SMTown: SUM Celebrity Shop and LIVErary Cafe

K-pop cafe: EXO cupcake and SHINee “Dream Girl” green apple drink in SMTown at COEX Artium’s LIVErary Cafe. SCREAMfmLondon

SMTown at COEX Artium is a sprawling, six-story k-pop hub. Located beside the gigantic COEX Mall in Gangnam (a shopping center so big it houses an entire aquarium and a huge movie theater inside as well), SMTown offers everything a k-pop fan could want: a hologram theater, branded merchandise, vocal lessons, a photo studio, a cafe, etc. And I’ve done (pretty much) all of it.

Here is my rundown of the two most accessible floors of the SMTown complex:

SUM: Celebrity Shop, Artist Goods, Artist Picks, Gifts
SMTown LIVErary: Cafe, Music, Media, Books, Special Goods

SM Entertainment decorations lining the SMTown walls. SCREAMfmLondon

The building is tall and glittery from a distance, decorated with the names of SM Entertainment’s most popular artists: SHINee, Super Junior, EXO, Girls’ Generation (SNSD), f(x). The first floor’s Welcome Stage features a tall tower of flatscreens playing SM artists’ most recent music videos.

The second floor houses the SUM shop. This deluxe merchandise store features branded merch of all the bands and general Korean souvenirs, as well as “artist picks,” which are extremely expensive designer items worn by some of the band members. Some of the merch is cool, but the coolest stuff (tote bags with song lyrics printed on them, t-shirts, posters and pillows) are sold out or not yet for sale, despite the fact that the shop has been open since January.

Unless you’re looking to buy a pair of $400 sunglasses a member of SNSD was photographed wearing, you can find better k-pop merch in any given subway station. But they do sell a (pricey) replica of the treble clef necklace Chanyeol wears in the iconic classic “EXO Lives Next Door.”

EXO staring at you from every direction. SCREAMfmLondon

On the building’s fourth floor is the SMTown LIVErary Cafe. This is an awkward way to say that it’s an SM-themed cafe. Some additional merchandise is sold on this floor (mostly CDs and DVDs), but the main attraction is the dessert case. Macarons and cupcakes printed with band logos are available for a (high) price, as are some tasty band-themed drinks.

The different bands all come in different colors and flavors. I ordered an EXO cupcake and a SHINee green apple-ade. The EXO “capcake” (har har) is chocolate cake topped with cream cheese frosting and a tiny EXO snapback. Someone informed me ahead of time that the caps are actually not edible, which was good to know because I definitely would have attempted to eat it. They’re about 8,000 KRW per cupcake, which is quite a lot, but they’re actually pretty tasty, and you get to keep the little hat as a souvenir.

SHINee’s green apple ade was also exceptionally delicious, and comes served in a cool, collectible “#DREAM GIRL” bottle. The drinks are super syrupy sweet and slightly carbonated, which I greatly enjoyed.

Band logos printed on macarons at the SMTown LIVErary Cafe. SCREAMfmLondon

In the cafe, most of the tables and chairs have been signed by various SM artists. The walls are decorated with albums, plaques and a timeline of SM Entertainment’s biggest milestones. While enjoying your expensive snacks, you can try to grab a table at a listening station, where you can play SM artists’ music. It’s a cool setup, and it’s even moderately cozy, so big SM fans can end up spending a lot of time hanging out.

Check out my guide to SMTown’s Studio and professional k-pop dance class here.
Check out my guide to SMTown’s 3D printing theater here.

Capsule drama reviews: Healer, Little Mom Scandal, etc.

‘Little Mom Scandal’
Starring: Hwang Jung-eum, Im Sung-uhn and Song In-hwa
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Episodes: 16

Photo courtesy of CGV.

“Little Mom Scandal” is an awesome drama if you’re looking for a story with many strong female characters and a straightforward look at female sexuality and sex work. It’s rare to see these issues presented at all on television — let alone as well as they are covered in “Little Mom Scandal.”

The show is split into two eight-episode seasons, and it tells the story of Hye-jung and Sun-hee, two high school best friends. Hye-jung is super smart and rich, but struggles with some real daddy issues that have led her to become a prolific sugar baby, dating rich older men. Sun-hee is such a typical teen girl: she just cares about finding a cute boyfriend and getting him into bed with her. The girls befriend Sung-sook and Hyo-won, two employees of the local gentleman’s club, but things go south when Sun-hee finds out she’s pregnant.

“Little Mom Scandal” has so much going for it. It’s really a great drama with a shockingly realistic, honest and unbiased depiction of sex work from many different perspectives. It also really gets into the truth of teen pregnancy and, later, teen motherhood. And what’s more! It also features a ton of multifaceted, interesting female characters all pursuing their individual dreams. Highly recommend “Little Mom Scandal.”

‘A Werewolf Boy’
Release Date: Oct. 31, 2012
Director: Jo Sung-hee
Starring: Song Joong-ki, Park Bo-young and Lee Young-lan
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Rating: Not Rated

Photo courtesy of CJ Entertainment.

“A Werewolf Boy” is one of the most successful Korean melodramas of all time, and it is no joke. It is a beautiful, bittersweet story of ill-fated young love — the best and most painful stories to tell. And it features the best and most relatable of all the movie monsters— the romantic werewolf.

The film begins in the modern day: Kim Sun-yi has traveled with her granddaughter back to Korea to sell her childhood home. When she arrives, she remembers her time spent there as a chronically-ill teenager — particularly a darling feral boy named Chul-soo she and her mother discovered living in the surrounding woods and adopted into the family.

Song Joong-ki gives a fantastic performance as the sympathetic wolf boy with huge, expressive eyes. Likewise, Park Bo-young’s emotional delivery as Sun-yi is stellar, and the two actors create excellent chemistry in their scenes together. The first half of the film is very well crafted, funny and sweet as Chul-soo learns to become more “human” and forms a bond with Sun-yi and her family. The film’s weakest points revolve around the cartoonish villain Ji-tae (a random rich asshole thrown in there to advance the plot with his rich asshole behavior) and the weird secret-government-experiment werewolf origin story that’s thrown in unnecessarily. Really, the movie’s success rests solely on the intense connection between Sun-yi and Chul-soo.

The ending of “A Werewolf Boy” is like getting your heart run over by a train, though. I sobbed loudly. Those last 20 minutes will knock you on your ass. I’m just warning you now. It’s a deeply heart-wrenching conclusion that is fitting for the star-crossed lovers’ overall story, but that doesn’t make the tragedy any easier to bear. It’s actually perfect and thoughtful and so, so sad — it’s the kind of poignant conclusion that you’ll be thinking about for weeks after finishing the film.

‘Healer’
Starring: Ji Chang-wook, Park Min-young and Yoo Ji-tae
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Drama, Thriller
Episodes: 20

Photo courtesy of Kim Jong-hak Productions.

Action-romance is done right in “Healer.” It’s a winning combination: a cast of strong and likable characters, a murder mystery storyline that doesn’t let up on the excitement even toward the end, a substantial and complex villain backstory, sweet fight scenes, even sweeter wardrobe changes, and an incredibly darling male lead. For real, Ji Chang-wook might be the most attractive actor ever to appear in a drama. He is unbelievably gorgeous, and his felon-with-a-heart-of-gold “Healer” persona doesn’t hurt one bit.

The show centers on Seo Jung-hoo (or, as most know him, Healer), a “night courier” who is known for his martial arts skills and an illegal business of breaking-and-entering, petty larceny and the like. He is planning to save up enough money to live alone on a deserted island as the only person he has any connection to is an ajumma he’s never met in person who serves as his hacker accomplice. Unfortunately for him, he takes a job from a famous television anchor that sets him on a path toward unraveling the mystery of his father’s death in 1992 and its connection to his present.

“Healer” really is great. Even the wild, unbelievable puzzle pieces that perfectly come together are presented so well they aren’t even too ridiculous, which is a sign of a remarkable drama. “Healer” is also one of the rare dramas that doesn’t lose momentum halfway through its 20 episodes. I wish there were more so I could continue being thrilled by each new revelation and, of course, admiring Ji Chang-wook all the while.

‘EXO Lives Next Door’
Starring: Moon Ga-young, Park Chan-yeol and Do Kyung-soo
Genre: Romance, Drama, Comedy
Episodes: 16

Photo courtesy of Naver TV.

I am so pleased to live in a world where actual famous boybands are required to act out bad fanfiction on camera for our amusement. What a time to be alive. “EXO Lives Next Door” is all the standard self-insert fanfic tropes you may remember from LiveJournal circa 2006, but with the adorable, accommodating boys from EXO at the helm.

“EXO Lives Next Door” is a short web drama that packs a lot of zaniness into 16 quick episodes. Ji Yeon-hee is an underachieving 20-something who lives with her mother and younger brother and has never had a boyfriend because her face turns unnaturally red and she is unable to speak when faced with cute boys. Conveniently, several members of the 10-piece k-pop group happen to move into the house next door to her and immediately begin fighting over her, as this is how fanfiction usually goes. First, she slips on a banana peel and tosses her pads at them in the dark. Embarrassing! Then, she breaks into their house and chokes on rice cakes. Oh, no! At one point, Sehun and Baekhyun catch her spying on them with binoculars, so they decide to make out with each other to freak her out. Who even wrote this script? I’m not entirely convinced they didn’t just lift it from some 13-year-old’s FanFiction.net profile.

The best thing about “EXO Lives Next Door” is that the episodes are only 12-15 minutes long, which is exactly my attention span. The next best thing is that it’s completely ridiculous. Yeon-hee is not an interesting or likeable character at all, but no fanfiction heroines ever are (see: Bella Swan). The storyline, however, is so ludicrous it’s amazing. Personally, I’d stick around just for Sehun’s unlikely bromance with Yeon-hee’s kung fu-obsessed brother.

P.S. How can I get a job writing for one of these?!