Can This Love Be Translated?

A Piece of Art

"이 사랑 통역 되나요?" The Title invokes a question, & the show answers it. It not only answers it dramatically , but also in a poetic & artistic way. First of All, This drama will not be everyone's cup of tea, just like Art, Poetry & Opera shows are not for everyone. It's a beautifully crafted storyline with languid storytelling focusing solely on two people’s journey of understanding each other's heart,feelings, emotions, insecurities and forming a deeper bond through it.

The story opens in a shooting location of a reality show 'Romantic Trip' where Korean actress Cha Mu-hee & Japanese Actor Hiro Kurosawa are filming their final scenes, and interpreter Joo Ho-jin is communicating with them through earpiece from the production truck. just when the final words of the filming scene are said which happened to be a love confession from Hiro Kurosawa towards cha muhee, story flashes back to the past 1 year back from where truly the drama Starts. Cha Muhee,an unknown actress back then, had a chance encounter with multilingual interpreter Joo Hojin there in a ramen shop in Tokyo while they Both were travelling for own personal reasons. However, as they ended up spending half of the day together because of some unintended turn of events,they ended up knowing these 'personal reasons' of each other in unexpected ways.They part ways abruptly, and returned to Korea respectively, never to cross paths with each other Again until at least 7 months later,but this time,Cha muhee just woke up from a comatose state & her world already turned upside down with global popularity & Top status.From this point,the story flows naturally, it explores out of the box genre switch in the middle of the drama,turning it more into a psychological Romance with quirky humours,rather than a typical romcom.

Written by one of the most renowned South Korean Screenwriters duo Hong sisters, and directed by another female director yoo young eun,this drama was a pleasant watch for me in many aspects, the layers of unfolding the story with a conversational script, Amazing chemistry between leads which made their characters' interactions so smooth to form a natural connection, Scenic beauties of the outdoor filming locations in Japan,Korea, Italy & Canada were eye catching as cinematography were top notch, added with good Comedy scenes & funny interactions of supporting characters were cherry on top. Go youn jung is an actress of her generation who can pull off probably any roles She's given with outstanding perfection, Her Cha muhee & Do Rami were flawless as well, Kim Seon Ho blended with his character Joo hojin so perfectly that it will surely be one of his memorable roles for me. Sota fukoshi was so brilliant in his nonchalant role that i had to look him up only to realize I've watched him in a Movie many years ago,he's such a good Actor to incredibly enjoy every scene he was in! Kim won hae Ahjussi as Novelist Mr. Kim gave a comedic Relief to the screen and i really laughed so hard in his scenes with Hojin.Other Supporting roles,although screentimes of them were not much, definitely marked their presences with good dialogues & performances. As a Conversation-led script, the dialogues were well written & scene transitions were smooth so narratives made enough sense.

Coming to the aesthetic parts of the show, How they crafted the 'kindness is scary' poem and Verdi's 'La traviata' opera's Ending scene into the plot of this drama was praiseworthy..."Amami, Alfredo! quanto io t′amo! quanto io t′amo! Addio! " & He DID, Joo Hojin in the end was able to translate her language, "it felt as though kindness may kill me ", He understood her, embraced her, stood up for her, and loved her as much as she did, they realized each other's hearts & walked the path together to their Happy Ending.

It's been soo long that I've enjoyed a korean drama with anticipation of next episode & also without skipping a single scene, and ever since Netflix started originally producing kdramas, this is probably the first time i am able to complete a show, for this reason alone,I'm Rating it 9 out of 10.

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A well balanced visually pleasing romance

I'll try to keep it short
points the drama excelled in: cinematography, production, acting, story, main lead characters, main lead chemistry, music.

points that needed improvement: scenario, second male character, side couple, story wrapup.

the cinematography: you will feel like you are enjoying a landscape photo gallery, super artistic with the color hues, only shooting in picturesque locations around the world was nice, though in Seoul as usual it sometimes felt over done a tad, but I could still understand, afterall you would not be advertising all the beauty of other countries and skipping the homeland.

production and directing: Top notch! every sequence and scene and angle well thought of, they didn't hold back with their budget and it definitely showed. most of the drama even scenes in closed locations, or the delusion sequences were a feast for the eyes.

acting: great job by both of our main leads, comedy, romance and Melo-wise. I also appreciated the choice of the male lead if nothing else but for his deep and emotional voice, it totally suited the role and effect, she was connecting to his voice and feeling his presence close to her, so the moments his voice plays in her ears, you are bound to get butterflies.

story: well balanced mix of genres, comedy, romance, melodrama, horror, psychological thriller... jumps between the genres felt smooth and natural.
I appreciated how they showed the backstory of each of the two leads just enough to grab us in without wasting too much screen time in needless flashbacks.

the psychological thriller part was unexpected and certainly added a dimension to the story. the transition from seeing and hearing hallucinations at first to eventually being controlled by her showed the desperation, fear and anxiety she was going through, having lived all her life believing she was undeserving of being loved due to her childhood trauma while at the same time falling deeply for someone and yearning to be loved back.

characters: in terms of excelling I would keep it just at the main otp, I loved their first encounter, the progression of their relationship and them both learning to understand and be there for each other. I can not say that we saw major character development, but still I enjoyed looking back at their journey and seeing how far they came. other characters I will mention later.

main lead chemistry: simply put lovely. you felt the tension and emotions just from their eyes and expressions, though many times the words they uttered would feel different and overly poetic to a jarring level, I certainly enjoyed their romantic journey.

music: great vocals, catchy songs and fitting original soundtrack.

points that needed some improvement:
scenario: although I had noticed it was a Hong sister's drama the first time the show was being announced, I eventually forgot and went into it not knowing. while watching I found myself a couple of times needing to rewind to comprehend the dizzingly-complicated interactions and bickering, somehow I could guess that must have been the drama written by the Hong sisters. I am not saying I hated all their enteractions, especially since most of time it was by design, ie the complicated nonsense was intentionally was the female leads signature method as an escape mechanism. but still the amount of times, you could not wrap your head around how certain lines could lead up to such a result, it was sometimes a little bit frustrating, especially havig sometimes to rewind listen and read the translations a couple of times and still not manage to follow the trajectory of the conversation. still I have to admit, comparing to their earlier dramas where it felt like listening to a drama made for radio, where every sentence uttered felt like a line out of a play, over the top convoluted & dramatic, this drama sure did a tone down of that.

the second male lead: his character was overall nice byt ended up as a mere story prop, I just felt his romantic feelings were sudden and could have been given more time to mature. despite saying that, still his romantic arc felt somehow more believable when compared to the second couple (producer and manager); their's was just too sudden out of the blue contrived on a physcal attraction level let alone deep emotional one. it almost felt like they were shoving it down the viewers throughts downing it with sudden and uncharacteristic skin-ship. I mean she in particular, her character which was portrayed at first didn't give the impression she would be one to move bases so fast and sudden. their whole "romance" felt totally unnecessary, I would have rather had them fix her long time relationship to her fiance and wrapping up her arc with a wedding, than using his brother/her fiance as a story tool like that.

the story wrap-up: the drama could have been 16 episode format if it could have helped ease the rushed feeling the last episode gave. I am all for shorter dramas don't get me wrong, but if the writers opt to throw a bombshell in our faces midway through the last episode, and choose to use a kdrama trope such as last minute separation, I believe they could have at least wrapped things up more neatly. I was thinking at the very least, give us one post credit scene...anything for crying out loud. I mean you gave the trauma she suffered from another dimension last minute, you thankfully chose to make her face it and not run from it, maybe give the whole thing more airtime or depth not just a few curt words from her aunt and uncle. also the unrelatable second couple got to give a glimpse of commitment putting a ring on it, don't you think the main leads were deservant of something similar.

overall impressions: great recommendation if you're looking for a light romance comedy with a hint of drama and thriller. it sure had it flaws like any other drama, but you will not regret the watch.

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