Stream It Or Skip It?
One of the issues we’ve had with romantic K-dramas is that they tend to move very slowly early on. We see the two people who are going to spend the season together live their own lives for over and hour, before they meet-cute — or at least realize they’re made for each other — at the end. By the time that happens, we’ve generally lost interest. In a new Korean drama, the couple at its center are in a “temporary marriage,” so there is no meet-cute at the end of the first episode. But that episode really doesn’t get very far, either.
THE TRUNK: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A gunshot rings out, and a designer trunk falls into the water. We then see it wash ashore.
The Gist: Five months earlier, we see a man dying in a hospital bed. He tells his wife that his life became great because of her. When he flatlines, the woman, Noh In-ji (Seo Hyun-jin), tells the doctor to notify the next of kin, as she is now not the man’s wife anymore. She leaves her wedding ring in the bathroom.
In-ji works for a company called New Marriage (NM), which provides temporary spouses to people, usually for one-year terms. She goes back to the NM office, ready to be assigned to a new husband, despite the emotional wringer she supposedly went through with the last one.
She’s given a dossier on her next husband, record producer Han Jeong-won (Gong Yoo). She’s warned that he’s not the usual client, and we see why. The man is certainly troubled and a bit aimless. Wealthy beyond measure, he seems to not know what to do with himself most days. He has problems sleeping, taking handfuls of pills to help him, but all that seems to happen is that he dreams of moments like his mother sleepwalking and almost killing his dad.
The temporary marriage was arranged by his estranged wife, Lee Seo-yeon (Jung Yun-ha). He truly doesn’t want to do this arrangement, but as Seo-yeon tells him, if he doesn’t “we’re done.” She will also be in her own temporary marriage.
When Jeong-won follows Seo-yeon back to her house, where she’s meeting that temporary husband, he breaks into her car, where the earrings he gave her were left behind. A police detective catches him, and he gets bailed out by In-ji, marking the first time they’ve met.
In-ji has her own traumas to deal with, as a number of years prior her fiance disappeared without a trace. It seems that these temporary marriages are about the only emotional heavy lifting she can handle.
While we see them try to negotiate this new arrangement, we also see the trunk — which In-ji took with her to her new assignment — recovered and investigated by the police.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Trunk is kind of like The Affair, but everything is arranged.
Our Take: The first episode of The Trunk is extremely slow-moving, more concerned with eye contact and closeups of reactions like fingers drumming on the table than pushing plot points. We know just enough about Jeong-won and In-ji to see how they start this one-year experiment; Jeong-won seems hostile to the idea, but mainly because of the fact that he still wants to be with Seo-yeon. In-ji seems indifferent to the emotional aspect of this assignment, as she has seemed to turn off this part of her humanity, likely due to more than one previous trauma.
The intrigue for this series comes when we step back and examine just what brought the two of them to this point, and how their relationship evolves over the year the assignment lasts. How this relates to the trunk washing ashore months later is uncertain at this point. But what we hope is to get a lot more insight into the two main characters, as well as the whole idea that such a company as NM actually exists in this world.
If the rest of the episodes are as slow and deliberate as the first one was, though, we’ll quickly lose interest. What we also hope is that it’s not a “meet-cute” kind of romantic K-drama; there’s something much more ominous and nihilistic about this arrangement, and it’ll be disappointing if these two fall into the same old patterns we see in other shows like this.
Sex and Skin: Jeong-won certainly seems to enjoy her first night with her new temporary husband in one scene.
Parting Shot: A massive chandelier in the grand foyer of Jeong-won’s massive mansion has been giving him strange visions; he throws a beer at it, sending some of the crystals falling to the floor. He finds out that at least one hit In-ji, as blood streams down her arm and pools on the floor.
Sleeper Star: We want to know where Jeong-won’s house is, especially that modern-looking, sweeping front staircase. That visual is critical to the first episode.
Most Pilot-y Line: In-ji’s neighbor asks her if she killed the fiance that went AWOL. “I mean, it’s fine by me if you did.”
Our Call: SKIP IT. While we’re intrigued by the premise of a show about a “temporary marriage,” The Trunk moves so slow that we think we’ll fall asleep before any of its big questions are answered.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
