K-drama review: A Good Day to Be a Dog – bubbly fantasy romcom starring Park Gyu-young and Cha Eun-woo runs out of steam

K-drama review: A Good Day to Be a Dog – bubbly fantasy romcom starring Park Gyu-young and Cha Eun-woo runs out of steam

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This article contains spoilers.

2.5/5 stars

Lead cast: Park Gyu-young, Cha Eun-woo, Lee Hyun-woo, Kim Yi-kyung

Latest Nielsen rating: 1.5 per cent

A Good Day to Be a Dog, starring a copper-haired Park Gyu-young ( Sweet Home) and a sleepy-eyed Cha Eun-woo ( True Beauty) from the boy band Astro, is easy on the eyes and easy to follow thanks to a simple and fantastical premise – until it isn’t.
Even by K-drama standards, the show’s opening was particularly whimsical. It introduced us to Han Hae-na (Park), a high-school teacher with a secret: she is the descendant of a family whose members are cursed to turn into puppies if they are kissed on the lips.

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This is exactly what happens to Hae-na during a work party one evening. She has a crush on fellow teacher Lee Bo-gyeom (Lee Hyun-woo) and after getting drunk, she winds up kissing him, or so she thinks. But her beer goggles have masked the true identity of her smooching partner.

She has actually locked lips with fellow teacher Jin Seo-won (Cha), who she hates irrationally.

Now she’s doomed to turn into a puppy at the stroke of midnight each day until the morning, unless they kiss again to break the curse.

Cha Eun-woo as Jin Seo-won in a still from “A Good Day to Be a Dog”.

The show settles into its vibe and what comes off as overbearing at first soon becomes rather charming. The beats are very predictable but its easy-going familiarity and its bright and colourful aesthetic are fairly appealing.

Park is bubbly and endearing as Hae-na, while, as Seo-won, Cha – who it must be said is the weaker performer of the two – so perfectly looks the part that he need only stand there and read his lines. It’s not a demanding role.

The story goes through its romantic comedy motions, seducing us with familiar thrills and the added cuteness of its lightly supernatural premise.

Cha Eun-woo (left) as Seo-won and Park Gyu-young as Hae-na in a still from “A Good Day to Be a Dog”.

Hae-na and Seo-won eventually get together, but that happens in episode eight and the show starts to struggle as it attempts to pad out its thin plot for another six episodes with lots of flashbacks to the era of Joseon dynastic rule in Korea that are as dry as a bowl of kibble.

We learn that Bo-gyeom is secretly a mountain spirit – as is the school’s vice-principal (Yoo Seung-mok) – and that he has concocted an absurdly convoluted plan of revenge against Hae-na and Seo-won because of what their ancestors, or previous incarnations of them (this isn’t terribly clear), did centuries earlier.

Back in the Joseon era, Bo-gyeom was in love with lady Han Cho-young (Kim Yi-kyung), while soldier Soo-hyun and servant Mak-soon (Cha and Park again) also fell in love.

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Some palace intrigue brings things to a head, and Bo-gyeom witnesses what looks like Soo-hyun stabbing Cho-young to death on the edge of a cliff with Mak-soon at his side. He bears a grudge for centuries, during which he torments their ancestors or reincarnations.

Cho-young’s ancestor/reincarnation also appears at the school in the form of student Min Ji-a (also Kim).

Since the puppy curse originated with Mak-soon, we can reasonably assume that Hae-na is her descendant, but Seo-won and Soo-hyun’s connection is less clear. No matter how you look at it, it leads to some eyebrow-raising conclusions.

Lee Hyun-woo as Lee Bo-gyeom (left) and Kim Yi-kyung as Min Ji-a in a still from “A Good Day to Be a Dog”.

Either Hae-na and Seo-won are related to both Mak-soon and Soo-hyun, or Hae-na is related to Soo-hyun and Seo-won is a reincarnation of him.

In the present, Bo-gyeom gets his final revenge by wiping Hae-na’s memories of her relationship with Seo-won. Once he learns that Cho-young was not murdered but took her own life, he restores her memories.

Filled with constant flashbacks to the Joseon era and the various highlights of Hae-na and Seo-won’s relationship, the last few episodes have very little to offer. It feels like the story ran out of steam not long after the halfway mark and has been playing for time ever since.

Park Gyu-young as Hae-na (left) and Cha Eun-woo as Seo-won in a still from “A Good Day to Be a Dog”.

Nowhere is this more clear than in the final episode, which is merely an extended coda that takes place a year after Hae-na and Seo-won get back together. Some minor loose ends are wrapped up and the show once again recaps the relationship of the main couple, which was already done several times in the previous few episodes.

It was a good day to be a dog for a time, but now we’ve grown dog tired of this show.

A Good Day to Be a Dog is streaming on Viu.

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