Sweden Laundry

Title: 스웨덴 세탁소 / Seuweden Setakso
Genre: Comedy, fantasy, romance, family
Broadcast network: MBC Every1, MBC Drama Net, MBC Music, MBC QueeN
Broadcast period: Nov-2014 to March -2015
Episodes: 16

A lot of new faces in this one, and with some stiff acting on a few parts, but overall, I gave this a high score because of the interesting story line.

Lee Yong Yi as the grandmother and Bom were like-able. Hwang Young hee as the mother is too pretty to be a bitch omanee, but she still pulled it off in ostensible Korean-drama style. Chang Jo as Yong Soo chul, the supposed love interest who ended up being more of a side-kick or extra than a real lead that could have resulted in this being a true romance . . . he was okay but could stand to gain a bit more skill/polish under his belt.

Sweden Laundry is about a young woman who doesn't seem to fit in right with her fatherless family. The oldest brother is a bookworm who continues to fail the bar exam and the youngest is a stuck-up wonna-be actress in the making whom the mother dotes over and spoils.

Song Ha yoon as Bom is the monkey in the middle who gives the impression of going nowhere and doing nothing with her life yet is responsible for taking care of her siblings and bitchy mother.

At the start of the 16 episodes, she is planning a trip to Sweden when life gets in the way and she is forced to put that plan on hold. Instead of traveling, she invests in a small building near her home and turns it into a laundromat, which she decorates in the Swedish flag colors and adds Swedish touches throughout to give the illusion of having traveled there.

The twist comes when she sees visions by touching her customer's garments. It then becomes Bom's duty to try and help the clueless customer before the end of each episode. The ability to foreshadow apparent disasters is a gift from her late grandmother, and the only person Bom ever felt truly loved her and whom she loved in return.

I think where Sweden Laundry went wrong (for me, at least) was that it started out one way and then evolved into something else. It began as the girl with an odd ability who works hard to make a wrong right, and it turned into a stereotypical Korean family-affair type drama.

Hence the 4 out of 5 stars because despite that strange switch-a-roo, I still enjoyed watching every episode. It wasn't a romance and there wasn't a whole lot of comedy involved, but at the very least, it was a refreshing change from the norm.

At least it was for the first half of the 16 episodes, anyway.