To be or not to be evil in High Society

53 June 3, 2015June 3, 2015

by javabeans

We’ve got one last promo push for High Society, which premieres next week with the story of a young chaebol woman (UEE) who puts on the guise of an ordinary woman, hoping to find love with someone who values her for herself rather than her riches.

There are a couple of new posters out as well, and I’ll just let y’all scroll down to enjoy the Engrish. It’s actually just cheesy enough to be hilarious, though perhaps inadvertently. Hey, I’ll take my hilarity however it comes! And at least the photobooth collage poster is very cute, showing the four main leads in varying stages of flirting and aegyo — I hope that cuteness carries over into the drama itself. It’s hard to tell from the previews, which are skewing more dramatic, but I’ll have my fingers crossed that High Society settles into a lighter chaebol romance once the setup is in place.

In the teaser, UEE’s character Yoon-ha is accused of being responsible for someone’s death by her shrill mother, who wails at her to die in their place. This must be her older brother, the expected successor to their father’s large corporation. Her father recognizes that Yoon-ha is smart and competent — compared to her Paris Hilton-esque older sisters, for instance — but the company was to pass to the son… until that’s no longer an option.

Meanwhile, Yoon-ha’s mother has always treated her coldly, and she’s the least like her mother and sisters, going as far as to work part-time at a food company and hide her family background. Sung Joon is the non-chaebol who worked his way to his current success, but is constantly aware that he’s at a disadvantage because of his humble roots. In the teaser, he says cynically, “The way to become a rich man is to be born rich. If you’re poor, you can never be happy.”

It looks like they begin a cute romance — until he sees a news article online with a picture of her family, identifying her as a chaebol. Ack, is that why he ends the teaser asking her to date him? Don’t be evil, Sung Joon! Even if you want to be! Annnnnd I guess I’ve just legitimized the Engrish posters with my reaction.

On top of that, it appears the second leads may have cute chemistry of their own, with Park Hyung-shik playing a third-generation chaebol and Im Ji-yeon cast as an ordinary woman who becomes friends with the heroine when they both work at the same food market together. In the clip she drunkenly marvels at seeing a chaebol in the flesh and prods at him in wonder, and he wonders suspiciously what she’s up to. Ha, well her character description tells us she’s sweet but not that bright, so the real answer is likely not much. She’s just like that naturally!

High Society premieres on Monday, June 8.

Via Mk.co.kr

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1 CLINTON CARTER

June 3, 2015 at 2:13 PM

It seems like i am going to be watching this but i will give it like three weeks after its premiere

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2 CLINTON CARTER

June 3, 2015 at 2:16 PM

It seems like i am going to be watching this but i will give it like three weeks after its premieres.

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3 4D

June 3, 2015 at 2:19 PM

I really want to be excited by this show (I do like the cast even though I find some of them hit or miss), but I keep feeling a bit unenthused. I probably won't watch this right away but I'll pay attention to the reviews/reactions. Then again I seem a bit jaded by the current shows so maybe I'll jump ship on one of them and watch this instead.

Pictures are pretty.

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4 Jam

June 3, 2015 at 2:40 PM

What is up w the English along w the tacky font? Lolll. Cringeee.

Anyways, im hoping this will be good, but im also not really feeling it...

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5 canxi

June 3, 2015 at 2:42 PM

Aha, I was wondering if the male lead finds out sooner rather than later about the heroine's background. I think this makes it more interesting but also more complicated. Sign me up. It's going to be draaaamaaaa but sometimes that's what I want, lol.

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6 windsun33

June 3, 2015 at 2:53 PM

This sounds like one that could be very good or very bad. The "anti-chaebol" disguise sounds interesting, but if she is found out in the first couple of episodes, that kind of ruins the entire premise of the show. Which leaves us with another formula melo.

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Mir

June 3, 2015 at 6:02 PM

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7 Wag-a-muffin

June 3, 2015 at 3:02 PM

Oh, I want and hope for this to be good, but I think it will wind up being "evil."

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8 Quiet Thought

June 3, 2015 at 3:04 PM

Running Man has joined in my 'Buy UEE a Sandwich' campaign. They made her eat rich, healthy noodles. Hopefully she'll eat enough to keep her going through this drama.

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annflln

June 3, 2015 at 7:12 PM

+1000
I always remember the way UEE looked before. She's way too thin now :(

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Cooler

June 3, 2015 at 7:33 PM

+1000 I started off thinking her arm looked a little weird. Figured it might be a photoshop error. Kept scrolling, and thought "My goodness. She needs to put on some weight."

Also, I LOL at him doing curls with 15lb weights. That's why the ladies can't weigh anything, the guys are weak.

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taewon

June 3, 2015 at 9:02 PM

That's more likely 15kg.

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Requiem

June 4, 2015 at 2:07 AM

Unless those weights are made from ultra dense stuff, there's no way that is 15 kg. And looking at his biceps, I don't think he could really curl 15 km (that's 33 lbs) except for a set of one maybe.

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evw09

June 3, 2015 at 11:25 PM

@Quiet Thought,

I totally thought it was just me! I'm so worried about this woman. She looks smaller and smaller every time I see her. I didn't think it was possible. There's no way you can convince me she lost all that weight in a healthy way.

The thing about her appearance on Running Man that disturbed me is that they were applauding the weight loss. I felt like the juxtaposition between UEE and the other guest was so ironic. Production was clearly trying to make a point by casting them together.

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Requiem

June 4, 2015 at 2:19 AM

I commented this when I saw her on Hogu's love. I thought she was lovely in Ojakkyo brothers, but since Hogu's love she had seemed way too skinny.

Same for Kim Sun-Ah in masked prosecutor....

Kind of sad to see.

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Quiet Thought

June 4, 2015 at 3:53 AM

Even her fingers looked way too skinny. And the pants she was wearing on RM kept trying to fall off. It isn't healthy.

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btsxfangirl94

June 5, 2015 at 2:06 PM

It's not just her weight though..her face looks completely different..I thought she was the prettiest korean idol at one point but not anymore..her face looked so weird and unattractive in hogu's love..she is an example of how too much plastic surgery can ruin someone's looks.

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9 Lizzie

June 3, 2015 at 3:06 PM

My favorite: "Want to be cool and generous..But I am a Boss!" Lol. yup. you sure are!

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mindy

June 3, 2015 at 4:03 PM

That's my favorite one, too! Haha.

This is probably gonna be one that I wait on to see how others react to it.

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Mina

June 3, 2015 at 4:36 PM

I laughed so hard at that! It's definitely my favorite, too.

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es

June 3, 2015 at 6:58 PM

LOL yep that was my favourite too!! XD

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10 kimchikay

June 3, 2015 at 3:50 PM

I actually quite like the photobooth-esq pictures - they're cute and flirty and fun.

The engrish posters- *cringe*

Still going to watch this but out of curiosity not really anticipation as I've been so disappointed this past month with some of the new dramas =(

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11 Karisima

June 3, 2015 at 3:54 PM

Not all of my dramas have to be comedies. Regardless of the tone they choose, I'm looking forward to this one.

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12 Mandy

June 3, 2015 at 3:58 PM

There's something about this drama that spells mess, but it also gives me the excitement I'm yet to feel for any other upcoming show. Everything just seems so interesting even if its also very familiar. I hope it lives up to my expectations - I really feel like a rom-melo these days.

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13 Calzeralzer

June 3, 2015 at 4:02 PM

I love Sung Joon, I could listen to him talk always. I just really hope this drama is good!!!

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14 Jyc

June 3, 2015 at 4:10 PM

Regardless of everythin, I find Im Ji-yeon so adorable :-)

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15 PinkDream

June 3, 2015 at 4:23 PM

I love UEE and Sung Joon but I think the second lead couple has grabbed more my attention, their interactions look so cute :D

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16 john

June 3, 2015 at 4:28 PM

Im Ji-yeon & Uee, fighting !

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17 Z

June 3, 2015 at 4:49 PM

"But I'm a Boss" is my new life's motto.

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18 paroles

June 3, 2015 at 5:23 PM

Those taglines though. I'm feeling the second-hand embarrassment for them.

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19 fantasy

June 3, 2015 at 5:52 PM

Atleast from pics I can expect two clear parallel love line , no triangles :) so I am in :D

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20 Cocoboo

June 3, 2015 at 6:51 PM

The photobooth pics are cute and nice, but the Engrishy group photo is terrible. The font they used doesn't match at all.

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21 rhia

June 3, 2015 at 6:52 PM

Okay, so I might be churning out a crush on Park Hyung-shik. He looks good!!

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22 kooriyuki

June 3, 2015 at 9:25 PM

No one said anything about Lee Sang Woo in this! Oppa!!

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23 cheekbones

June 3, 2015 at 10:50 PM

I actually like the photobooth posters, although yeah, LOL at the Engrish. :D The couple pics seem cute, too bad they're so tiny.

Seems like there's no love triangle ? That's one good point.

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24 kobrakiddo

June 3, 2015 at 11:01 PM

The photobooth posters are way too cute! Also, am I the only one who is captivated by the amount of pretty in this show? All four leads are really good-looking. Eeep. Cannot wait! :D

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25 pigsnout

June 4, 2015 at 1:15 AM

Looks like a meh sort of follow up to Heard It Through the Grapevine. ....maybe it will be more interesting when it airs?

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26 korfan

June 4, 2015 at 1:25 AM

I can't believe I'm actually mentioning this, but the sleeves on Lee Sang-woo's jacket are a tad too long.

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27 zsa

June 4, 2015 at 1:44 AM

Who is this im.ji yeon?

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salmon poke

June 5, 2015 at 7:43 AM

She's the lead in Song Seung Heun's ero-melo last year (or the year before).

I'm actually looking forward to her and Hyungsik's loveline more than the main couple hahaha.

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28 Stuart

June 4, 2015 at 2:01 AM

Am I the only L1 English speaker who doesn't find anything remotely "Engrish" about the phrases on that poster? Unless javabeans is accusing Google of using Engrish in its now-infamous corporate slogan?

ALL of the phrases shown are valid English in grammar, syntax and vocabulary, with the exception of a minor typo in "Want to be kind and generous But I am a boss!" Obviously, it should read "I want to be kind and generous. But I am a boss!" but if an omission of that sort makes it Engrish then I write nothing but Engrish all the time.

"The good is the best policy" does have an awkwardly archaic, stagey kind of ring to it. But stiffly old-fashioned and formal != "Engrish"

Setting aside the derogatory and pejorative nature of that ugly word "Engrish", the more relevant problem here is that it's just plain wrong - there's no Engrish to be seen.

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Requiem

June 4, 2015 at 2:31 AM

Speaking as someone who has parents who speaks Engrish this totally sounds like Engrish to me.

It's partly the choice of words that's used along with the fact that really, no one who speaks English natively would say something like this.

And Google's slogan is correct usage of the imperative tense. It's telling its employees to not be evil. Who is this poster telling to "want to be kind and generous?" That doesn't even make sense as an imperative.

Really they should have just left the sayings in Korean or had them well translated instead of going half-assed on it.

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Stuart

June 4, 2015 at 2:45 AM

As I said in my post, the only error with the "kind and generous" phrase was that they omitted the pronoun "I" at the beginning. That's an error that many native English speakers can make too, for reasons that have nothing to do with shaky grammar. It really should have been caught in editing, but one simple typo does not make the phrase "Engrish". Especially when the fact is that adding the "I" makes it into the sort of phrase that many L1 English speakers WOULD say and HAVE said: "“I want to be kind and generous. But I am a boss!” is both grammatically standard AND natural English. I've heard very similar phrases and constructions from my boss more than once.

There's nothing remotely "half-assed" about the English in this poster, three phrases out of four are perfectly correct, devoid of even the slightest error.The entire poster is being dismissed as "Engrish" on the strength of missing one letter, the pronoun "I".

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emilie

June 4, 2015 at 5:46 AM

I don't think javabeans is necessarily referring to grammatical errors. You cannot deny that the phrases are totally awkward-sounding. Take for instance, "Want to be kind and generous. But I am a boss!" How does "I am a boss" relate to wanting to be "kind and generous"? It's also true that "the good is the best policy" isn't grammatically wrong, but it's weird. Not "stiffly old-fashioned and formal". It's just plain weird and it makes you want to cringe in your seat.

To quote Requiem, "no one who speaks English natively would say something like this". It's not about removing the pronoun from your sentence. That is evidently NOT a "typo"; people do that all the time. However, you're arguing for the general case even though here it's obviously the diction.

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alua

June 4, 2015 at 6:07 AM

No, I don't agree. If you take each phrase individually and look at the grammar, they generally correct (with one exception). However, they are presented as one poster and we read them together – and the immediate context of a phrase matters.

Don't be evil! and I can be evil! are placed right next to each other so the latter seems like a response to the first. As that, it sounds unnatural. Not ungrammatical, but not like natural response, because there is nothing in the "Don't be evil!" that is about ability. More natural responses would be "But I am evil!" or "(But) I will be (evil)!" or even "But I can be evil!". (Relevance theory in linguistics would probably explain this best but I'm not versed enough in it to explain it properly...) Actually, if they had inversed the order ("I can be evil!" followed by "Don't be evil!") that would work much better.

Want to be cool and generous, But I am a Boss. --> as you acknowledged, we've got a missing "I" so grammatically speaking the subject is missing and the sentence thus incomplete. There's also confusing spelling as "But" and "Boss" are capitalised. This is probably for emphasis but it doesn't follow spelling conventions, rather you might be look at this and interpret as a title (titles have different spelling conventions), except that it isn't worded like a title (it's too much like a full sentence). It also contrasts the three other posters in terms of the spelling (more confusion).

The good is the best policy, This is grammatical but it sounds awkward – it's more conventional to say "Being good is the best policy" and "Being a good person is the best policy". Strangely enough the phrase on the poster ends in a comma, which is also incorrect.

These are minor deviations individually, but taken together they accumulate – hence the sense of "Engrish".

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Requiem

June 4, 2015 at 10:05 AM

What emilie and alua said.

Also, the "want to be cool and generous. But I Am a boss" quote seems extremely weird. Why can't you be cool and generous even if you are a boss?

Maybe it's supposed to be "but I am the boss?" Which still doesn't really make too much sense but at least you can kind of frame it in a way that makes sense by saying that since he has to be "the boss" he can't be nice to his "employees" which is everyone?

Basically, while generally grammatically correct, in this context, a native English speaker would be confused as to what the poster is trying to convey. But if you think of them as translation, you can actually get the gist of the meaning. Hence engrish.

I mean "all your base are belong to us" is grammatically correct assuming the person just forgot an "s" or is poor with dealing in singular and plural (and there are a lot of those types who speak only English), but it's one of the classic Engrish examples.

The point is context, not grammar.

By the way, what's an L1 English speaker?

alua

June 4, 2015 at 10:07 AM

L1 = Language 1, as in first language / native language.

L2 = second language, that you learn later in life (not native speaker)

Requiem

June 4, 2015 at 10:13 AM

Oops, I'm not quite right with the "all your base" analysis. The verb should be "belonging." Still, I've seen worse on the Internet from native English speakers. We just think they're inarticulate among other thoughts :p.

29 C.W.

June 4, 2015 at 5:14 AM

is there a sponsor from a gym? those work out photos..

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30 anon

June 4, 2015 at 9:34 AM

The story looked like it had potential .. but I think it will fall short. UEE has always played snobby characters. I know these are just acting characters, but I still can't drop my prejudice against her .. Something about her rubs me the wrong way. I couldn't even watch Hogu's love. As for Hyungsik, he does better in lighter roles. I don't think he is ready for a Chaebol role. He seems awkward in this teaser. and as for the female friend! Good grief, I don't know anyone who would find dealing with a crying drunk humorous. There is nothing worse than a crying sloppy drunk. I'd rather deal with a puker.
and if Sung Joon whines the entire drama about his birth status ...and not his successes.. it's going to get old. So much for optimism!