I am working my way through some of my in-progress shows and Strongest Deliveryman is one that I can now put in the Finished column, and I’m glad that I watched this show.

One of the things I particularly enjoyed about the drama was it’s cast of pretty average hard-working working class characters, and the inclusion of not one, but two “reverse Candy’s!” (Candy’s are what they call the Cinderella types, hard-working and plucky girls or guys who meet their fabulously rich handsome prince/ess and live HEA.) Go Kyung-pyo is such a winning personality; he looks like someone who is decent to the core, like his good pal Park Bo-gum (they recently went on vacation together to NY), and this is perfect for his character. He’s so dedicated and optimistic and firm in his convictions that being decent and kind is the only path and if they just persevere together, it will all work out. He’s not the perfect Pollyanna though; he can be angry and hurt and want to give up and this balances everything out.

Chae Soo-bin is his more jaded counterpart and her lack of faith in her fellow Koreans is put to the test by his sunny side up persona. Of course they’re cute together!

The 2 Candy types are the 2nd leads and they end up being good additions to the plot and being something different from the typical. He’s the ne’er do well 2nd son of a rich family who’s cast out and has to choose to wallow in self-pity or find his own way and she’s the pampered daughter of another rich family who gets tired of the silver spoon and runs away to make her own life. I like the performances and the young actors who play them very much; they felt fresh.

This isn’t a drama of high angst, though they certainly run into a lot of challenges along the way, with one exception pertaining to our hero’s family story. When the truth is revealed in fuller detail late in the story I gotta say my heart broke not just a little for him, and I was glad that he had the heroine to be by his side because she, with her own family story, fully understands him. It made me really see them as a couple with a future even without a lot of dialogue just because you could feel those bonds forged in their experiences individually and together.

I liked them as a couple, and liked the cast in general, and the show also succeeds because of the positive underlying messages.

#chae-soo-bin, #go-kyung-pyo, #strongest-deliveryman