[HanCinema's Drama Review] "My Secret Hotel" Episode 11

The focus is still almost totally on the romance…or is it? After the apparently sincere and emotionally heartfelt cliffhanger (which this episode wisely opens with), for most of the runtime we actually seem to be right back to the same lukewarm Seong-gyeom that we've seen for most of "My Secret Hotel". On top of everything else he spends a lot of time acting in a very suspicious way, and as of yet there's still no satisfactory explanation as to why.

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What particularly makes this feel so odd is that a lot of the episode is actually taken from the perspective of He-yeong. Several scenes take place entirely in his imagination, which begs a lot of questions. Yes, on the most obvious surface level these are just manifestations of his fears. But has Sang-hyo ever actually acted like this? And why is the real Seong-gyeom so subdued when he could totally do this stuff with the real Sang-hyo if he wanted to?

There's so little emphasis on the actual murder mystery compared to the question of Seong-gyeom's character that for the first time "My Secret Hotel" reminded me of a recent Korean film that did similar genre bending- "My Ordinary Love Story". The comparison is not necessarily a flattering one. Being a movie, "My Ordinary Love Story" had to move its mystery elements at a much faster pace than what "My Secret Hotel" is doing, and even then the payoff wasn't necessarily worth it.

The comedy…well, I'm still not really laughing that much at "My Secret Hotel", but on further reflection I'm not sure it's aiming for that kind of humor anyway. The main raison d'etre of the drama that I can see is to show off moderately charming characters who act in a colorful way. Emphasis on moderate, because of any of them were clearly enough drawn, it would either be too easy or too difficult to figure out who's behind the murders.

All of this is, unfortunately, a problem with a television drama that by necessity has to run for such a long time. Even at a relatively short production run of sixteen episodes "My Secret Hotel" is stretching its content a little thin. The pace would almost certainly be a lot brisker if there were only twelve. "My Secret Hotel" isn't necessarily a bad drama, but it often inspires impatience and even boredom because it really does take that long for the story to move on to the next exciting plot rail.

Review by William Schwartz

"My Secret Hotel" is directed by Hong Jong-chan, written by Kim Do-hyeon and Kim Ye-ri-II and features Yoo In-na, Jin Yi-han, Namkoong Min and Lee Young-eun.

 

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