GOLD

Actually, I've been curious about this drama for quite some time. I didn't touch this when it's on air (well, that's the period when I did Nino drama bootcamp, I think). So, now with the current drama season slowing down (I start to dropping series by series, probably will just pick them up later, when the mood has it), I feel like watching something different and this one came to mind, and what do you know, it's quite an intriguing drama. But why the rating is so low then? Good question, I only can guess why (I don't intend to do extra research on this, so don't brick me for what I'm saying, this is just my opinion).

GOLD is about Saotome household. The head of the family, the mom (yeah, not the dad), Yuri, was a lady with a strong character, having grown up in the Saotome household with the Spartan-like teaching, with the goal of getting the Olympic gold medal. She's a mother of 3 children, and also running Saotome's sports gym and beauty salon (more like a spa). On top of that, she's also written a book, appearing at talk shows, giving motivation speeches, and so on. What a successful woman you may think, and so did I when I start watching the series, until we see what's happening inside Saotome's household. Nikura Rika has the opportunity to lurk into the inside of Saotome's household as Yuri's secretary. 3 Saotome's children are groomed to be top athletes in their respective fields with the aim of Olympic gold medal. This goal has been ingrained aka brainwashed into their brains as Saotome's faith. So, to what extend will they exert in getting the piece of metal? That's for the drama to tell...

To be honest, I absolutely love this drama, hence the marathon! It has all the elements for drama, from comedy, angst, more angst, concept and the plot is not circling around. Each episodes peels out Yuri's character layer by layer until second last episode, and then to close it off, the drama put back it back into 1 piece as conclussion of what makes out of Saotome Yuri. We see so many different side of Yuri, from her exterior to her most fragile moment another say is I love Amami Yuki's acting to pieces in here. Her sadness, her sorrow, her worries, her anger are dissected and packaged into a nice drama of GOLD. The fun part will always be those moments where Yuri happily bullies Rika for anything that she blabs because Rika is the total opposite of Yuri aka cheery and airhead vs the cool and composed Yuri. The highlight of the bullying is when Yuri shows Rika her collection of Rika-chan's dolls and ask Rika to voice over Rika-chan. So where's the angst part? Oh, it comes from episode 4 onwards, but you see it coming from the way Saotome dictates its family member with the aim for GOLD. On top of the daily business routines, Yuri has to worry about his 3 kids. The first son, Kou, is a good swimmer but it seems that he's stuck with his record time and this fact stress him up. To add more spice, he listened to the crap of some bitch that maybe it's OK to leave the sports scene remembered as achieving to the prelim aspiring for gold rather than fail to get the gold in the Olympic and staged his own accident. Second son, Ren, is has the most mother complex of them all. He loves his mom so much that he's ready to die from heart failure (the reason he quit sports in the first place) from covering for his brother in the swimming prelim. The youngest daughter, Akira, is emotionally involved with a young photographer, who turns out to be Suichis's (Yuri's older brother) son (OH THE DRAMA), and readily to ditch the Olympic dream to pursue her love interest. Not enough fuel for angst? Let's add on more, Suichi was not dead from accident, he committed suicide because he couldn't handle the pressure of the Saotome's 'faith'. Did Yuri know about this? Yes she did, not directly, but she acknowledges it but close one eye and brainwash her own children. Need more? Then what about this? If you watch from the beginning of the episode 1, you're introduced to Tomo-kun, that's Yuri's youngest son. We see him every now and then and how Yuri loves Tomo-kun dearly. Huh? Thought Yuri only has 3 kids, so who's Tomo-kun?

So with so many different points, angles and twist and turns in the plot, how do you make up of Yuri's character? Yuri stands strong with her ideals. She keeps on repeating on carving her kids to be beautiful child, not poor child. This is her terms to differentiate children brought up with all the care and nurture of their parents and mold into what the parents are expecting hence become beautiful children, and those who are not grown up in such condition, poor child. On top of her ideals, her past also makes up of what she is. Her witnessing her beloved maid killed in front of her eyes makes her hate criminals above all things. All these makes her struggle in dealing with things that's outside her ideals that her children have issues and they all yearn for mother's love, not the governing and spartan Saotome mother, but their full of love mother. I particularly love the scene where Yuri finally broke down to do CPR on Ren who's unconscious by the pool side and finally asking for help as she's on her limit. What limit does she referring to? Her tolerance limit to juggle between her ideals vs her motherly instinct?

Despite all the funnies and angst, this drama leaves you things to ponder upon in each episode. Since Yuri is a mother and a parent, the issue left out will be the parental, upbringing ideals and issues. What is the best way to bring up your children? Yuri's ideals can be seen from each time she gives speeches on the podium. She holds strongly on her perfect children ideals that other than that the child is defective. This brings pros and cons argument. Some will agree, some will don't as in to what extent will you go to push your children to achieve your goal (it's not even their's since they're being brainwashed with it since childhood). You shower the children with love, but they know they have to perform in order to keep receiving that love. Isn't it contradicting in the idea of parents' love knows no boundary? Example in this is that Yuri exercising her ultimate weapon on Ren because she has no other child to keep pursuing on the GOLD dream despite knowing that Ren has heart problem. The ultimate weapon is that 'I can only rely on you' aka favoritism. You'll in this episode that everybody is against her to the point of calling her inhumane and disqualified to be a mother. Even I as the audience feel that how can she do that to her own child, until I saw the last episode. But still, what she's doing is a gamble, a very risky one. Same thing with her enforcing the GOLD dream on her children despite knowing that her own brother had died precisely because of that dream. What if the same thing happens again because it's not uncommon that an athlete breaks down due to the stress, especially when they're carrying the family name banner at stake. All these issues displayed are the reasons that I guess why the rating keeps on dropping for this drama. I'd think that people don't like to see such heavy issues of how you bring up your children are analyzed and probed into.

So, in conclusion, I really enjoy this drama with all the angst and funnies. If you don't like to think so hard, they have enough funnies to entertain you too because yeah, you really need those funnies around when you have such a heavy topic as your drama theme to cover. And oh, if you're a parent, I'd think you should watch this drama for some thinking an pondering, there are some good ideas that you can take on the grain of salt basis.