'Oasis' Review: Ingratitude in Confucian Society

 The Korean drama 'Oasis' is a youth melodrama depicting a love triangle. By the way, when the main character goes through trouble in a drama like this, there is usually one trivial occasion, like a butterfly's minute flapping of its wings.

Oasis Review: Ingratitude in Confucian Society (c) KBS

The keyword in Korean drama Oasis is 'ingratitude' in Confucian society. Du-Hak's father, Lee Chung-Ho, has a debt in his mind to Cheol-Woong's grandfather who freed him from being a servant, so Du-Hak, his son, must never defeat Cheol-Woong, the son of his owner. Then he is to become an ungrateful bastard.

However, Doo-Hak, the son of a farmhand who shouldn't win Cheol-Woong overcomes him. Du-Hak win first place in the school. And then the tragedy of Du-Hak begins. It seems as if he was destined to fall into the abyss because he was ungrateful.

The relationship between Cheol-Woong and Du-Hak, who were like close friends, is cracking, and in particular, as the inferiority complex grows in Cheol-Woong's heart toward Du-Hak, hatred begins to grow. And Jung-Shin caught between them is likewise swept away by the torrent of catastrophic change.

The KBS drama 'Oasis' is also a kind of nostalgia drama. The 1980s and 1990s, which the story deals with, is a time when South Korean society has gone through various turbulent times. So, the images of the times are naturally unfolded on the screen. At the time, the main character's father campaigns for a member of the National Assembly, an authoritarian high school scene with corporal punishment for tardiness, an anecdote of a crowded bus guide crushing people on the way to work, teachers in front of a simultaneous screening theater monitoring students entering and exiting, and A bakery that was as hot a meeting spot as Starbucks these days, have appeared, becoming a nostalgia for the older generation and a unique attraction for the younger generation.

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