"Drama Special - Hair Day"

In-beom (played byChoi Tae-hwan) is a young man with an inferiority complex regarding his receding hairline. An unexpected windfall coupled with a well-timed promotion appears poised to finally let In-beom conquer the insecurities regarding his personal appearance. Then hijinx ensue, and it quickly becomes a struggle for In-beom to scrape together everything he needs before the deadline.

"Drama Special - Hair Day" is trying to do multiple things at once- it wants to be a comedy, as well as social commentary regarding cosmetic surgery, as well as a mystery regarding where the money came from and, eventually, it also becomes a story about family problems turning into crippling depression. That's an awful lot to try and stuff into a single hour long drama special, and that's where most of the problems lie. The tone is just too uneven.

Probably the most obvious problem with this isChoi Tae-hwan. It's not that his acting is bad- rather it's that the man is just too good-looking to plausibly pull off the role. At one point the other characters stare in shock having discovered the true state of In-beom's hair but...honestly, I had a lot of trouble seeing what was so bad about the way he looks. There's also the problem of In-beom being kind of a jerk, which makes it difficult to relate to his problems. While he does reform by the end of the drama, the scattershot nature of the other story elements make this character development less than convincing.

The rest of the cast suffers from similar problems. A major plot point involves the obfuscation of a romantic affair between two married people. The ethical complications on one end are waved off by the existence of an abusive spouse, but the other participant I guess we're just supposed to accept that this is the kind of person they are. And the entire climax simply goes into territory that's way too grim, even if there's supposed to be a happy ending on the other side.

"Drama Special - Hair Day" has a fairly decent concept. To be entirely honest, I doubt I'd be all that selfless and considerate if I had been on the street that day. Even so, the difficulty of seriously identifying with the characters as presented here is a major stumbling block to enjoying "Drama Special - Hair Day". The nicest point I can write about it is that the characters were never so repulsive as to make me generally angry. Even so, I still didn't particularly care much about their adventures, such that this drama special really just isn't worth watching.

Review by William Schwartz

"Drama Special - Hair Day" is directed byYoo Jong-seonand written byBaek Eun-kyeongand featuresHa Eun-seol,Choi Tae-hwan,Jang Seong-beom,Lee Han-wi,Yoon Ye-heeandJi Dae-han.