Park Jin-hee is coming back to dramaland! The star of Giant and The Woman Who Still Wants to Marry has signed on to headline a new cable drama opposite Song Il-kook (Crime Squad). Song has been considering the role and other names have been bandied about for the lead actress, but both are now confirmed to star.

The drama is called Fermentation Family or Balhyo Gajok, which is just the weirdest title ever. But now that a character description is in for Park Jin-hee, it starts to make a little more sense (it still sounds horrible though). She’ll be playing a naturally gifted chef who dreams of becoming the chef of the best fusion restaurant in Korea. But the reality is that she’s the cook in a tiny neighborhood joint with bizarre local clientele, including hotheaded gangsters like the one played by Song Il-kook.

The story is about the unlikely family that forms among the people who are connected through this neighborhood eatery. So fermentation can be literal, like with many Korean foods (kimchi, soybean paste), and it can also be figurative, as in “raising a family.” I just wish it were a better-sounding word in English. “Family” also takes on a double meaning if it refers to the mobster family as well as the bizarro family that forms around the leads.

This drama comes from the PD-writer team behind Mawang / The Devil and Rebirth / Resurrection, PD Park Chan-hong and writer Kim Ji-woo. Those aren’t exactly light and fluffy dramas, which makes me think that this might skew towards the dark thriller type of drama. That’s what I thought initially with the writer, director, and Song Il-kook. But the premise as it sounds now seems to center on Park Jin-hee’s character, and on her restaurant as the focal point for this ragtag family. And to me, ragtag family sounds comical (and awesome). It’s anyone’s guess which way it’ll go.

Fermentation Family premieres December 7 on jTBC.

Credit:
http://www.dramabeans.com/2011/09/park-jin-hee-and-song-il-kook-headline-new-drama/