My Fair Lady follows the story of the extremely wealthy and spoiled heiress (Yoon Eun Hye) of Korea’s largest conglomerate whose life is turned upside down when she meets her match in a scammer (Yoon Sang Hyun) who becomes her butler.
Yoon Eun Hye plays Kang Hye Na who is the wealthy heiress of Korea’s largest conglomerate. She is spoiled and lives life like a princess with little regard to those around her. Her life gets shaken up though when she goes toe to toe with a scammer.
Yoon Sang Hyun is Seo Dong Chan. He has been living life scamming women in order to pay off his debt when he meets the rude and difficult Hye Na. After causing him a lot of trouble, he decides to get revenge by becoming her butler.
Then we have Jung Ill Woo as Lee Tae Yoon who is Hye Na’s kind-hearted boyfriend.
Finally, there is Moon Chae Won as Yeo Eui Joo who is Dong Chan’s close friend and has had a longtime one-sided crush on him.
The 2009 drama My Fair Lady was a fun little ride and was definitely a drama of its time. Of course, I really enjoy the vibe of dramas from this period, and that was the case here. The first half is pretty silly, quirky, and at times, over the top. The second half gets a bit more serious and definitely brings some angsty vibes now and then. It’s a structure that I tend to like.
While this type of plot may not be as unusual today, it was a bit more uncommon back then to have the leading lady be the rich snob with the man being her butler. Aside from that, there are definitely some common tropes and cliches, but it has plot elements that feel fresh for the time too.
Hye Na’s character is certainly a difficult one. She’s rude, obnoxious, and downright mean much of the time. But this story really is about her growth as a person. Now, it is a slow and subtle growth that takes a fair amount of time, but it does happen little by little. It really is great to see her transformation.
Dong Chan and Hye Na have a bickering sort of relationship. In the beginning, it’s very much on the hate side as they treat each other horribly. It’s lots of fighting. But they do slowly grow closer and move through the dislike phase to a friendly but still likes to fight a lot phase. They maintain this bickering relationship for most of the show, but as they do grow closer, we get those moments of tenderness between them.
But the relationships in this drama are quite complicated as Hye Na is in a relationship with Tae Yoon while trying to figure out her feelings for Dong Chan. This is a time where she’s actually not trying to be difficult, but she’s very confused about her own feelings, and this creates a whole lot of problems for our two men.
This probably isn’t a good drama for those who don’t like love triangles. The triangle in this one is pretty heavy and lasts throughout most of the show.
If you’ve been around dramas for a while, it’s definitely not hard to know who the main male lead is and who she’s going to end up with, but the show does spend a lot of time with our second lead seeming to have a good shot at winning the girl.
My Fair Lady has a wonderful soundtrack that really embodies the time. The songs are played repeatedly throughout the drama in various forms which really creates an atmosphere specific to the drama. I really love that older dramas do this more.
So overall, I had a fun time with My Fair Lady. It’s another one of those that I really wish I would have watched 10 years ago as I probably would have loved it even more. But it was an enjoyable rom-com that was a little bit different for the time and still has all of those elements that I love. There are definitely a few outdated elements to it, but if you can get past that, it’s a bit of simple, silly, and light-hearted fun.
My Rating: 7.5/10
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