#(They defeat the Ming together and also KISS. WITH TONGUE)

[drivingsideways]

The Matchmakers (2023)- Review

A funny, smart youth fusion sageuk? Rowoon- whom I swear to god I would not have been able to pick out of a lineup of idol actors 2 weeks ago-  making me CRY in the year of our Lord 2024???? You could knock me over with a feather right now. 

Writer Ha Soo-jin and PDs Hwang Seung-gi and Kim Soo-jin did not drop the ball even once over 16 episodes- a true feat in kdrama land. More than the actors, it was the impressive lock-step of the creative/production team that got me in this one. I'm trying to put into words the oddness of it after: apparently I can be persuaded to buy a product (heterosexual romance kdrama version) that I would usually avoid, as long as it crosses a threshold of custom-made-for-me features.  I know I've been had, but it's done with such sly charm and madcap energy that I'm not even the least bit angry about it. 

This isn't to say that the drama isn't thoughtful: it is, very much. In an era when falling birthrates and fascism are making governments across the world decide that women have probably had too much freedom and are actively enacting policies that violate women's fundamental rights over their personhood, The Matchmakers is a tongue-in-cheek response that's deadly serious about its fundamental idea: that women are individuals who will and should act to preserve the sanctity of that gift of life.  

At the start of the series, its main antagonist- Park Ji young in an arresting role and performance- says "If a Nation is a tree with deep roots, then those roots are its WOMEN." Of course, this is a delightful statement on many levels- starting with the sheer brazenness with which the joke that sends up one of the most acclaimed and beloved sageuks is made; it also situates the character in opposition with the morality of Confucian-era Joseon of the series where women were to be kinda, sorta seen and definitely not heard etc. and makes us instantly- in our post-feminist complacence- sympathetic to her. But wait: as the series unravels its many, many, many threads, we begin to see the sleight of hand. For this Strong Woman Character ™  is, after all, preaching an old and well-worn moral code: for the woman, The Family is Everything. Unless you’ve been under a rock for a few years, it might have come to your notice that this Idea ™ is being repackaged and tik-tokified up as neo-conservatism and fascism gains ground once more in our feral capitalist hellscape. The show is full of women who've had to or are making choices for the Family (survival, honour, future)- at the cost of their own happiness and identities because that is their Fate. Even Madam Park, widely acknowledged as the most brilliant mind in Joseon- is not exempt from this; taking- limited- control of a system designed to grind you down doesn’t mean freedom, only fear and eternal vigilance. For me, it was the perfect choice and characterization of the villain that set this show apart from the others of its genre- that told me that it had something to say after all.

That said, I don’t think The Matchmakers is particularly radical or subversive- here’s where the perfect commodification of kdrama and the show’s chosen genre blunts it-terrible things happen in families and to women in particular, yes, but we’re never allowed to contemplate those things too long; we’re being distracted by the next flourish in the shenanigans-filled plot. Heterosexual marriage is reconfigured but never seriously rejected; queer people exist but are not happy. Perhaps it takes a Jeong Seo Kyung (Little Women, 2022) or Lim Dae-hyung/ Jeon Go-woon (LTNS, 2024) to smash that particular barrier- but in its defense, The Matchmakers does what all love stories  set out to do and does it well- which is to reaffirm our belief in Love as the ultimate liberation; both the weapon and balm of our fragile lives. And it does, very firmly, plant its feet on the side of liberating the women who each find their courage to reassert their selves as the most necessary and valuable possession in a society which only sees value in their uteruses.

Tl; dr: watch it for its delightful women, its Wodehouse-ian shenanigans in regency romance/sageuk aesthetic, its quietly moving love story about letting love and life surprise you over and over again, and yeah, I guess you should also watch it for Rowoon being a “disgruntled pelican” as correctly described by @elderflowergin.