Our Beloved Summer

Food for the heart, food for the soul

"Our Beloved Summer" is HOW a slow-burn, romance drama should be done. It sunk its emotional hooks into my heart and never let go – and remains my bar for a good drama of this genre. The writing is thoughtful and witty, the acting is nuanced, the language of love is conveyed through beautiful cinematography instead of endless prattle, but the best part is what's under the hood.

Using the reality documentary as a narrative tool, the story of Choi Woong (Choi Woo-shik) and Kook Yeon-soo (Kim Da-mi) comes to life through this unique lens. It grounds this love story squarely in the age of digital and connects it to a young demographic.

It's roughly divided into 3 phases: the puppy love of teenagers, the tumultuous and tortured relationship of twenty somethings, and the hard realities of professionals dealing with career and adulthood. But there's another invisible division to the storyline: on-cam and off-cam. The docu cam follows them all throughout capturing the milestones of the couples' lives. Off cam, the storytelling becomes more eloquent, telling us what REALLY happens BTS.

In an age when most K-dramas are mindless time-sucks, "Our Beloved Summer" is a worthy investment in time. It offers so much more to deconstruct than just relationships. its about growing up. It's about the dumb luck of success and failure that happens despite your laziness or hard work. It's about vulnerability and art. It's about the futility of ambition in a career-obsessed society. It's about how loving adopted parents trump a biological father who chickens out.

The documentary narrative tool also gives viewers the BEST ending I've seen in a while in a K-drama with that garden scene where it's stated that they've gotten married (thank God no marching-down-the-aisle scene) and it's time for the next installment of their reality show.

Here are the other things I love about this series:

• Best acting by far by a male and female lead – and at this point, I've watched a lot. Choi Woo-shik IS Woong – his subtle acting makes a loser character lovable and multi-dimensional, while Kim Da-mi pulls off the hard feat of making an obnoxious character like Yeon-soo relatable, even sympathy-worthy. In the end, I understood her, even though she is the most flawed character in the series and the main source of heartache. I am also surprised that I didn’t hate the dominant-woman/weak-man dynamic of the lovers – while I love strong women leads, I hate irrational ones – and Yeon-soo can be irrational. And until Woong, I have never empathized with a weak, spoiled male lead, let alone stay with him on his journey to finding his passion. I guess that’s a testament to Woo-shik’s superb acting.

• In terms of pacing, I wasn’t bored by this – the dialogue was mostly fast-paced with only a few lags. But it still cements my view that romances, no matter how well directed or scripted, are stretched at 16 episodes at 1 hour each. Even this gem of a script lags a little in the middle like that forced vacation in a secluded mountain resort. Still, that episode redeemed itself with the bicycle scene and that heart-wrenching kiss-in-the-rain hilltop shot that is simply gorgeous.

• The love triangle is so well-crafted and so well-interwoven my heart bleeds for the other Woong (Kim Ji-woong). Despite the fact that he’s hot and the physical opposite of Woo-shik's character, it’s clear why the female lead fell for Choi Woong – he oozes brooding charm and vulnerability, and complements her like water to fire.

• The sub-plot of Ji-woong’s mom is the only unsatisfactory storyline for me, but that’s a minor complaint.

• Kudos to the scriptwriter that the subplot of the second love triangle featuring the girl idol doesn't deteriorate into hackneyed. (Her story even manages to make a statement on cancel culture.) Even the "confrontation" scenes between this character and the female lead are sad but not sappy and circumvents the cliche of fighting females.

• I am thankful the showrunners did not belabor the LDR – no tired drama there, just mature people dealing with distance.

• The adoptive parents and grandmother are so well-scripted and cast: folksy-smart, angelic, loud or sharp-tongued at times, and never one-dimensional the way peripheral characters go. Even the subplot of Woong's biological father hanging around him skirted the usual melodrama.

Over-all, "Our Beloved Summer" is epic in its ambition to tell an intelligent urban love story through nearly three decades. And it succeeds in delivering the swoons (because in the end that's why we watch romances, right?) without the guilt of saccharine trope.

Read More

Coming of age but with skeletons in the closet

It took me a long time to come back to this drama and finish it, but it was worth all the pain taken to sit and finish. I read a lot of reviews about it being slow paced, there being a lack of movement in plot or story, etc. I would like to add that if you're interested in character development, then this is the drama for you.
There's a popular phrase that states that you are bound to make the same mistakes over and again through the span of your lifetime. It's daunting but very easy to believe it. Every snippet of their past vowed a repetition of the same mistakes and the same habits that got them where they are, but their perseverance got them through to change. And all of that healing, all of these realizations, happened only and only because of how much they just really wanted to be with each other. Not because of their need for love, but because of their need to be better for the sake of each other. That was the highlight of this drama.
Choi Ung's art and its metaphors, interpretations, and meanings were a lovely and strong addition to his character development. Thoroughly enjoyed his character, it was very well conceptualized. Kook Yeon Soo's relationship with her grandmother and Lee Sol-I was also very insightful, but her character could have used a little bit more of the focus. There was a lack of addressal to the shift from her ambitious high school self to her office working determined but not as ambitious self. Losing all the money and having to build from ground up really changed her, and it would have been nice to have more depth into that as we got a lot of depth into Choi Ung.

Read More

Sweet, Real and Comforting

"Our Beloved Summer" really shines with its cute and realistic take on relationships and growth. The show nicely shows the awkwardness and warmth of first love and second chances, all while avoiding overused tropes. The main actors are super believable which made the characters’ journeys feel genuine and easy to root for. The whole vibe is feels like a fresh take of youth and summer so it even felt like a new genre experience for me.

But honestly, the pacing is a big issue, especially in the later episodes. It slows down a lot, to the point where it feels like the story is dragging its feet. While the leads are strong, I really wanted to see more development for supporting characters like Ji Ung, Sol Yi, Eun Ho and Chae Ran as they just felt left out. Because of these pacing and plot gaps, I don’t think I’d be excited to rewatch it. Plus, the OST just isn’t for me.

Read More

Superb drama about entering the adult world, full of sensitivity and emotion.

Story:
Reunion 10 years later, of 2 high school students who had filmed a documentary "the worst student, the best student". Afterwards, they dated for 5 years, and broke up painfully. The television crew wants to make a new documentary "what happened to them?".

Cast:
All the actors are excellent and the CL takes us into an emotional whirlwind. The chemistry between these two is palpable, amazing, natural.

Technical:
The production is dynamic and we don't get lost in useless scenes, although the narration is slow and delicate at times. This allows you to soak up the atmosphere of this drama little by little, all in sensitivity, in humanity.
The images are beautiful (the Korean directors and cameramen have really acquired a unique know-how on this point).
The OSTs are beautiful, sweet, moving.

Conclusion:
A superb moving drama about the difficulties of entering the adult world, full of sensitivity and emotion.

Read More

It is possible to have way too much of a good thing

There are a ton of reviews for this show, so I wasn’t going to add to them, but I feel frustrated enough to want to write one. I’ll try and make it short, in keeping with my critique!

I loved how this show started. Great characters, clever interweaving of flashbacks, beautiful unfolding of relationship etc etc. But as a writer I got really frustrated watching this. There is a natural arc for any story that you write and it has an appropriate length that does it justice. The perfect length states your case and leaves a clear impression in the viewer’s mind that is just enough for them to want to hold it in their hand and gaze at it a while longer, hopefully realising things for themselves, that lead them deeper. In my mind, this is the joy of a story. Not just what is told, but where it leads you afterwards.

However, in order to realise that goal, a writer needs to do two things:
1) have the message precise in their mind;
2) write only enough to illustrate it clearly.

Mostly, too much information is written and the job of editing is the delight of tightening and sharpening and chipping away until that message shines like a cut diamond. When you have cut sufficient away for the brilliance to emerge, then you have found the natural length of your story.

But dramas are commissioned and given a length: write a story that fills 16 episodes. What happens when you need to expand the story to fill the space allotted? Your diamond gets cut to fit the setting and instead of being sparkling and sharp, it becomes cloudy and dull. The writer tried to expand the beauty that was there and in the process went round and around and around the same material until it was trampled underfoot in the endless circularity that was all the middle episodes, by which time I was barely interested enough to follow it through to its inevitable conclusion.

If this had been an 8 or even a 10 episode drama, it could have rated at 8, no trouble. There was stuff that was good. The dialogue, the performances of the leads in particular, the sets, the cinematography, the drawings featured in the show... But sadly, it just has to be a flawed 6.5 for me.

What my rating means: 6+ Some aspects of it were OK but it had serious flaws. It will pass the time but you can find something better.

Read More

Despite being a cult-classic and a must-watch romance drama, I found this to be quite disappointing. Just proves the point that taste is very subjective...

From skimming the plot line summary, this drama seemed like truly a unique one with a great and talented cast. When I began watching it half a year ago (yes, it took me half a year to finish this), I didn't find any hook at the beginning to get me truly immersed in the story or the character relationships. So much dragging out, a lot of miscommunication and character arcs that were truly lazy. It's a skip for me.

Read More

Kinda watchable

The drama had a nice concept but the story was too thin for a full run drama even with the added side stories. It's also why they sneaked in a useless love pentagon that didn't get anywhere. Although you may find the FL's behavior passable as a teen but that wasn't the case as an adult, it was increasingly challenging to endure watching her. It simply didn't serve the narrative. After seeing her character in action I had a strong hunch to why they broke up. Such a reason may be valid when written adequately but, in this case, it came off as a shallow excuse to progress the plot. Even if we were to over glance that, they ended up giving a half-assed resolution to their underlying problems and opted to supplement the rest with an overdose of mindless lovey-dovey scenes while eliminating any opportunity for the drama to delve deeper into the emotional package they threw at us earlier on. Another prime example of the bait and switch technique the Kdrama industry have been going through recently and it doesn't look like this will change. One last thing, there were some obvious amateur editing mistakes sprinkled in the drama. One singular scene may have multiple camera angles but 2 different color grading, even for the same consecutive face shot.

Read More

a summer i once left behind, now lives within me

i’m not the type to fall for pure romance. my taste in k-dramas leans toward the extraordinary – fantasy worlds with time travel and supernatural beings, mysteries wrapped in crime and thriller, or intense medical dramas that keep my brain ticking. romantic comedies, on the other hand, have always sat at the bottom of my list. i usually find them too predictable, too repetitive – two people falling in love, misunderstanding each other, fighting, making up, and ending up together anyway. i tend to drop them halfway, wondering what the point was.

and yet, somehow, our beloved summer slipped past that wall.

i dropped it a long time ago after just three episodes. not because i hated it, not because of any flaw i can remember – i just did. and honestly, i don’t even understand why. maybe i wasn’t in the right mood, or maybe it didn’t click at the time. but recently, it started flooding my fyp, and curiosity got the best of me. before pressing play again, i read reviews – and the most common complaint was that it was boring. still, i gave it another shot.

and i’m so glad i did.

from the first episode to the last, it never failed to make me laugh. it made me smile in that soft, quiet way that doesn’t need big punchlines or loud moments. the main characters, the side characters – everyone added something warm, something sincere. this drama isn’t loud. it doesn’t try too hard. it just exists gently, like a memory you didn’t realize you needed. it’s light. peaceful. healing. it feels like taking a deep breath after holding it in for too long.

maybe that’s why some people find it boring – there’s no chaos, no dramatic twists, no villains. just life. raw, real, and quietly beautiful.

and let’s talk about the cinematography – absolutely breathtaking. every frame is filled with intention and softness. from the golden light filtering through trees, to the nostalgic haze of their past, to the dreamy stillness of ung’s house. even the opening sequence feels like a painting in motion. it’s the kind of visual storytelling that lingers in your chest.

i never expected a romantic comedy to break through my usual preferences, let alone stay with me like this. our beloved summer didn’t just meet my expectations – it gently surpassed them. it reminded me that sometimes, stories don’t need to shout to be heard. sometimes, they just need to feel honest.

oh, how i wish i could watch it again for the first time. till we meet again, ung and yeon-su. till next summer.

Read More

Revisited to experience heartbreak and love once again.

This drama always reminds me on how I was treated in my past relationship. The way the story relates to my experience in real life makes me want to rewatch this drama again, which i did (surprisingly).

And surprisingly too, i get to understand better from both POV when i rewatch OBS (Our Beloved Summer). During my first time watching it, I was putting 80% of the blame on the FL. But after that, i just realized that the ML also is stupid and coward character.

The OST? superb. The scenery? marvelous. The cast? perfect.

Its just that I still want to stick with my initial opinion about OBS when I first time completed this series, which is, this drama should probably end in either episode 12 - 14. It becomes a bit draggy especially when things got complicated with one of ML's friend.

TQ

Read More

Meh (?)

our beloved summer, to me, was one of those dramas - that check off all the boxes of what you wish in a drama, and somehow you still don't TRULY connect with. another such drama for me was Be Melodramatic - it had all the right stances of female friendship and relationships but somehow, to me, it still wasn't memorable. tdlr; would rate it high, but personally wouldnt feel the need to rewatch or recommend.

also, idk but their chemistry wasnt convincing to me i truly dont know why. and, since i know wooshik is a chamelion of an actor, i think the director didnt direct him well - because there were many instances where i couldnt tell his emotions/thoughts from his acting - idk how else to word it but it wasn't his best imho.

tdlr; wasnt boring/bad to make me put it off - but i also wasnt excited/curious about it.

Read More