my previous article, I decided to procrastinate diligently by starting/finishing a Korean drama. With 16 episodes, all one hour each, “Fight For My Way,” is a humorous take on the lives of four characters in their 20’s, who lost out on their dreams and live third-rate lives.
The drama starts off in 2006, with all the major characters still in high school. We meet Dong-man, a taekwondo prodigy, and Ae-ra, an aspiring news anchor. They are young, full of spirit, and sparkling with ambition. Eleven years later, Ae-ra walks into the department store before it opens, her head held high, with the crowd waiting outside wondering if she is a VIP. Dong-man walks into the hotel asking for the penthouse, in a doctor’s jacket.
In reality, Ae-ra is a worker at the information desk and Dong-man is a pest exterminator.
Initially, I was shocked by the honest portrayal of adulthood. In most Korean dramas, we’re so used to seeing the two extreme ends of society, either the pitifully poor or the unrealistically rich. In that sense, “Fight For My Way” is fresh because we are given characters who are middle-class, lives that are average and normal. It was nothing fancy, or extraordinary. Dong-man, Ae-ra, and their two best friends, are doing everything to manage, and to live an ordinary life that is slightly better than their current state. There's nothing wrong with the ordinary life, but for these characters, they cannot completely forget their childhood dreams. As a result, their ordinary lives become suffocating.
Another aspect of this drama that I enjoyed was the balance of relationship. Yes, Dong-man is a strong fighter in the ring, but outside, he is helpless to Ae-ra. Their economic and social status are equal, and they share trust and respect. That every part of their relationship, even before and after the romance is added, involves conversation and consent, is important in the world of Korean dramas.
In what seemed like a classic Korean take on the friend-to-lover plot, “Fight For My Way,” gives its audience more than just romance, but friendship and the reality of adulthood. The dreams of teenage years and the feeling like we can do anything is reduced into a minor past tense. They are faced with problems of everyday life that can't be delayed. But even in those daily challenges, their dreams aren’t forgotten. Instead, they are just, simply, paused.
The drama, all in all, was realistic, somewhat pathetic, but undeniably inspiring.
When we are young, we are told to dream big. From somewhat unrealistic goals like astronauts and princesses to more legitimate careers like doctors and lawyers. I think somewhere between this translation, we grow up and begin loose the ambition that we once had as children. "Fight For My Way" attempts to reject that loss and tells us that it should take more than reality to break that spirit.
Upon finishing, I think there was something in the drama's message that provoked me into start studying for my midterms (at least that’s what in the plan post-publishing this article). There is this sense of ambition that the drama instils in its viewers. As the characters go after their once-forgotten aspirations, whether they are big like becoming a news anchor, or small like becoming a good housewife, that once-forgotten passion seems to be ignited even within the viewer.
