Okay, here comes the meat of it all. I consider Happiness one of Park Hyungsik’s best projects. He did something completely out of the norm when it comes to his career. It wasn’t a rom-com, a period piece, it wasn’t a trendy drama, legal drama, nor a family drama…..It was a zombie drama to some degree. It’s something completely out of his element but Hyungsik played the character Jung Yi hyun so well.

Jung Yi Hyun is a former baseball player in his youth who became a detective at the local police station after he injured his knees. Oh and I have to mention Hyungsik really put on some weight and bulked up a bit which was great. Hyungsik is a super handsome guy but he was so skinny in the past but after he came back from the military Hyungsik put on some healthy weight which is more than awesome.

Hwarang was a show that introduced me to Park Hyungsik, Our Blooming Youth is what sparked my curiosity for Park Hyungsik, Strong Woman Do Bongsoon is what sealed the deal and made me a complete Park Hyungsik fangirl but Happiness is what made me realize that he really does have potential. By his good looking face people won’t be able to look beyond his looks but I was able to see beyond what he is capable of through Happiness.

The three main characters are Jung Yi Hyun played by Park Hyungsik, Yoon Sebom played by Han Hyojoo and Han Tae Seok played by Jo Woojin. Jung Yihyun is a young detective who used to be a youth baseball player with potential but had to quit cus of his bad knee injury. Yoon Sebom is a gal that works for the special force police squad. Han Taeseok is a lieutenant colonel and belongs to the health service command. Han Taeseok is the man that knows the real background of the outbreak that happened out in the city.

Jung Yihyun and Yoon Sebom have been friends since High School. Sebom had family problems so she used to always hide in her father’s truck whenever her parents would be fighting in the middle of the night. Jung Yihyun seems to be from an average household and he was gonna go to Boston to study but ended up not doing so.

After Yihyun couldn’t play baseball anymore he seemed a bit lost, he didn’t really know which path to take but Sebom kinda helps him deal with it somehow. Yihyun always really liked Sebom, not just as a friend but as a girl for a long time. By the time they end up getting quarantined and become confined in this one particular building in the city, even then Yihyun was still in love with Sebom.

Yihyun is a dependable guy and he also has leadership abilities and you see that once he ends up staying in that high end apartment complex with a whole bunch of other people. Yihyun is almost a goody goody guy that loves Sebom and the people that he is close to.

I really love the scene from episode one where Yihyun does that famous fall from the rooftop of the school, I think that was very symbolic. It’s symbolic in a sense where he is taking a risk to find out what his true path is and what his true passion is. Like I mentioned before he was a very promising star baseball player with tons of potential so it’s natural for him to be a little disappointed with the events in his life that changed the coarse of it all. He becomes a young detective who is very passionate about solving crimes.

He not only has Sebom that helped him through the difficult parts of his life but he also has a mentor thats kinda like a big brother to him. It’s Jungook hyung. Kim Jungguk played by Lee Junhyeok was like his mentor through out his life as a young man. Lee Junhyeok’s character Junggook was a young teacher back when Yihyun and Sebom were in High School. Later when Yihyun and Sebom become adults, Yihyun works with Jungguk Hyung at the police department.

Yihyun and Sebom end up living together in the fancy apartment complex together because of Sebom. Sebom wanted to live in LE CIEl, this fancy high end apartment complex that’s being offered to her from her job but the only thing is her marital status has to be married not single. So, she asks Yihyun to be her “fake husband” so, she would be able to live in the apartment which Yihyun gladly agrees to.

Happiness is Hyungsik’s drama that doesn’t focus too much on the romance element of things but at least it has some even if isn’t as much as What Happens to My family, High Society, Strong Woman Do Bongsoon, Sound Track and even Our Blooming Youth to some degree.

The romance stuff is kinda subtle and it isn’t the focus but it definetely exists unlike Juror8. Our Blooming Youth is similar to that regards because solving crime is more of a focus but then there’s a lot more romantic stuff in Our Blooming Youth than Happiness. I didn’t really mind the subtle romantic stuff, it was a nice breath of fresh air and Sikkie’s chemistry was sooooo goood with Han Hyojoo…it was so natural and just awesome! They didn’t have to do things that were romantic to feel for them because they just ooze chemistry without even trying unlike Sikki’s other female leads.

Now getting back to the story aspect of things….Happiness does not have throw away characters so this review is gonna probably take so much longer than most of my other Park Hyungsik drama reviews because I’m planning to cover just about everyone in this. All the characters in Happiness effect each other greatly and it’s dramatic so that’s why I have to mention everyone with their characters’ names attached to it.

Sebom kicks ass and she is a tough girl but there are some scenes where she does take a step to show Yihyun that she does need him and one of the examples for this is when Yihyun caught Oh Jooyung and cuffed him in Mr Oh’s apartment then he runs into Sebom while trying to take him to the police station….Sebom hugs Yihyun then.

Sebom tells Yihyun that she felt like she was left alone in Episode 4 and this is when you realize that Sebom could possibly have similar feelings like Yihyun. Sebom just goes up to Yihyun and hugs him and Yihyun hugs her back, then pats her on the back….This part was definetely romantic, they don’t over do this kinda romantic stuff but they give you just the right amount which I thought was refreshing.

Also, in episode 3, before Yihyun and Sebom talk to Yihyun’s mother, he plays with her hair and tells her she’s pretty, gave me butterflies in my stomach. In the same episode, the two were talking about their so called wedding while lying down on their individual beds. Sebom talks about who should lead the wedding, and who should host it and where they should go on their honeymoon.

Sebom talks about how they should go to a buffet for their honeymoon so he should prepare and I liked the answers that he gives. Yihyun said that they don’t really need a formal wedding, but just tell everyone they will lead a happy life. And with the buffet honeymoon, she doesn’t have to worry about him because he could eat since he had to eat a lot while he was an athlete.

Jung Yihyun, and Yoon Sebom live with others in the apartment. They brought in a little girl by the name Park Seo Yoon and Yihyun’s mentor Jungook Hyung live with them. Seo Yoon’s parents were not able to take care of her cus they got taken away and Junggook had to leave his sick wife and daughter behind so he always seemed so desparate throughout the series. And the part that made me laugh was when Yihyun loses his bed because of the little girl and he also loses the couch because of Jungguk’s back pain so he ended up sleeping on the floor from here on out. This scene really cracked me up because Yihyun said that him and Sebom had something good going on basically even though he didn’t quite say it that way.

Oh Joohyung played by Baek Hyunjin is a dermatologist who was playing around with crypto currency and bit coin type stuff and he was messing around with a younger woman, his secretary by the name Woo Sang Hee played by Moon Yewon. Oh Joohyung cheats on his wife Park Minji for a young secretary from his dermatology office. Park Minji ends up getting “Sick” or “Having” it and ends up dying but Oh Joohyung the weasel tries to escape and Jung Yihyun tries to catch him. Yihyun is a very focused and determined detective, very passionate about his job.

Sebom’s mom is ill and is locked up in the hospital cell, she was being quarantined, “out there”. She did communicate with her here and there during the early part of the series.

We have Na Hyun Kyung the romance novelist played by Park Hee Bon and her older brother Na Soomin played by Na Cheol that wants his sister to take care of his two children.

We also have the lawyer man that seemed focused on people’s backgrounds Gook Haesong played by Park Hyung Soo…Wow this guy’s name would be easy to remember because it’s so similar to Hyungsik oppa’s name.

The Mart employee Boram played by Han Daseol, The cleaning couple; Go Sekyu played by Kim Young Woong, and his wife, Andrew played by Lee Joosang, Kim Sehoon the son of a diplomat played by Han Joon Woo, Oh Yeonok the building representative played by Bae Hae sun, Health trainer man Kim Seung Bum played by Joo Jonghyuk and Lit Jisoo aka Han Tae Seok’s helper played by Park Joohee are all important part of the grand scheme of things.

Things don’t really happen till everyone ends up being locked up or quaratined in this fancy apartment and I’d say Episode 3 is when things start picking up for this relatively short 12 episode series.

Also the lawyer’s wife, the building representative’s husband who is supposed to be a minister, the little girl Seoyoon’s mother/parents, the old couple, the over grown son of the old couple who wants to be an internet celebrity, and the cleaning lady are all important ingredients of this show too. It’s really hard to leave out any of these people because there are no throw away characters like I mentioned earlier.

Happiness takes place that’s supposed to be Post Pandemic/Post Covid times which is kinda like the near future from Covid era. It’s so relatable because everyone on planet earth had to go through being quarintined, becoming ill, people and society becoming mad, looking for cures and so on definetely felt real since we all had to go through this for the last three years.

Oh Joohyung had bunch of crimes stacked up against him like killing his wife with the golf club and some stuff he did before he ended up being locked up in the fancy apartment building. Oh Joohyung actually likes the fact that everyone is locked up, especially Jung Yihyun so he could try to get away with the stuff he did.

The building represntative lady is so caught up in being the building representative that she really doesn’t care for the well being of the people. She even accuses and assumes that Yihyun wants to take away her building representative position, which is completely bogus. Yihyun is so not interested in her crummy little position anyways.

Yihyun looks so hot going around/ walking around the hall way with his baseball bat and Sebom looks so frigging cool with her fun personality holding a gun, being Yihyun’s bad ass sidekick in the building.

Both Yihyun and Sebom had to deal with certain people that wanted to harm them. The building representative woman was only interested in being the building representative, she thought Yihyun and Sebom were trying to take that away from her wanting to be the building representative instead of her but was so not true at all.

Han Taeseok wanted Sebom because she apparently has the anti-body that could possibly help them come up with the cure. Han Taeseok is so obsessed about the cure and it was because of his wife that has the so called, “Mad Man Disease.”

This whole fiasco started post covid. The country was obsessed with trying to come up with the cure during the height of covid, but failed. However, instead the thing called NEXT comes out which spreads through the whole nation.

This madman disease makes people really thirsty and also they have this big time urge to bite people. This is how people are able to tell if someone has it or not. This show is not the typical zombie show. Majority of the time in zombie shows once people get infected they are pretty much gone but in this show people can temporarily come back to their normal selves if they see something that calms them down somehow, like something positive or a good memory of some kind.

Oh Joo Hyung from the sixth floor is one of the few that is happy that the lock down started because he wanted to avoid going to real jail. Also, the building representative enjoyed bossing people around and the janitor couple seem to start out normal but they end up turning into greedy people.

Gook Hye Sung and Woo Sang Hee kinda have a thing for each other and they were meeting each other behind others backs. Although, Gook Hyesung’s wife and Oh Joo Hyung started to get hints that they might be cheating on them. I did not like Gook Hyesung from the beginning because he was judgemental at the earlier part of the show for no reason. This is why Na Hyun Kyung got mad cus Gook Hyesung was judging his brother and treating him like an uneducated man.

Na Hyun Kyung is one of the characters that are helpful to Yihyun and Sebom. She seemed to have sense from the get go. Not just her but also Gook Haesung’s wife and Boram were characters that you were able to get by, at least for me anyways.

Also, the old couple’s son, the internet celebirty wannabe be was such a bad over grown child. He just doesn’t seem to care about his parents at all, no wonder Boram said something about it. She said he should treat his parents better and she wished that she had parents like them.

And later on Yihyun tells Sebom that he was so frustrated by the guy’s behavior that he wanted to beat him senselessly but he maintained his cool. The over grown child Internet Celeb wannabe was telling everyone at the meeting that his mom might have the disease then later on goes to the Cleaning peoples apartment and asks them to let him stay with them because his mom has the disease. He is such a cheap shot of a man.

The janitor couple annoyed me the whole time. They have like a cleaning company but they seemed like bunch of opportunists to me. They were willing to sell all the resources by hiking up the price. I guess they wanted to use this opportunity to become rich or something. This cleaning couple tries to get more resources than they deserve and they use this as leverage to bargain with people, which is kinda messed up. But on the other hand, I understand to some degree cus in desperate situations people would do anything.

People start showing signs of betrayal even early on the in the series but it gets worse and worse as the show progresses. The people that are trapped in the building can be divided into people that are for Yihyun and Sebom and the group that’s kinda against them for their selfish gains.

I wanted more from the cleaning lady and I was slightly disappointed with how they handled Andrew. Andrew was such a mysterious character that I wanted the payoff to be a lot more than what we got.

Andrew, the building representative and Oh Joo Hyung are the characters that are so deadly to Jung Yihyun and Yoon Sebom because, they try to come up with ways to harm the fake married couple because they are very self centered. However, with Andrew it’s not really being self centered but more like he is kinda psychotic. Andrew was a serial killer before he ended up being trapped in the building with them.

Han Tae Seok kinda comes and does since he is outside being busy with trying to come with the cure. He is very desperate about his wife’s situation so he is anxious everyday. And this is why is trying his best to find a cure for his wife that could also help the nation as a whole. Han Tae Seok communicates with Yihyun and Sebom through a walkie talkie. Sebom also communicates with Han Tae Seok’s assistant Lee Jisoo a lot.

The little girl trusts Sebom a lot while the couple is taking care of her while she is separated from her family. Sebom and Yihyun, espcially Sebom are like a second family to her, she’s able to depend on them because she trusts them completely. However, it’s very funny how Seoyoon calls Sebom unnie but Yihyun ajusshi…she sould’ve called him pooa instead but whatever.

The diplomat’s son seemed like a nice man. He lived all the way at the top on the 15th floor. He had all kinds of neat stuff up there like artifacts his family collected over the years while travelling. This guy trusted Sebom enough to share his resources with her. It’s strange how he has so much resources and goods piled up in his storage room. I want to safely assume that he was a prepper or something. I loved a scene where Yihyun tells Sebom that he doesn’t like her going up on the 15th floor by herself. Then Sebom and Yihyun trying to appear like a real couple in front of the guy was priceless.

The over grown child of the old couple went outside because he was looking for his phone he dropped somewhere and he put others in danger by doing this. This guy was just an idiotic baffoon from the get go but doesn’t really redeem himself much in my opinion.

Na Hyun Kyung’s older brother doesn’t seem to know who to side with until later on in the series where he does come around to the so called good side. I want to say that the sister kinda of influenced him to be a bit more levelheaded when it comes to these things.

Kim Seung Bum the health trainer prior to the lockdown, seems thirsty all the time and so addicted to THE NEXT drug. This guy always seemed drugged out and super thirsty most of the time.

I wanted to cleaning lady to last longer but didn’t. It’s not a surprise because I had a feeling from the beginning that she’s not gonna get much to do but she was charming nonetheless.

All of these characters seemed so real to me because of how they reacted in such a dire situation. When the pandemic was a thing for all the earthlings, we were able to see the kinds of behaviors of the characters in this show so it was so relatable. All the selfishness, munipluating, lying, cheating, stabbing each other in the back…..and so on…..Betrayl…I have to talk about this well.

There’s this character who I assume that he is the building representative’s husband that’s a minister. When this guy was attacked he didn’t get bitten. But this was because he already had it and when Jongguk saw this his desperation made him want to follow this guy. Jungguk was so despearte to see his family again that he wanted to latch onto something and that was religion. The so called minister put his cross out and the zombies didn’t attack him, thats what Jungguk was thinking at the time. Jungguk thought this man was spiritual that it was worth it to betray his friends and go with that man and his wife the building representative.

This broke my heart big time. Jungguk is not only Yihyun’s mentor but in this building they are kinda like a family in away so I could see how Yihyun and Sebom were feeling betrayed by his actions….

Oh and I got to talk about the Almost kiss…..Kissing and hugging isn’t so common in Happiness….Well Hugging se ems to be more common than kissing though compared to Sikki’s other dramas. So on episode 8 Yihyun and Sebom talk about life before this stupid lockdown. Yihyun was saying that Jungguk needs religion to fill that void but Sebom was the one that filled his when his life changed so much becaue of his injury…..then they were looking at each other, once Yihyun was leaning closer to Sebom…..I as an audience was expecting a kiss but they were interrupted. They were interrupted by Oh Joo Hyung and the Building representative woman…Those scums!

Yihyun is such a healthy young man that even if he got it, it was really hard to tell that he did. He was able to pretend if nothing was wrong with him and he was able to keep that act up cus he’s such a healthy young guy. I really loved the bulked up Hyungsik here, I want to see him put on some weight again personally, I don’t care what others say…..

I really loved the acting when Hyungsik turns into a zombie and before he turns into one. He was able to pull off acting like a non infected guy but once he starts to turn you just can’t help but to go OMG! His zombie acting proved to me yet again that Hyungsik can play anything. Up until this point he’s never played a character like this before so it was refreshing.

I really loved the score to this show……The instrumental intro made me think about Hans Zimmer. I loved the other instrumentals that they play during and after the show too. The Outro was pretty cool as well. I really like the actual songs with lyrics that they play as well. Except for one or two most of the songs with lyrics are in English by Joe Layne. My favorite is She!

I want to mention something before I end this review. I seriously loved Sebom kissing Yihyun first when she discovers the infected Yihyun. The kind of kiss that Sebom and Yihyun share in Happiness is so different than the types of kisses that Hyungsik did in his other dramas. I also love the fact that they get married for realz at the end of the series. They totally earned this one! They earned everything! I SERIOUSLY SHIP YIHYUN SEBOM COUPLE BIG TIME!

I really love the back hug that Yihyun gibves to Sebom, it doesn’t feel forced but so natural. It was so cool to see them living their ordinary lives, back to the daily life again seems so great. This show helps us to realize that we take ordinary daily lives for granted until it gets taken away and you start to panic. Thats how it was when the whole pandemic started. Everyone was just living their daily life and all of a sudden that was gone and people started to lose their minds.

Happiness is nothing big…Happiness something you can find in your daily lives until you lose that but Sebom and Yihyun found that at the end of the series and Iwas able to put a smile on muy face.

YIHYUN AND SEBOM ALL THE WAY! i LOVE THIS COUPLE SO MUCH THAT I WANT SEASON 2 OF THIS! I CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF THEM!

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND HAPPINESS…..! I THINK THIS IS HYUNGSIK’S BEST WORK……!