{"id":22162,"date":"2022-09-16T13:51:59","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T11:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1704561"},"modified":"2022-09-16T14:19:09","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T12:19:09","slug":"netflixs-little-women-isnt-just-another-adaptation","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/netflixs-little-women-isnt-just-another-adaptation\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix\u2019s Little Women isn\u2019t just another adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Geoffrey Bunting\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 16 September 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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What would you do if you had money? This is the central question in Netflix\u2019s latest Korean original, Little Women. If you\u2019re expecting a faithful adaptation of Louisa May Alcott\u2019s novel, that question should make you think again. In the annals of Little Women adaptations \u2013 from the first lost film in 1917, to the Japanese anime of the 1980s (yes, Little Women anime is a thing), through to Greta Gerwig\u2019s 2019 version \u2013 this iteration stands out.<\/p>\n

Directed by Kim Hee-won (Vincenzo) and written by Jung Seo-kyoung (The Handmaiden), Little Women follows the Oh sisters. Three women living in a different kind of poverty to their novel counterparts. Gone is the soft-natured Marmee encouraging her daughters to be kind and self-sacrificing while their father serves as chaplain in the Civil War. In their place is a cruel, inept mother and an absent father who gambled away the family savings before fleeing to Singapore.<\/p>\n

The first chapters of Little Women the book cement the March family\u2019s charitable nature as they donate their Christmas dinner to a poorer family. Little Women the series\u2019 first episode, however, sees Oh In-joo, played by Kim Go-eun (Guardian: the Lonely and Great God) and her sister In-kyung, Nam Ji-hyun (365: Repeat the Year) save money for their younger sister In-hye \u2013 played by Park Ji-hu, fresh from her breakout role in All of Us Are Dead<\/a> \u2013 so she can take a school trip to Europe for her birthday. Only for their mother to steal the money and abscond to Singapore herself.<\/p>\n

Despite this tonal change, the parallels between the Oh and March sisters are apparent from the off. Much like Meg, In-joo, who works as a bookkeeper for Orchids E&C, feels responsibility to provide for her sisters in their parents\u2019 absence. In-kyung, rather than an aspiring writer, is a journalist for OBN who swigs tequila from a mouthwash bottle to keep from crying at sad stories. In-hye is a reserved artist, like Amy, attending a prestigious art school on a scholarship.<\/p>\n