Series / My Rosy Life

My Rosy Life is a 2005 South Korean television series which ran for 24 episodes.

Maeng Soon-yi is a middle-aged housewife who has spent her life sacrificing for her family. She looks after her father, a hopeless alcoholic. She cooks and cleans for her husband Sung-moon, her shrewish mother-in-law Soon-yi, and her two daughters. She works odd jobs to supplement the family income since Sung-moon's career at a bank seems to have stagnated. In the backstory, she didn't get an education, instead going to work so her younger siblings Chul-soo and Young-yi could go to school instead.

She has been repaid poorly. Her awful mother-in-law is always shrieking about Soon-yi's failure to produce sons and her failures as a homemaker. Her father continues to make no effort to stop drinking. Her brother and sister make no effort to shoulder any part of the burden of looking after their father. Worst of all, Sung-moon is having an affair with the widow of a former coworker.

Said affair causes Sung-moon to demand a divorce. Soon-yi is still reeling from this when she gets still worse news: she has been diagnosed with stomach cancer. Faced with these shocks, Soon-yi has an epiphany, and decides to start living her life for herself.

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Tropes:

• Alcohol Hic: Young-yi does this in episode 12, when she meets Dr. Ji in a bar after getting very intoxicated.
• The Alcoholic: Soon-yi's father, Maeng, who is introduced at the police station drunk, after he assaulted a cashier for refusing to sell him more liquor. He is mired deep in depression.
• All Take and No Give: Pretty much true of Soon-yi's entire family. They have spent years taking advantage of her love and generosity.
• As You Know: Soon-yi's mother-in-law refers to Chul-soo as "that brother of yours, the doctor from America."
• The Atoner: Sung-moon through the last third of the series, after he finds out about his wife's cancer, has his Heel Realization about what a huge asshole he's been, and tries to make the best of Soon-yi's last days.
• Beach Episode: In episode 22 the whole gang goes to Jeju Island, the big Korean vacation spot. Sung-moon is trying to give Soon-Yi some pleasure with the time she has left.
• Be a Whore to Get Your Man: The patriarchy of 2005 South Korea is reflected when Soon-yi's own sister Young-yi says that Sung-moon is cheating on her because she isn't putting enough effort into her appearance, and she needs to get tarted up to take care of her man's needs. She puts on some makeup and some lipstick, and tries to have some sex, but it doesn't work, as Sung-moon only has thoughts of his mistress.
• Blood from the Mouth: The repeated references to Soon-yi's nausea and stomach pains in the first five episodes are pretty heavy foreshadowing, but it gets real obvious by episode 6, when she starts coughing up blood.
• Catapult Nightmare: How Soon-yi wakes up in episode 9 after having a dream where she strangles her husband.
• Comforting Comforter: Soon-yi's endless patience is demonstrated with how she drapes a blanket over her drunken father after he passes out.
• Contrived Coincidence: In true Korean drama style, people keep running into each other in the streets as if Seoul were a small town instead of a teeming metropolis of ten million. Both Soon-yi and Young-yi spot Sung-moon out and about with his mistress and her kid on different occasions. In one episode Sung-moon takes the mistress and the kid to an amusement park at the same time that Soon-yi takes her daughters there, leading to an awkward confrontation.
• Crash-Into Hello: More or less, as Young-yi meets her new love interest Dr. Ji Bak-sa in episode 12, when she falls right into him after getting hammered at a bar.
• December–December Romance: Between Mr. Maeng and the older lady who keeps the shop across the alley from Mr. Maeng's house. They get married in episode 20.
• Dirty Old Man: Mr. Maeng's three elderly buddies. In episode 14 they are looking at pictures of bikini models and wondering if their breasts are real or fake. (Amusingly, since this series is set in 2005, they are looking at grainy photos on a tiny flip phone.)
• Distant Finale: A brief "one year later" epilogue shows the family stopping by Soon-yi's urn and leaving flowers and cards.
• Downer Ending: Soon-yi dies, and everyone cries a lot.
• Dramatic Drop:
  • In episode 21, Young-yi is still trying to keep Dr. Ji at arm's length, because she's afraid of committing to a new relationship. After he confronts her in a parking lot and gives her a dramatic I Will Wait for You pledge, she dramatically drops her shopping bag, and then plants The Big Damn Kiss on him.
  • In the last episode Sung-moon comes back with Soon-yi's order of beef soup, only to find her unconscious, with the blood she's been vomiting up everywhere. He takes her to the hospital, where she dies.
• Feet-First Introduction: Played for comedy with Miss Bong. She's introduced with her stocking-clad feet and high heels sticking out of a truck—and then those feet are kicking back and forth in the air, as the cab of the truck is high up and she can't get down.
• Food Slap: Soon-yi gives Sung-moon a richly deserved glass of water to the face in episode 8, after they meet in their favorite romantic cafe only for him to tell her that he still wants a divorce.
• Forgotten Anniversary: If it's not bad enough that Sung-moon asks his wife for a divorce, he does it on their anniversary, which he forgot.
• From Bad to Worse: Things are not going well for poor Soon-yi. Her in-laws treat her as a slave, expecting her to do all the cooking and cleaning, with her horrendous mother-in-law constantly upbraiding her for not keeping house well enough and not giving birth to a son. Her husband is cheating on her, and eventually demands a divorce. All that is very bad! Then she finds out she has stomach cancer. Then she finds out it's spread everywhere and she has three months to live.
• Gray Rain of Depression:
  • Soon-yi ambles listlessly through a pouring rainstorm in episode 5, deep in depression over the collapse of her marriage.
  • Rain pours down on Jung-do in episode 17, as he stands outside Young-yi's apartment building following the final dissolution of their relationship.
• Groin Attack: Soon-yi kicks Sung-moon square in the nuts in a confrontation in episode 3. It's briefly satisfying but it doesn't really help her situation.
• Heel Realization:
  • Sung-moon gets this in a big way in episode 14 when he finds out that Soon-yi is desperately ill with cancer. There's a flashback montage of him being verbally and physically abusive to her, as he lies on the floor and sobs.
  • Soon-yi's awful bitch of a mother-in-law does this in episode 17 when she gets the news, complete with a very similar scene in which she's left on the ground sobbing through a flashback montage of her being bitchy to Soon-yi.
• I Have This Friend: How Soon-yi tells her nightmare of a mother-in-law in episode 3 that Sung-moon is cheating on her. Mom-in-law, who isn't too bright, doesn't get it.
• Incurable Cough of Death: In the first episode Soon-yi complains of a stomachache. She has cancer.
• Melodrama: Tragedy, weeping, death, heartbreak, more tragedy and weeping, in the story of a devoted mom who is dumped by her husband at the same time she discovers she's terminally ill. Viewers who do a "drink when somebody cries" drinking game may die of alcohol poisoning.
• Missing Mom: Soon-yi's mother ran off, abandoning the family when Soon-yi was ten, and has not been heard from since. Naturally, the mom eventually appears, after Soon-yi tracks her down. She shows up in episode 13, working as a waitress, and with an abusive alcoholic for a partner.
• The Mistress:
  • Miss Bong, who in the backstory was apparently the long-term mistress to Sung-moon's father. She shows up at the family's one-year memorial ceremony, and regards herself as the father's second wife.
  • In the present there's Oh Mi-ja, a widow who has been taking money from and giving sex to Sung-moon. She has another lover who isn't married, and her threat to dump Sung-moon and marry the other man is what leads Sung-moon to demand a divorce from Soon-yi.
  • Then there's Soon-yi's younger sister, Young-yi, who herself is having an affair with a married man. Young-yi starts feeling more guilty about her own choices after finding out what's happening with her sister.
• Monochrome Past:
  • In episode 5 Soon-yi, deep in depression, spots the cafe where Sung-moon asked her to marry him. Cue a flashback of the event, in black and white.
    • Romantic Rain: It's raining outside in said flashback, as Sung-moon desperately pleads with Soon-yi to marry him.
  • Another such flashback, as the family squabbles over who'll get the apartment, cuts to a flashback in black and white of the four of them entering their new apartment for the first time.
  • A monochrome flashback in episode 13 shows Sung-moon giving Soon-yi a wedding ring, ten years ago.
• Noodle Incident: Despite Soon-yi's mother showing up several times, we never do find out why she abandoned her family when Soon-yi was ten.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Soon-yi's awful, awful mother-in-law, who is constantly shouting at her (literally shouting) about spending too much time looking after her own father, or for not bearing sons, or for not cooking enough.
• Parking Garage:
  • Soon-yi follows her husband to a parking garage in episode 2, and that's where she hears Sung-moon telling Mi-ja that he only loves her and he's definitely getting a divorce.
  • Young-yi's lover Jung-do, trying to restart their adulterous affair in episode 13, confronts her in a parking garage. She rejects him.
• Possessive Wrist Grab:
  • Sung-moon does this more than once with Mi-ja in the scene where she's attempting to break up with hiim.
  • Jung-do grabs Young-yi by the wrist and drags her out of a restaurant in episode 17, as he keeps trying to restart their affair.
• Promotion to Parent: Soon-yi at the age of ten became the person taking care of the whole family, after her mother ran away and left her shiftless husband and three children.
• Shower of Angst: Soon-yi sits on the floor of the shower fully clothed, sobbing as the water comes down, in episode 9 after she finds out she has stomach cancer.
• Splash of Color: The show does this within Monochrome Past flashbacks. When there's a flashback to the cafe where Sung-moon asked Soon-yi to marry him ten years ago, the flashback is in black and white but the neon sign for the cafe is still in color. In episode 13 there's another flashback at the same cafe, this time showing Sung-moon giving his wife a wedding ring; once again the scene is in monochrome, but the ring still gleams in color.
• Split-Screen Phone Call:
  • In episode 10 when Soon-yi drunk-dials her husband in the middle of the night.
  • Happens again in episode 19 when Soon-yi calls her sister and yells at her for ditching a date with Dr. Ji.
  • In episode 23 Young-yi drunk-dials Dr. Ji in a far happier context, babbling sentimentally about how much she likes him. Amusingly, she passes out cold while Dr. Ji is still chattering on the phone.
• Tragic Dropout: Part of Soon-yi's sad backstory. She didn't go to school, so her younger siblings could instead. She now feels her lack of education.
• Trophy Wife: Mi-ha becomes this. As she tells Sung-moon directly when he confronts her, her older lover Mr. Kim has enough money to take care of her and her son, which Sung-moon can't seeing as how he's not nearly as wealthy and has two other children. As far as the loan that she scammed Sung-moon out of immediately before breaking up with him, she spitefully tells him that it's back pay for all the sex they had.
• The Voice: Chul-soo is only heard as a voice on the telephone. He went to the USA to study, has settle down and married a Korean-American woman, and has no interest in moving back to Korea to help with their alcoholic father.
• Voiceover Letter: In episode 14, when Sung-moon finally opens Soon-yi's letter and, via her voiceover, finds out that she has cancer.