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The Story of Park’s Marriage Contract: Episodes 1-2
by DaebakGrits
Yet another contract marriage K-drama has hit the airwaves, but this time our heroine hails from the Joseon era. She’s spunky, ambitious, and ahead of her time — until suddenly she isn’t. Transported to the year 2023, she finds herself woefully out of place and decidedly behind the times, but maybe the man with a familiar face will help her adjust to the 21st century.
EPISODES 1-2
The Story of Park’s Marriage Contract isn’t a groundbreaking drama — not that it pretended to be. In fact, the first episode contains enough K-drama tropes to fill up a bingo card, and yet, I found the premiere utterly charming. (So far) The Story of Park’s Marriage Contract has managed to do what many dramas before it have failed to do: Frankenstein a bunch of plot devices stolen from past iconic K-dramas into something that feels fresh despite its unoriginality.
Our amalgamation begins with the introduction of our leading lady, PARK YEON-WOO (Lee Se-young), who moonlights as the mysterious and highly sought after hanbok and undergarment designer. Yeon-woo is the daughter of a noble family, and although her wealth and loving parents have granted her more freedoms than the average woman of her time, she desires complete independence. She’s simultaneously keenly aware of the unfairness of her circumstances, and utterly naive in thinking that the solution to her problems is a fresh start in either Qing or the Americas, where — let’s be real — we all know an unmarried Joseon woman isn’t going to fare much better.
Yeon-woo’s dreams first take a hit after her male business partner betrays her and starts producing clothing copied from her designs. Her brand has lost its value, but Yeon-woo is a woman with a plan. She decides that the way to rebuild her reputation is to have the eldest son of the Kang family — a man so ugly that he remains unwed at the ripe old age of twenty-eight — married while wearing her designs. Yeon-woo theorizes that then people will attribute the end of his bachelorhood to her clothing designs. And just like that, Yeon-woo’s brand will rebound.
To put her plan in motion, Yeon-woo sneaks into the Kang household, intent on making her marriage proposition to the ugliest man she can find. Instead, she meets KANG TAE-HA (Bae In-hyuk), and he’s so handsome that his meet-cute with Yeon-woo is worthy of not one — but two! — swoony moments full of prolonged eye contact and falling cherry blossoms. Before Tae-ha can introduce himself as the “ugly” bachelor Yeon-woo’s seeking, she has to make a hasty exit because she spots her mother among the guests arriving for the youngest Kang son’s birthday party.
Unfortunately, at this point, things go from bad to worse for Yeon-woo’s secret business. The king catches the princess wearing a mini-skirt and bans all scandalous, immoral clothing from the kingdom. And just like that, Yeon-woo’s business goes up in (literal) flames. To make matters worse, Yeon-woo’s mother (Kim Yeo-jin), who has known all along about her daughter’s secret profession, delivers some harsh truth bombs. The freedom and independence Yeon-woo dreams of cannot be attained by women, and the few privileges she has benefited from over the years have been due to her parents’ leniency and social status. Being a single, independent woman won’t make her life better.
Yeon-woo resigns herself to her status in life and an arranged marriage to the “ugly” Kang bachelor — but not without first making one last ditch effort to run away. Tae-ha catches her in the act of climbing over the wall, but instead of snitching on her — or being offended that she would try to run away from their upcoming wedding — he takes her on a date.
You see, Tae-ha has been smitten with Yeon-woo since a one-time encounter as children, and ever since then, he’s cherished the butterfly norigae she left behind. Yeon-woo, however, has no recollection of meeting him — or at least she doesn’t recognize him — but each time she encounters Tae-ha in the present, she grows more and more fond of him because he’s charming and — more importantly — supportive of her dreams. Little does she know, he’s her husband-to-be, but before she can find out that tidbit of information, her father finds her and takes her back home, where she resigns to follow through with her duty as a daughter.
The wedding day arrives, and while I was eagerly anticipating the moment Yeon-woo discovered her new husband’s true identity, I failed to pick up on the subtle cues that not all was well with Tae-ha. As the story intended, I assumed Tae-ha was just another staunchly independent man who was either averse to the idea of marriage or holding out for the right woman (e.g. Yeon-woo). But sadly, our nobleman has a heart condition and fears dying young — thus leaving his widow behind to navigate his stepmother’s (Jin Kyung) machinations without him.
On their wedding night, Tae-ha cuts the strings of their hanbok to signify the end of their marriage, but Yeon-woo is staunchly against an annulment and falls asleep blocking the door to prevent his exit. As Tae-ha gazes fondly at her sleeping form, his heart rate accelerates, he coughs up blood, and before the sun rises on their married life, Tae-ha dies. Despite the unexpectedness and abruptness of Tae-ha’s death, it didn’t feel rushed to me because the story did well with Tae-ha’s introduction and characterization. I felt appropriately sad and outraged by his demise.
I can’t say the same, however, for Yeon-woo’s subsequent trip to the future. One minute she’s mourning her husband and telling her deceitful mother-in-law that she will properly perform her duties as a widow (despite the Kang family’s duplicitousness of hiding his condition prior to the wedding) — the next she’s being kidnapped and tossed into a well. Would it have killed the drama gods to have given me five more minutes to process Tae-ha’s death with Yeon-woo before we moved on to the fantasy story element?
After falling into the well, Yeon-woo is magically transported to the future, where Kang Tae-ha (2023 edition) fishes her out of a hotel swimming pool. This Tae-ha is nothing like the sweet one from the Joseon era. Instead, he’s the K-drama stereotype of a stoic CEO. His only act of selflessness is the inconvenience of faking an elaborate marriage to appease his grandfather, KANG SANG-MO (Chun Ho-jin), who refuses to get a life-saving surgery in the United States until after he’s seen his grandson settled into wedded bliss. So when the fake bride-to-be fails to show up for the wedding, Tae-ha turns to the crazy, chlorine-drenched woman already calling him “husband.”
Yeon-woo, poor thing, thinks she’s arrived in the afterlife and is utterly devastated that her husband doesn’t remember her, so when Tae-ha proposes marriage — albeit fake — she complies, hopeful that this marriage is some sort of afterlife ritual that will result in them being together. After the wedding, though, Tae-ha grows frustrated by her clinginess and crazy behaviors, and unsympathetically explains that she’s in the year 2023. Not Joseon. Not the afterlife.
Okay, fine, Yeon-woo might accept that she’s traveled to the future, but she has a harder time believing that Tae-ha is not her husband. His hair may be shorter, but the name and face are a match! But then Tae-ha ditches her and leaves his assistant, HONG SUNG-PYO (Jo Bok-rae), with instructions to pay her off and take her to a hospital. The uncaring abandonment is decidedly uncharacteristic of her kind husband.
Instead of going to the hostpital to get her mental health checked, Yeon-woo wanders off on her own, distracted by a group of foreigners in hanbok who lead her to Gyeongbokgung Palace, where Yeon-woo officially accepts that she’s a time traveler. Along with this acceptance comes the terrifying reality that she has absolutely no idea how to survive in this crazy world, and Yeon-woo’s utter cluelessness is not only extremely amusing, but also a testament to this drama’s attention to detail. Sure, we get the expected fish-out-of-water-and-time clichés — like the inability to walk in high heels — but I thought Yeon-woo’s struggle to use a lever door knob was a stroke of genius.
Yeon-woo continues to bumble her way through Seoul, aided briefly by a knowledgeable young boy, which only emphasizes Yeon-woo’s child-like wonder and helplessness. Luckily for her, though, Sang-mo’s surgery was rescheduled, and Tae-ha finds himself desperately needing his fake wife. After only one night of homelessness, Tae-ha locates Yeon-woo and offers her money in exchange for pretending to be his wife for the day. Having finally figured out how to use modern currency, Yeon-woo accepts, realizing she will need the cash to survive in 2023.
However, after charming Sang-mo’s socks off, Yeon-woo refuses to leave Tae-ha’s home. You see, now that she’s processed her situation and accepted that the grumpy Tae-ha does not have her back, Yeon-woo’s mind has cleared and her savviness has returned. She’s aware that Tae-ha needs her to keep up his charade of having a wife, which gives her the upper hand. So, until she finds her own place, she blackmails Tae-ha into letting her crash with him. After all, what will happen if Sang-mo stops by for another unexpected visit?
The next surprise visitor, however, is Tae-ha’s half-brother KANG TAE-MIN (Yoo Seon-ho), who already had a rather contentious meeting with Yeon-woo during her brief period of homelessness. Right behind him is Tae-ha’s stepmother MIN HYE-SOOK (also played by Jin Kyung). She’s another familiar face from the Joseon era, and Yeon-woo is instantly on guard when she sees her former mother-in-law — as she should be.
All signs point to history repeating itself. Not only is Hye-sook giving off some seriously sinister vibes — which makes me wonder how far she will go to block Tae-ha from inheriting his grandfather’s company — but the way Tae-ha tracks his heartrate suggests he has a similar heart condition to his Joseon counterpart. At this point, I’m seriously hoping it’s a misdirect, because I don’t want the potential death of our male lead looming over the rest of our story. I grew abnormally attached to Joseon Tae-ha after only one episode, and I’ll probably cry if I have to watch another version of him die — especially if I have the time to watch him grow from a stoic grumpy pants to a loving and doting contract husband.
Overall, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the first two episodes of this drama. As I mentioned above, the plot isn’t original, but I think this drama is off to a good start because of its characterizations. The characters are likable, and although their Joseon counterparts are portrayed as being perhaps a bit too modern, it makes me all the more excited to see them in a time and setting where those personalities can shine.
Take Yeon-woo’s relationship with her handmaid, SA WOL (Joo Hyun-young). It’s pretty common in sageuk for the noblewoman to be “friends” with her maid, but the companionship between Yeon-woo and Sa Wol felt genuine. In particular, the scene where they drank the king’s milk made them feel like equals. Again, not the most historically accurate portrayal of a noblewoman and her servant, but for the purpose of this K-drama, I was happy to see that Sa Wol somehow traveled to the future, too. I can’t wait to see them reunited and under circumstances where they can freely toss aside the caste system.
Along that vein, I appreciate how this drama gave a purpose to the time travel plot device beyond it being a means for Yeon-woo to find love and/or correct the past, which is usually the case for such stories. In Joseon, Yeon-woo wanted freedom and independence that was denied to her by her status as a woman. Now, she’s in a time and place where she can — for the most part — achieve what she desires. So, in addition to a love story, this drama is about female empowerment and independence, and I’m curious to see how the drama will continue to balance that theme with the romance plot — especially when our present-day Tae-ha hasn’t been the greatest ally to our leading lady.
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