REVIEW: The Great Seducer (Tempted)
Rating:3.5 out of 5 stars
Re-watch value: 3 out of 5 stars
Synopsis
*From DramaList*
The television series depicts rich young men and women in their twenties who discover their true feelings while playing the dangerous game of love. In an act of revenge, Kwon Shi Hyun makes a bet with his friends to seduce Eun Tae Hee, who believes people that are swayed by love are pathetic. After Tae Hee meets Shi Hyun, her view on love starts to change. As Shi Hyun’s secret deepens, he starts to fall in love with Tae Hee.
Rambling
*beware of spoilers*
“Let’s have some fun, this beat is sick,
I wanna take a ride on your disco stick
~
I wanna kiss you
But if I do then I might miss you, babe
It’s complicated and stupid
Got my ass squeezed by sexy cupid
Guess he wants to play, wants to play
A lovegame, a lovegame”
It felt appropriate to begin this rambling with Lady Gaga’s prolific song “Love Game” because that’s exactly what this show was—an epic love game.
Based loosely on the classic 18th-century French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (which I have never read and will never read), the show instead reminded me immediately of the 20-year-old teen movie darling Cruel Intentions. Shi-hyun played by Woo Do-hwan is Ryan Phillipe, Joy’s Eun Tae-hee is Reese Witherspoon, and Soo-ji played by Mun Ka-young is Sarah Michelle Gellar. (Also, Hye-jung played by Oh Ha-nee was Selma Blair.)
I watched this 2018 show extremely late, but for the past few months, I’d been craving to see it! I’ve never watched a show with Woo Do-hwan before, although I had seen Joy in The Liar and His Lover, which is coincidentally an appropriate title for this show as well. Wait, now that I’m thinking about it, in that show she also gets deceived by her love interest and it nearly wrecks their relationship… but I digress.
Anyway, I want to start by saying that I was absolutely addicted to this show. It hit some nice high points, melted into melodrama, went off the rails with parental subplot, and then had a satisfying ending. I felt disgusted and sympathetic toward the character Shi-hyun, and in the end, I was really rooting for him to make it work with the angelic Tae-hee. Their chemistry was spot-on, which only helped thicken the plot.
A moment that stands out between them is when they go on a day trip together and Shi-hyun ends up drunk as a skunk off rice wine. Our lovers miss the last train and have to spend the night in a single room (of course). He refuses to go inside the room, prompting Tae-hee to continually ask what was wrong. She assures him she won’t even touch him. Crouching down along the wall, he mumbles sincerely, “But I really want to sleep with you…” obviously meaning he’s hesitating because he wants to have sex and knows they shouldn’t. Tae-hee responds quietly with, “I really want to sleep with you, too.”
They finally make it into the room and spend time just sitting next to each other holding hands. Then they finally make it under the covers, and although nothing happens, their collective nervousness, her commenting on his sweaty palms, his shy embarrassment and vulnerability, make this sequence a sweet highlight in their relationship.
Mun Ka-young is also a new face to me, but her take on Soo-ji was just horrid—in the best way possible. You know you killed it as an antagonist when the audience absolutely hates you. She played us (and the boys) like a fiddle… or should I say, cello? Soo-ji was the brains of the operation, devising the devious plan of Shi-hyun seducing Tae-hee. She was just a rotten, selfish girl who got her kicks off hurting other people, and if anyone hurt her, she returned the favor tenfold.
I say selfish (I’ll add volatile and manipulative, too) because she enjoyed and more than anything needed the attention of Se-joo and, more importantly, Shi-hyun. Through flashback, we find out that Shi-hyun had a thing for Soo-ji, but she shut him down—siting a very pessimistic “love never lasts” reasoning. They had unspoken feelings for each other ever since, but when Soo-ji insists on the seduction ploy, Shi-hyun ups the ante by placing on a bet: If I succeed in making Tae-hee fall for me, we’ll get married (to stop our parents from getting married to each other and us becoming twisted siblings).
Throughout the rest of Shi-hyun’s seduction (which was actually quite short), Soo-ji senses that Shi-hyun is really falling in love with Tae-hee and proceeds to sabotage him, undermine Tae-hee, and exhibit some irrational behavior. She self-medicates because she sees her doctor mother also self-medicate. She has violent breakdowns and tantrums left and right whenever she doesn’t get her way or whenever Shi-hyun shows his sincerity toward Tae-hee. I lost count of how many times she said a version of “How could things have gone so far?” Well, y’all were dysfunctional to begin with, sweetie.
Now, everyone blaming Shi-hyun for breaking up the band? Total bull shit. At various points, Se-joo and Soo-ji alternated giving Shi-hyun grief for going against plan and developing feelings for Tae-hee, insisting on destroying their fragile relationship. It was enough to want to pull your hair out.
Near the end of the show, Se-joo confronts Shi-hyun, insisting that he take responsibility for Soo-ji because, apparently, he’s at fault for somehow leading her on? Shi-hyun refuses, says it’s over between them, wants nothing to do with her. So Se-joo exacts revenge on Shi-hyun by spilling the beans to Tae-hee about the bet in a horrifically cruel way. Luring her to their luxury hideout and presenting their behind-the-scenes home videos and battle plans to her without comment, goading her by asking her if she’ll be able to forgive Shi-hyun for this, too. (I especially liked Tae-hee telling Se-joo that they [meaning privileged kids in general? Specifically, the 3 amigos?] have everything and still they think they have nothing and have fun screwing with innocent people.)
I guess I should mention that our main couple broke up about 3 times. (1) Tae-hee broke it off with Shi-hyun after Soo-ji creepily told her that Shi-hyun likes the both of them, (2) Shi-hyun viciously broke up with Tae-hee in front of everyone because he mistakenly thought his mother committed the hit-and-run on Tae-hee, and (3) Tae-hee cuts off Shi-hyun directly after she finds out about the seduction project.
The show was predictable—misunderstandings, withheld information, rich parents having scandalous 20-year affairs, mothers dying, brain tumors, piggyback rides, and quasi-cohabitation—all within the realm of K-drama soaps. The show unfortunately tried to give the parents some drama, which didn’t necessarily work. I think if they had kept solely with the seduction drama (the stronger plotline) then the show would have been better for it. Having the kids and their parents so interconnected was a drawback. Tacking this on at the end, the whole he’s-not-my-son thing? Not so great. Especially when it was a lie Shi-hyun’s mother concocted to somehow hurt the cold bastard. He never cared for Shi-hyun or his wife anyway. Creating a fake paternity test meant nothing at that point.
Where the show had me dazed was when the ass hole Ki-young shows up at the hideout and freaking goes ape shit. After terrorizing Hye-jung and her innocent boyfriend, he finds all the evidence of the 3 amigos’ evil seduction plan. Bad news. He and Se-joo’s crazy brother start beating up Shi-hyun. (I think it was 3 counts of assault with a deadly weapon? Battery? Attempted murder?) Tae-hee shows up just in time to call the cops, but Shi-hyun shields her from a heavy blow to the head and ends up in a 2-week-long coma (thankfully, he didn’t have amnesia).
The final episode’s time-jump 5 years into the future isn’t exactly what I wanted, but it’s what I expected. Our lovers reunite when Tae-hee, now an architect, visits the site of her most recent project and finds her client is actually Shi-hyun. I love how she says, “I should have known it was you.” Can I just say that her brown finale outfit was gross compared to Shi-hyun’s gorgeous suit? He looked like a modern fairytale prince! Completely wrecked me with that slo-mo.
I didn’t necessarily feel this while watching, but The Great Seducer brought in the lowest ratings in MBC’s history and drew a ton of negative reaction. Look, if you like Cruel Intentions, you’ll like this show. This show was rather tame compared to Cruel Intentions and Shi-hyun didn’t die at the end like in the movie, but I really feel that people didn’t like this show because they bogged it down with soapy K-drama subplots and didn’t keep to the main seduction conflict as much as they should. They added the third-wheel character Se-joo and didn’t develop him in the slightest. These things can bother you or they can be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It’s up to you!
Did you watch The Great Seducer? Do you disagree with my review? Tell me what you thought below!
Follow us!