A (Not so) Virtuous Business
INTRODUCTION
Today we are going to deep dive into a 2024 South Korean TV series, A Virtuous Business, which has that 18+ age tag, but please, let me explain to you why this series can be watched by a bit younger audience as well, despite the mature themes!
What Is This TV Series About?
It is about the independence, growth, and friendship of the 'Bangpan Sisters,' four women who started selling adult products door-to-door in a rural village in 1992, a time when “sex” was still taboo. It's a story of women who were ahead of their time when it was hard even to say the word 'sex,' who somehow managed to bring a healthy dose of energy into the secretive world of couples and thrive on their own.
Meet The Bangpan Sisters!
.jpg)
HAN JEONG SUK O GEUM HUI
.jpg)
YI JU RI SEO YONG BOK
How Is This TV Series Different?
In this modern age, we have a lot of 18+ TV series that are slowly emerging in Asia, and not all of them are lovable. Yes, those words might have been harsh, but indeed, not every director or scriptwriter is capable of creating a true 18+ environment without the story looking cheap.
Like I said once to my friend, I am not prudish; I just like quality even in the sex department, okay?
So, let’s talk about this series a bit more. Yes, it truly is about a group of women who come together to sell sexy lingerie and sex toys to villagers, who aren’t so welcome to the idea. After all, this is South Korea in 1992, which means it was even more conservative than today. Still, this TV series with such a stellar cast managed to do something that many other 18+ series that deal with sex themes fail. It introduced the topic in a very mature and very elegant way. This series, despite its mature topic, never showed a nude scene or even the “usage” of toys. It simply showed the reality of four women who find themselves, due to various circumstances, in the same adult business.
Let’s start with Han Jeong Suk.
Han Jeong Suk is an innocent woman who is a loving mother and a good wife. She sadly has married a lazy man who has temper issues and keeps losing his job, and the money that he earns oftentimes disappears as he drinks it in some bar. In the beginning, Jeong Suk thought that the job offer regarding the adult business was extremely off-limits. I mean, how would her own family look at her or other villagers? But, once again, due to circumstances caused by her own husband, she had to let go of her prejudice towards the adult business, and she entered the 18+ business.
I honestly love the character growth that this character went through, as the character was somewhat created to portray the majority of people and their opinion on sex topics. Often, people are shocked and hold prejudice against people who like self-pleasure or sex and seek out things related to that. Han Jeong Suk was like that in the beginning but later realised that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the things she sells. She isn’t hurting anyone with it, and she actually helps women regain confidence in themselves and in their sex life. Back then, it was all usually about satisfying men, but what about us, women?
How about O Geum Hui?
Honestly, each of the Bangpan sisters is different and has a completely different story and mostly reasons for entering the adult business.
O Geum Hui is a middle-aged woman who is all the time at her villa, waiting for her working husband. Her life is so mundane that she quickly adapted a routine, and now, years later, the same routine is killing her. Wake up, prepare breakfast, then lunch, and then wait hours into the night for her husband to come home and talk about business. Geum Hui is incredibly tired of this!
One day, Han Jeong Suk, who works for Geum Hui and cleans Geum Hui’s house, has a sudden proposal. This proposal was scandalous, but somehow, it intrigued Guim Hui, and soon she found herself interested in adult business. Of course, the problematic and workaholic husband was there to remind Geum Hui who she was and how important her image was in the small village they lived in.
In my opinion, Geum Hui a lot of times carried the whole series. Her character was very elegant and smart, but also sexy when needed. I love how she regained her own “freedom” in her own household she built with her husband. She stopped being the little quiet mouse and grew into a confident woman who knew what she wanted and, most importantly, expressed what she wanted. She stopped limiting herself and truly did what she was passionate about. She gave a big middle finger to villagers and her own higher status and helped her friends build a stable business centred around sex.
And our single mother Yi Ju Ri?
I can’t stress enough how important this character is for the whole TV series. I know that South Korea has changed a lot and is still changing as years go by, but for some reason, the prejudice against single parents still prevails. Since the South Korean mindset is somehow old-fashioned on this topic, I was incredibly pleased when they introduced Yi Ju Ri to me.
Yi Ju Ri is a single mother who doesn’t let this status hurt her emotionally. She knows that people in the village talk behind her back, but she never gave two cents about their dumb thoughts. She is always bubbly, outgoing, and just. She supports herself by owning a hair salon, where almost everyone from the town comes, so she basically does the intel work for her Bangpan sisters. Other than having the status of a single mother, she is known to be very chic and beautiful, to the point that many married men turn their heads around just to take a glance at her (not like she wants it).
Her joining the sales “group” truly helped a lot because both Geum Hui and Jeong Suk were newbies in terms of adult toys or even lingerie. Meanwhile, Ju Ri being Ju Ri, she had experience; thus, she immensely helped the group with understanding how “everything works”. She was always bold and upfront and didn’t shy away from the things she liked, which I believe gave even more confidence to Jeong Suk and Geum Hui.
How about Seo Bong Yok?
Bong Yok is a middle-aged mother of a big family and a loving but firm wife to an ex-convict, Park Jong Seon. Since her family is so big, it is not a secret that she is struggling financially. In the village, she is known for being blunt but also has “typical villager” features, where she doesn’t shy away from badmouthing those that deserve it. Along with Jeong Suk, she was the first member of the Bangpan sisters.
I truly adore this character because she totally gives me the “nice ajumma” vibes, which I do live for. She is very honest and open-minded, and I do think that with her being the most invested in town gossip, she truly helps the Bangpan sisters create a fitting business plan. She simply knows what fellow village women want, and thus she knows what she can offer them, without the women running away in disgust or embarrassment.
Dissecting The Atmosphere
Okay, so this series is set in the 90s, and I truly think that if you asked me which series I would compare this to, it would definitely be the Reply anthology. Not only because it fits the time frame, but also because Reply anthology talks about family and the various things that happen in life due to some circumstances. This TV series, even though it deals with a mature topic, doesn’t focus on the sex aspect. This series focuses truly on the women, their lives, and their families. Yes, they do sell sex-related things, but each episode also shows the struggle they face from either their families or the village people. Other than these women, we also meet men, who have a smaller role in the series, but still, there is a plotline that does follow throughout the whole series, which is a mysterious arson case that a new detective in town comes to solve, so even if something mundane is happening in the women’s lives, the switch to the mystery is a nice touch to the whole plot.
If you asked me to describe this series very shortly, I would say that it is a series that deals with prejudice and how prejudices impact people's lives.
OUTRO
We have reached the end of this mildly “raunchy” article, and I hope you enjoyed my introduction and review of this South Korean series. I know that a lot of you hesitate to watch things with the 18+ label, but I do hope that I explained everything well and that you would give this story about womanhood a try. If it helps you, I have seen this series with my mom, who I never really talked about anything sex-related with, and we both loved it.If you have seen this TV series, share your opinions about it in the comment section below!
Comments
Post a Comment