My Name is Kim Sam Soon

South Korean actress Kim Suna who plays Kim Sam-soon (right) posing with actor Hyun Bin in the popular series My Name is Kim Sam-soon.

South Korea’s “Bridget Jones” finds sympathy among women.

She doesn’t let men push her around, is overweight and can’t dance well, and talks openly about constipation. That’s why South Korea is falling in love with Kim Sam-soon.

Kim is the lead character of the new TV soap opera My Name is Kim Sam-soon, which has rocketed to the top of the ratings since its premiere last month.

Its popularity is driven by an audience of 30-something women who see the gutsy Kim as South Korea’s “Bridget Jones” – a woman who speaks her mind and is fed up with societal pressure to marry and settle down while also living up to conventional stereotypes of beauty.

The MBC network show soared to 41.7% viewership across South Korea and is the highest-rated soap opera this year. TNS Media Korea, which compiles TV ratings, said women in their 30s are the largest group of viewers.

“The lines that Kim Sam-soon speaks in the drama, they go straight to my heart,” said Shin Hye-sun, 36, an office worker in Seoul.

“Normally, other dramas depict women of that age glamorously, but this drama shows normal people as they are,” said Kim Jin-hee, a 25-year-old jewellery designer.

Kim is a restaurant pastry chef, who got the job after working hard to save money and study cooking in France. She has a crush on her handsome, rich boss, but refuses to pander to him – instead making him get on his knees to beg for her to return to her job after she resigns in anger over having to deal with him.

Kim punctuates her frank speech with slang and her first name, “Sam-soon”, rings of countryside backwardness to Korean ears. She’s even shown urinating in public and loudly passing gas.

Producers on the show’s website say Kim is an “average 29-year-old” and note that polls show a majority of Korean women think they’re fat.

“We present the Sam-soons of this world with romance,” the producers write. “We hope the Sam-soons become as strong as Kim Sam-soon in the drama. Even if life deceives you, even if love makes you cry, become stronger and not worse.”

The show isn’t totally devoid of eye candy. American actor Daniel Henney, whose mother is ethnic Korean, has acquired national heartthrob status through his portrayal of a doctor, and his English dialogue is shown with Korean subtitles.

Some are sceptical the show actually breaks new ground in its portrayal of women.

Kim Hoon-Soon, a media studies professor at Ewha Womans University, notes Kim Sam-soon ultimately seeks to get a man and raise her social status. Viewers “were tired of the previous characters, but this is a new Cinderella,” she said.

“It’s the change in character that’s making the show popular,” Kim Hoon-Soon said. “Previously there were two types of female characters, pure or conspiring, but Sam-soon is active but naive in winning her man.”

The actress who plays Kim – Kim Suna, well-known for previous comedic roles, who gained 7kg for the part – sees the show as a beacon of hope for mature women who sympathise with their earthy heroine.

“I don’t consider myself or Sam-soon an old maid,” she said in a recent interview with film magazine Cine 21. “It’s society that casts them that way.” – AP

Source: The Star Online July 8 2005