“Angry Mom” (엄마가 뿔났다)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
March 14, 2019

☆☆☆☆
Jo Kang-Ja / Jo Bang-Weol (played by Kim Hee-Sun)
Oh Ah-Ran (played by Kim Yoo-Jung)
Go Bok-Dong (played by Ji Soo)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

Do we have any moms reading this right now (angry or otherwise)? If so, you already know that we will do just about anything to ensure that our children are safe and protected.

So what do you do if your child is being bullied by her classmates? If you’re Jo Kang-Ja, you go undercover at your daughter’s high school to ferret out the mean kids and try to right the wrongs. Yes, this sounds like “21 Jump Street,” Korean style. But thanks to some great acting by Kim Hee-Sun and Kim Yoo-Jung (as her daughter, Oh Ah-Ran), it works.

As beautiful as she is, Kim Hee-Sun looks much too old to be an actual teenager. It was almost laughable how not only teens, but also teachers much younger than her, kept addressing her as a kid. But, what’s important here is that she has the mannerisms of a kid down pat and makes you want to believe in her.

Teenagers may be tough, but they’re no match for this strong-willed ajumma. This series also brings up the question of whether it’s OK to be a bully if you are standing up for the rights of the weak.

Speaking of which … Kang-Ja had quite the bullying past of her own. I was disappointed that the writers never had her show remorse for her own past teenage behavior. And when she does 21 Jump Street it to her daughter’s school, she’s a bully again, not only to the kids who tormented her child, but also to a naive male teacher (Ji Hyun-Woo) who is one of the few at the school who is trying to do the right thing.

Is he irritating? Yes. He’s annoyingly optimistic and a pushover, much like Jang Na-Ra’s character in “School 2013.” But he’s a good egg overall. Meanwhile, she’s snowed by the smarmy teacher who’s having sex with at least one student, but says all the lies that parents want to hear.

Ji Soo plays Go Bok-Dong, the toughest kid in high school. And though he starts off as little more than a gangster’s henchman, the storyline is transparent enough that viewers can see that he is being forced to do things he would rather not. He develops a slow-burning crush on Kang-Ja, which doesn’t abate even after he learns she is at least twice his age. But the crush was sweet, moreso than problematic, because I think he was in love with the mom characteristics that she showed him (making sure he was fed, giving him advice) rather than any feelings of true romance.

This series could’ve been much stronger if more attention had been paid to details. Many of the characters started off almost like wacky cartoon depictions, before their humanity came through in the finals episodes.

I know this is a fictionalized series set in modern-day South Korea, but the scenes where parents bribe the teachers into giving their children preferential treatment rang all too true. My mother had told me about incidents in Korea where parents had to bribe the teachers to get fair treatment for their children. (Also…obviously not every teacher we had in Korea was corrupt.) When my sister was a tween in Seoul, she came home upset one day, because her artwork was consistently passed over from being displayed at school — even though her paintings were acknowledged as the best. My parents hadn’t bribed the teacher, hence, my sister wasn’t favored. My mother consoled my sister by telling her that we were immigrating to the U.S. soon and things would be more fair there.

And while the U.S. certainly isn’t perfect, what my mother had predicted was true. Our teachers didn’t ask about our wealth (or lack thereof) and my sister’s artwork was prominently displayed.

Airdates: Sixteen episodes — each about 70-minutes long — aired on MBC from  March 18 to May 7, 2015.

Spoiler Alert:

Ah-Ran’s best friend had an affair with a powerful teacher. After getting bored with her, he broke up with her and tried to force her to transfer to a different school. When that failed, he pushed her off the school building to her death. An autopsy showed that she was pregnant when she died, but they never performed a forensic paternity test prior to cremating the body. 🙄 If I had been her mother, I would’ve insisted that all the evidence was collected ASAP so that statutory rape charges could’ve been filed after the baby’s father was identified.

I know that was a plot device to keep the series rolling. But it was painful to watch such an oversight.

Also, Kang-Ja and many of the characters obliviously hand over one-of-a-kind evidence to corrupt government officials without making a backup copy. Granted, she didn’t realize at the time that the Ministry of Education and police department were filled with evil men. But having a copy safely tucked away is always a good idea. Or she could’ve taken along a reputable person with her (a reporter or a judge that she knew from her troubled childhood) as a witness to what she was handing over.

The big secret of the series is, “Who is Ah-Ran’s biological father?” It wasn’t Ahn Dong-Chil — the local gangster, who terrorizes everyone. Rather, it was Dong-Chil’s younger brother, who had been Kang-Ja’s high school sweetheart. Dong-Chil never liked Kang-Ja and ordered her to stay away from his sibling. The boy tried to protect Kang-Ja and ended up being accidentally stabbed to death by his own brother.

© 2019 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved