- Reads 28,656
- Votes 392
- Parts 18
- Time 5h 33m
Complete, First published Jan 08, 2016
Table of contents
- Fri, Jan 8, 2016
- Chapter 1: The Reason I Take Leave from School Fri, Jan 8, 2016
- Fri, Jan 8, 2016
- Tue, Jan 12, 2016
- Wed, Jan 13, 2016
- Tue, Jan 19, 2016
- Thu, Jan 21, 2016
- Tue, Jan 26, 2016
- Tue, Jan 26, 2016
- Wed, Jan 27, 2016
- Tue, Feb 2, 2016
- Wed, Feb 3, 2016
- Mon, Feb 22, 2016
- Mon, Feb 22, 2016
- Tue, Feb 23, 2016
- Wed, Feb 24, 2016
- Thu, Mar 10, 2016
- Thu, Mar 10, 2016
Based on webcomic "Cheese in the Trap" by Soon Ggi [first published from July 7, 2010 via comic.naver.com/webtoon/]
Drama depicts the delicate relationship between female university student Hong Seol [Kim Go-Eun] and her senior Yoo Jung [Park Hae-Jin]. Hong-Seol works part-time due to her family's poor background. Yoo Jung is good looking, gets good grades, athletic and has a kind personality, but he has a dark side.
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Netizens initially had strong opinions over the casting of Kim Go Eun who is relatively unknown in k-drama land despite snagging multiple awards for her acting skills. Now that the first few episodes are out, I think everyone is in agreement that she deserves the crown. On the other hand, Park Hae Jin, the lovable second lead in You From Another Star, plays her leading man as the enigmatic college senior. I doubt anyone objected to that.
Cheese in the Trap had me grinning from the first few seconds. Hong Seol’s drunken shenanigans peaked my interest and I wanted to know why she was pointing an accusatory finger at the seemingly-innocent Yoo Jung.
Episode 1 revolves around the madness that comes with registering for classes on the first day of school. Hong Seol [Kim Go Eun] is your average university student and she has systematically planned the perfect class schedule and secured a seat in Professor Han’s class as a surefire way to keep her scholarship.
Yet on the first day of school, Hong Seol is appalled to learn that someone maliciously used her student account to drop Prof. Han’s class. The biggest suspect turns out to be none other than Yoo Jung [Park Hae Jin] who has done nothing but smile sweetly at Seol. Nonetheless, the Sherlock in Seol tells her that there is something amiss behind that friendly facade.
First Impressions: I like how Seol’s character can be so plain awkward yet adorable at the same time. I look forward to seeing the budding romance between the two leads especially since Yoo Jung is clearly making an effort to pursue Seol. The episode flew by in the sense that I didn’t feel any minute was wasted, even Seol’s friends Eun Taek and Bo Ra were hilarious [ahem, the classroom scene].
But then again, I confess to getting occasionally swayed by Seol’s conspiracy theories. What if her often unfounded cynicism towards Yoo Jung turns out to be true? The appearance of siblings Baek In Ho and Baek In ha already foreshadows a backstory behind the mysterious Yoo Jung. Is this actually a thriller and not a rom-com? Is Park Hae Jin the cheese and Kim Go Eun the mouse to be trapped?
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The drama adaptation of Cheese in the Trap last 2016 has been met with so much love in the beginning as it explains the complicated relationship of college students, including the difficult relation that blossomed between the leads Hong Seol and Yoo Jung due to prejudices and misunderstandings during the early stages of them being acquaintances in college.
However, the drama was also accompanied with many controversies as it came to an open end, with some loose ties and a very vague conclusion in which Yoo Jung decided to leave Hong Seol. She had to wait for him to respond to her emails that he continuously ignored. The drama ends with them unknowingly passing by each other at the pedestrian and Yoo Jung finally responding to one of her emails, giving hope to viewers that somehow there is this chance that their story really continues even if the drama is over.
On the other hand, the movie adaptation of Cheese in the Trap in 2017 has shown a gaping difference in comparison to the TV drama.
Far from how the series attacked the story, which is much lighter with bits and pieces of comedy in between and a totally compelling character development while concocting a gushing college romance between Seol and Jung, the movie has shown a rather much dangerous setting for the characters who were college students that were faced with much more serious problems like a psychopath stalker, Oh Young Gun, and the red brick guy who victimizes Seol in one of the scenes on the latter part of the story where they rode the elevator together.
Gone were the typical college student issues were they just thought about how to finish a group project when everyone’s just interested. Gone was the issue about friends who only get close because of Jung’s money. Or the worries that Seol has as she struggled to juggle her studies with her part-time jobs and her piling up bills. Or the outstanding issue with Jung’s relationship towards In Ho or In Ha or even his father. Or Seol’s selflessness being taken the wrong way that most people took her for granted, just like how her parents did. Yes, there were bits and pieces of those, but they were mere glimpses of the much personal struggles of each of them that made their character development in the series sweeter and steadier in progress.
Those things made them endearing in the tv adaptation, but I cannot say the same for the movie since character development was almost nonexistent. I felt too that instead of an introverted personality, Seol seemed more of a pushover here. Seol in the series was more thoughtful and thorough even though she was awkward with almost everyone, she looks, feels and sounds like it. Her insecurities and her struggles in the series were all real, even her struggles with her relationship with Jung later in the drama seemed real since she wasn’t the most confident with her looks. I can say the same thing for her, since Kim Go Eun definitely fit the description of Seol in the webtoon. Seol was average in looks, her hair looks like ‘dog’s fur’ as Baek In Ho termed it and her main strength definitely didn’t come from good looks but hard work and her genuine care for others.
In fact, I feel like it isn’t just Hong Seol’s character that is compromised. I think all of the characters hasn’t been much explained in the movie and we can attribute this to the time constraint. I mean, a two-hour run in the film is a far cry from what a full series can do to slowly but surely introduce the characters and build up their personalities. It’s understandable but definitely not forgivable. Because they totally ruined my movie experience. It would have been nice if character progression remained evident even if the plot had gone a much more serious and darker route.
Let’s give more examples to this. Say for one, Yoo Jung may have been a hard nut to crack with a dark aura surrounding him, but at least the drama was able to explain in its latter half how it boils down to his passive-aggressive personality. Jung clearly has anger issues and the subtle reactions and gestures Seol notices on him when he interacts with others were the tiny giveaways throughout the drama to uncover his true personality. It just so happen Jung has good control of his emotions. He’s good at suppressing them. None of that was explored in the movie, which is sad, because we’re only shown a guy with psychopatic tendencies. Jung is more cryptic in the film and its hard to understand how he’s able to overcome this, especially with the story progression. Seol may have contributed in his change but everything just feels so abrupt in the movie.
We also have Jang Bo Ra and Kwon Eun Taek, whose characters barely shined. Sandara Park’s portrayal of Bo Ra is a sight to see despite her short screen time. I truly wished though her relationship with Eun Taek was made clearer.
Then there’s also Baek In Ho and Baek In Ha. These two played a major role in adding twists to Seol and Jung’s lives in the drama, but I feel like In Ho’s character hasn’t been given enough justice in the film. Yes, there is also a backstory between him and Jung–of what happened in their past–but it’s as much a blur as almost everything in the movie. Baek In Ha, too. Her personality seems crude–and did I mention batshit crazy?–but she fails to stick to her character the moment she got back her credit card from Jung and her presence just fades away after that.
I had so much expectation for the film because of how good the series was minus the vague ending, but it was flushed down the drain as soon as 20 minutes into the film. I mean, given that it has skipped the introductions and gone straight past the first arc of Seol and Jung’s relationship, I had given it so much benefit of the doubt, but it still failed to get a good grasp of my attention. I would have skipped some parts but I wanted to see how different and how also similar it was to the series and I’m still amazed at how awfully different and bad it was.
There was nothing that could have made me want to stay and watch it other than the fact that I found the last 10 minutes its saving grace while showing how Jung came to like Seol and his last line that he was practicing in front of a sick and sleeping Seol, which says ‘Seol will you go out with me?’, that is more like a promise that made everything a bit sweeter. Seems to me that this is the only satisfying thing about this movie. Ironically, it’s much better where the drama adaptation lacked and it strikingly failed at what the drama was able to do.
More so, though there are parts that had pleased me, I feel like the characters lacked the chemistry that the original cast had. It had seemed to me that the story only lived because of the plot and not because the characters’ emotions were driving it to flow.
Additionally, I felt like it was too much that despite the original storyline focusing more on Seol and Jung’s romance and their relationship with the people around them, that at some point in the middle to end of the film, it suddenly became a thriller with some chasing and brawls and dark alleys. I felt like that was way to go overboard and though it’s a change I think it’s unwarranted for what was originally a romance centered youth story.
I do want to say something nice to the film but I feel like there’s more to judge than to praise as everything passed like a blur, with little to no way of figuring out how the story flowed especially with the poor editing and the hasty pace and the dizzying storytelling in this version. I don’t know. Everything’s just half-baked I hardly got a grip of what was happening and couldn’t connect with any of their emotions.
Rating:
I’m not sure if it’s because I had watched the series and even read the webtoon and found great similarities between the two than this film that I am quite disappointed with this version, but it’s how I feel. Grading this I think giving it a 2.1 out of 5 is fair enough.
mejustgotlucky is a full-time writer, fan and dreamer. A part-time realist and romanticist. Loves South Korea and fan fictions like they are the most essential for breathing. Secretly, she dreams on travelling the world and capturing them under the lens of a camera. One day, she dreams of writing about all of her travels and experiences . View all posts by mejustgotlucky
Is Cheese in the Trap worth watching?
It is really quite amazing how much of the story is communicated in only a fraction of the time. But I really think it's a good idea to see both versions. The other one has several excellent actors that really brought the story to life. But it left so much unsaid with a truly unsatisfactory ending.
Which is better Cheese in the Trap movie or drama?
The korean drama is better because many scenes was seen there since it has many episodes and almost an hour each episode while on this one, this is a movie, because of the limited time, it only shows the main scenes in the webtoon. No hate just love. ♥ Kuddos to the hardworking individuals who made this movie!
Is Cheese in the Trap webtoon good?
Never seen such a realistic, complex, layered story like this before. The writing in this is the best I've ever seen in a webcomic. The writer is truly a genius. The plot for Cheese in the Trap seems very basic on paper, but captivatingly realistic.
What is the plot of the Korean drama Cheese in the Trap?
Synopsis. Hong Seul, a third-year college student, just wants to get good grades and earn enough money for tuition. But when classmate Yoo Jung returns from the army, she is the only one sees past his pleasant veneer to the person who constantly causes trouble for her. Joo Yeon's harassment of Seol turns dangerous.