Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-Joo - ❤︎
Ok, so I rewatched this show recently, and it was just as much fun to go back to it again. There are so many things I really like, including how they touch up on issues around dating and how they have body positivity.
First, the basic plot:
Kim Bok-Joo (Lee Sung-Kyung) is a weightlifter, like her father. She's attending school where she and her friends encounter one of the swim department guys, Jung Joon-Hyung (Nam Joo-Hyuk). It turns out, Joon-Hyung was a classmate of Bok-Joo's. He had a crush on her back then, but when his mother remarried and moved to Canada, he was left in the care of his aunt and uncle. They had a son, Jung Jae-Yi (Lee Jae-Young), who is like an older brother to him. Reunited at school, it seems like, oh yeah - childhood crush romance about to happen, but no. He immediately calls her by her nickname from school - Fatty. So terrible. Long story short, they go through a love/hate thing for a little while. It's nothing extreme, it's just that he still sees her as his hero from childhood and not as a woman. He's incredibly immature, which doesn't make him appealing to hang out with in her eyes.
One day, while moving furniture in the rain, a handsome young man does the whole umbrella thing and offers to help. He's the first one who calls Bok-Joo a woman and makes her heart flutter. And he just happens to be Joon-Hyung's older brother, Jae-Yi. So now Joon-Hyung is doing his best to help Bok-Joo woo his older brother, because that's what friends do. However, in the process of all this, he also starts to see her as a woman and realizes that he has deep feelings for her. They are deep enough that he worries about her constantly and does everything to help her, including still helping her woo his older brother.
Jae-Yi works at a weight loss clinic, which Bok-Joo signs up for so she can just see his face, but her coaches want her to jump to a new weight class, which means GAINING more weight. She gets stuck at a crossroads because of her love for the doctor, and because she lied when they met and told him that she was a cellist, her whole world ends up crashing down on her from both sides. Her coaches crack down on her and get her weight up, and she ends up breaking off her chances with the doctor, telling him she is moving to Germany to play the cello. Of course, this is also ruined when he sees her at his brother's school. The truth is out, and Bok-Joo is mortified. She didn't want to be seen as a liar. With good intentions, Jae-Yi comes to cheer her on and one of her competitions, which is something even more mortifying to her. She had told Joon-Hyung that weightlifters didn't want their boyfriends coming to their competitions because of they way they look (sweaty, double chins, etc) and she is heart-broken. Joon-Hyung flips out on his brother and does his best to console Bok-Joo.
Once Bok-Joo is getting over her feelings for the doctor, Joon-Hyung uses the opportunity to treat her more like a woman and wins her heart. Keep in mind, he still calls her fatty, but he meant it in a nice way from the beginning, he's just dumb like that. Bok-Joo realizes that Joon-Hyung has always been there for her in the sweetest way and that she also has feelings for him. They begin dating, and boy is it wonderful. They are definitely relationship goal material. So sweet and kind but they also have fun and tease each other. They accept each other as they are and are proud of the accomplishments the other has made as an athlete. They are just so sweet and adorable that you want to mush their faces.
Now, for some side story business:
Bok-Joo's father (Ahn Gil-Kang) and uncle (Kang Ki-Young) run a chicken joint, where Bok-Joo and her weightlifting friends love to hang out. Her father has to go to dialysis treatments and his health is a concern throughout. It is fun to watch Joon-Hyung try to casually come in and help keep an eye on her dad when Bok-Joo can't. Her uncle is the best. He's very away that his niece is different (meaning he calls her ugly but loves her with all his heart) and he is super happy to see Joon-Hyung around. Her uncle has a brief flirtation with Bok-Joo's coach, but her heart belongs to the weightlifting professor, so that doesn't work out, but he finds a crazy girl and he is all about it.
Bok-Joo's two best friends and Joon-Hyung's best friend and roommate are an absolute treat. Her friend Nan-Hee (Cho Hye-Jung) is very flirty and feminine, while also knowing how badass she is as a weightlifter. Her other friend, Lee Seon-Ok (Lee Joo-Young) is more reserved and soft on the inside, but she also has her own struggles and her own deep love of weightlifting. Joon-Hyung's roommate, Jo Tae-Kwon (Ji Il-Joo) is amazing. He is so funny and knows how pretty he is and loves it. All three of them are really great friends to the main characters and end up developing their own friendship circle.
Joon-Hyung's ex-girlfriend, Song Shi-Ho (Kyung Soo-Jin) returns to school early in the show and becomes Bok-Joo's roommate. She is with the rhythmic gymnastics group, who are essentially the mean girls at the school and the arch-enemies of the weightlifting girls. Shi-Ho is different, and finds herself as an outcast within her own group. She is desperate to compete and win and because she is older and not at her peak performance, it pushes her over the edge. It is what caused her breaking up with Joon-Hyung and her eating disorder. She is attempting to get back together with Joon-Hyung, but that ship has long sailed. She gets to a pretty ugly place, sabotaging Bok-Joo and making her self almost deathly ill with her sleeping issues and eating disorder. She realizes one day that she just needs to chill and go out her way. She settles for friendship with Joon-Hyung, realizing that she was just desperately trying to cling on to him, and she becomes friends with Bok-Joo. She has one of the biggest character changes in the show.
Joon-Hyung also has his own struggles on the side involving his family. He finds out one day that his mom (aunt) has been the one writing postcards and buying his gifts for the last several years, and not his real mother. He struggles with this mentally and ends up making several costly mistakes in his swimming career. His brother suggests he seek psychological care, which he does. He is able to unburden a lot of this when his mother returns from Canada, surprising them all. He is so happy to see her and all of his abandonment issues come flooding to the surface, Just when it seems like they might be reconciled, he finds out she is there to get money from his family to help care for her new child. Joon-Hyung blows up at his family, finally releasing all the secrets and guilt, and he realizes that they don't love him out of pity. He is their son and brother and they love him.
There is more to it than that, but overall this show is definitely worth a watch. It's fun and funny with a very well-built friends-to-lovers relationship that will make anyone swoon.
MUST WATCH FOR EVERYONE.
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