[News] Yoon Shi-yoon eyes drama for next project.

[News] Yoon Shi-yoon eyes drama for next project.
Cr. - dramabeans

From King of Baking to King of Vegetables? One of last year’s biggest breakout stars, Baker King Kim Tak-gu‘s Yoon Shi-yoon is reportedly planning a comeback to dramaland, this time as a master of… veggies? The upcoming drama currently in development is called Bachelor’s Vegetable Store [총각네 야채가게], which is a weird-sounding title, I know, but then again, so is Baker King Kim Tak-gu, which was a ratings hit. Guess you can’t judge a drama by its title? But… I LIKE to judge a drama by its title!

The story is based on the life of a real person, a man named Lee Young-seok, who started a small vegetable store as a young man in 1990. It was a tiny space, only ten pyeong. (An old-school unit of measurement, still used colloquially to denote space, like square footage. The unit pyeong is derived from the amount of space for one average-sized person to lie on the ground and spread out their arms and legs… What? I looked it up for curiosity’s sake. Also, I’m bad at conversions, so I needed a different way to explain it.) So — about the size of a tiny studio apartment, or so.

Anyway, he went on to be a huge success, and is sort of an icon as a small-business pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps success story. His store became known in the neighborhood as “The Bachelor’s Vegetable Store,” because that’s what an ajumma would call a young man who is a local business owner. He’d be too young to call “Boss” like a normal shop owner ajusshi, so they would call him chong-gak, meaning bachelor, or single man. I know, Korea’s weird with the very specific monikers denoting age and marital status, but on the other hand, one title is super informative?

Besides, if Yoon Shi-yoon is playing the owner, can you really see an ajumma calling him anything but chong-gak, other than “hey you, kid”? It has the potential for a nice uplifting slice-of-life drama, and could be great if they keep the story small and rich with the details of what Seoul was like in the 90s. Looks like it’s one to keep an eye on.

Bachelor’s Vegetable Store is in development, and plans to premiere later this year.