Opinion | Netflix K-drama Little Women adapts 19th-century US novel with Kim Go-eun, Nam Ji-hyun and
It’s a wad of cash, intended to send the young painting prodigy on a school trip to culture-sodden Europe; but their envious, self-serving mother, Ahn Hee-yeon (Park Ji-young), has other ideas, vanishing into the night after stealing the 2.5 million won (US$1,750).
Although the elder sisters hardly look like they are short of cash (one is a television journalist, the other an accountant), they have long been saddled with the gambling and supplementary debts of their absent father. As ever, the women have been left to pick up the many pieces.
And no matter how they try to keep up appearances, vicious class snobbery, especially in the workplace, pursues both – although neither is prepared for just how deep the evils associated with wealth actually run.
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From the off, we have wronged characters duelling with realistic problems, which become worse as the stakes get higher, with corporate fraud, political scandal, possible suicide and probable murder all crowding in on the sisters’ already busy schedule.
Nor is it easy to tell the good guys from the bad when it comes to corporate suits Choi Do-il (Wi Ha-joon), who believes “nothing in this world is more sacred than money”; his intimidating boss Shin Hyun-min (Oh Jung-se), a shoe fetishist; and greasy, furtive politician Park Jae-sang (Um Ki-joon).
Throughout the sisters keep their pride largely intact, resisting charity, supporting each other and In-hye and doing the right thing in a rigidly structured society that eschews compassion.
Louisa May Alcott might not have recognised, initially, this latest incarnation of her semi-ironically titled novel. She would have been less surprised by its international timelessness.
Martin Clunes island hops the Pacific Ocean
The success of comedy-drama Doc Martin might have duped some viewers into thinking there’s nothing more to its star, Martin Clunes, than misanthropic grumpiness, at least on screen.
Disabusing us of that notion is Clunes in one of his various other guises, that of travel-series presenter, in Martin Clunes: Islands of the Pacific (BBC Earth).
Previous Islands series have accorded Clunes similar star status, with his name above the main title – there can be few lumps of rock remaining not bearing the imprint of the Clunes boot – so what does he do this time to deserve it?
Avuncular, wide-eyed with wonder and genuinely thrilled to be out among the “tens of thousands of islands” sprinkling the 163 million sq km of an ocean “covering a quarter of the Earth’s surface”, Clunes is prepared to play the klutz, making a fool of himself while saddling up in the Marquesas or swinging his hips on a Fijian dance floor.
Discounting swipes at British colonialism and French nuclear testing, he is never judgmental, whether meeting third-gender Tongan leitis, a fisherman who turned conservationist after seeing an alarming decline in shark numbers, thanks partly to demand for shark’s fin soup, or the Vanuatu tribe that worshipped Britain’s Prince Philip as a god.
With his passing, the tribe hoped for a related British royal successor. No word yet on whether King Charles has attained divine status.
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