Surplus Princess is about a mermaid princess who falls for a human chef. She comes to land and has 100 days to win his affections and become human. She ends up living in a house with five other people where they work together to get jobs.
Surplus Princess is a very lighthearted and fun drama that is filled with some very quirky characters. This drama is more comedy driven with much of it focusing on the fun encounters between the group as they each pursue their goals.
Jo Bo Ah plays our mermaid Ha Ni. She’s an energetic woman with a sunny personality. But she can be a little dense a lot of the time. She’s also quite obsessed with her human love Shi Kyung.
Shi Kyung (Song Jae Rim) is a star chef with a somewhat cold and aloof personality. But when Ha Ni starts constantly showing up out of the blue, he begins to warm up to her cheerful and bright disposition.
Hyun Myung (Ohn Joo Wan) gets off on the wrong foot with Ha Ni upon their first meeting. And much to their surprise, they end up sharing the same house. While they are at odds at first, once they begin working on projects together, they eventually develop a connection.
Jin Ah (Park Ji Soo) is the trouble making girl who has feelings for Shi Kyung. She constantly works her way into his life through manipulations and taking credit for things she didn’t do. She was not an enjoyable character.
We then have the fun supporting characters that also live with Ha Ni. Kim Seul Gi is a complete delight as Hye Young. She’s a no nonsense girl that hosts a food based web show. She definitely kept me laughing. There is also the easy going Big (Nam Joo Hyuk) with his good natured personality.
Ji Yong (Kim Min Kyo) is the nerd of the group that develops a little crush on Ha Ni. And finally there’s Seon Kyu (Lee Seon Kyu) with his laid back demeanor.
And a shout out to my favorite ahjussi, Ahn Kil Kang, who played Ma Nyeo. He was Ha Ni’s main support when she first arrived on land. I loved his gruff and intimidating personality that completely clashed with hers.
The first half of the drama was heavy on the comedy side and was a lot of fun. It doesn’t do much for advancing the plot and keeps its focus more on character interactions and some developing relationships. But things really start to come together in the second half of the drama, especially in those last few episodes.
But this is where a problem lies. Surplus Princess fell victim to a large episode reduction during its run. After episode 9 was already filmed, the drama was cut down to 10 episodes. This resulted in a huge chunk of the story having to be wrapped up in only one episode.
This was such a disappointment since things were really just starting to get going around what should have been the halfway point in the drama. The love triangle in Surplus Princess was actually really good, and this is where that storyline was really starting to heat up. This is one of those rare dramas where it feels like both guys have a real chance. She has bonding moments with both guys, and it’s easy to see why she might feel confused.
We still had a lot of stuff deal with concerning the love triangle, the trouble making second lead, as well as the fact that Ha Ni was a mermaid and only had a 100 days to fall in love. I could see it all mapped out in my head how the story should have progressed had the drama not been cut.
But cut it was. Now considering what they were facing with only having the one episode to wrap things up, I think they did a great job. The biggest issue was that everything suddenly had to rush ahead to get all of the characters in their proper places for an ending point. Many of the side stories also had to be wrapped up with very little time. And inevitably, there are a few loose ends.
But I wouldn’t let those things deter you from watching this drama. Despite that, the conclusion does get in many of the important conversations and revelations for our characters while delivering some emotional substance at the same time. I was pretty well satisfied with it.
I just hate imagining what could have been. I saw some lovely angst on the horizon, and all of that pretty much went out the window. But if you don’t like angst, this drama was pretty much forced to completely skip that section where lovers are forced to be apart, ignore their feelings, or go through the noble idiocy phase. You can just jump right to the end!
Overall, I found Surplus Princess to be an enjoyable comedy that was a very easy watch. The characters are fun individually as well as together. And the love triangle was a good one. While I will always wonder what could have been, in the end, I really enjoyed Surplus Princess for what it was.
My Rating: 7/10
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