The plot of THE HEIRS smells like HANA YORI DANGO from miles away and since it’s BOYS OVER FLOWERS’ Jun-pyo himself who’s playing the male lead, comparisons can’t be helped. Lee Min-ho himself has taken pains to explain that his character Kim Tan is not Jun-pyo or that THE HEIRS is not BOF.

But I’m not here to belabor that.

I was looking for some hilarity and THE HEIRS did deliver on that. Here’s why:

– The American bit actors who play Kim Tan’s California groupies, especially that dude who looks like he’s stuck in the Hanson era (or I’m the one who is) and who over-enunciates and over-gesticulates. And what’s his name? At one point, Tan called him “Jesse” then the next scene, he’s “Jay”. At least they both start with J.

– The voice-over for Cha Eun-sang (Park Shin-hye)’s mute mother every time she does the sign language. What the…

– The stereotyping. There are just two kinds of rich people here: the bad, idle rich and the bad, greedy rich. Surely, not all wealthy people are bad like this or it’s true that you cannot buy class even with all the money in the world? And seriously, haven’t we had enough with the spoiled-rich-kids-who-bully-as-their-main-hobby plot? No one can ever top F4 on that so drama world, please move on.

– The stereotyping part 2. There are just two kinds of poor people here: the helpless, ungrateful poor and the greedy, ungrateful poor.

– The shake-head moments: Eun-sang, after arriving in California from Seoul, somehow finds her way to the beach, dragging her luggage. Lee Min-ho’s fresh-off-the-boat English. The cringe-worthy lines. And it’s Kim Eun-soo (A GENTLEMAN’S DIGNITY, ON AIR, SECRET GARDEN) who wrote this. So I hope it’s just in the translation.

Well it does seem different from HANA YORI DANGO but it makes me think it could be the American version of the famous manga. A case of jumping the gun on that American remake? I expect to be seeing more of the sibling rivalry angle as the story progresses and I hope they bring the location back to Seoul because I don’t want to be squirming on my seat every time they have to speak English. The Korean actors’ English is bad (especially on LMH’s part especially since his role is supposedly of someone who’s been exiled to the US for some time; in fairness, Kim Ji-won, who plays Rachel Yoo, can speak well, both English and Japanese) while the American actors’ acting is bad.

But I’d probably keep on watching this because Lee Min-ho looks good (the California sun complements him well) and he has chemistry with Park Shin-hye. There’s no other drama that interests me at the moment anyway. I just hope it improves and does not end up more HEIR-larious as it already is or HEIR-rible. Okay, enough of the bad pun.

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