Dear Hongrang

The More You Watch, The More You Love

OVERVIEW:

Dear Hongrang (Tangeum) is a sorrowful and gripping exploration of obsession, grief, and the violent yearning for belonging. Draped in mystery and laced with the emotional decay of a fractured household, the series begins with a tragedy and unravels into a slow-burning, multilayered descent into personal and political ruin.

At the center is Hongrang, heir to a vast merchant guild, who vanished mysteriously at the age of eight. His disappearance shattered the already fractured household. His mother, Min Yeon-ui, spirals into madness and addiction, while his father, Sim Yeol-guk, steps in to lead the association and, believing his son is dead, adopts Mu-jin, a shrewd and loyal orphan trained to be the new successor. The only one who refuses to stop searching is Jae-i, Hongrang’s half-sister, marginalized in her own home but bound to her brother by a childhood bond so deep it haunts her every step.

Twelve years later, a mysterious young man appears, scarred in all the right places, claiming to be the long-lost Hongrang. Yeon-ui is ecstatic. Jae-i is unconvinced. Mu-jin is threatened. What follows is not just a battle over inheritance, but over truth, memory, and identity.


COMMENTARY:

I didn’t expect Dear Hongrang to get under my skin the way it did. At first, it felt like too much, and suddenly, I was in it. Heart clenched, eyes stinging, trying not to see myself in people I didn’t want to relate to.

What hit me the hardest was the quiet collapse between Jae-i, Hongrang, and Mu-jin. It wasn’t loud or clean, but was the kind of heartbreak that just sits in the room with you.

Jae-i reminded me of what it’s like to be strong only because you have no choice. The way she holds herself - stiff, careful, almost too proud to admit she’s tired - I’ve seen that posture in people I love. I’ve worn it. And when she starts to let someone in, when her shoulders drop just a little, when her voice softens, I felt this stupid lump in my throat. Because I know how hard that is. To trust again after everything’s been taken from you.

Hongrang… god. He doesn’t even have to say much. He walks like someone who doesn’t expect to be missed. There’s this heaviness to him that made me uncomfortable at times, like watching someone who doesn’t believe they’re real anymore. But when he’s with Jae-i, when they just look at each other, it’s like the world pauses. It made me think of all the people I’ve tried to reach who were already halfway gone. People I wanted to save. People who maybe didn’t want to be saved.

And Mu-jin. I don’t think I was ready for Mu-jin. His pain is so quiet, it’s easy to miss, until you realize it’s everywhere. I saw a part of myself in him that I don’t like talking about. That feeling of being overlooked. Of loving someone who’s already looking past you. He doesn’t rage; he just aches. And I know that feeling too well. That desperate, silent kind of love that you pretend is enough, even when it’s killing you.

The show is gorgeous, sure - the forests, the candlelight, the jewelry, all of it. But that’s not what stayed with me. What stayed was the silence between scenes. The long stares. The unsaid things. The kind of tension that feels exactly like grief: stretched out, dull at first, then suddenly overwhelming.

Dear Hongrang wasn't trying to shock. It was trying to sit with me. Like grief does. Like guilt does. Like love does when it turns into something heavier. It’s not a drama about getting revenge or solving a mystery. It’s about what happens when the person you were dies, and you’re still here, expected to keep living anyway.

Every character in this show is holding on to something already gone. And maybe that’s why it wrecked me. Because I’ve done that. I’m probably still doing that. And the show doesn’t tell you it’ll get better. It just tells you to look at it. To let the ache exist. To stop pretending you can fix it by going back.

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From Promise to Pure Nonsense: Good Cast, okish ost, and a Storyline So Dumb It Should Be Illegal

Let me give credit where it’s due — the cast did a solid job with what they were given, and the OST was genuinely enjoyable at times. That’s the only reason I made it through to the end.

Now onto the absolute trainwreck that was the story. Where do I even start?

This drama began with a sliver of potential, but that was quickly thrown out the window. It started good, ended bad — and then repeated that same loop, over and over. Just when you thought it was finding direction, it veered straight back into nonsense. It made sense for a moment, then completely lost the plot — like the writers were just pulling random garbage out of a hat each episode.

And yes — they even tried to subtly (or not so subtly) slide in an incest subplot between a so-called brother and sister. Why? Absolutely no clue. It was uncomfortable, unnecessary, and added nothing. Instead of shock value, it just came off as desperate and gross.

The "kill rate portals" or whatever sci-fi-fantasy element they were trying to introduce had zero context or explanation. Characters were killed left and right without any emotional weight or logical progression. No backstory, no world-building, no consequences — just violence for the sake of filling screen time.

The plot had no spine, no direction, and no payoff. It was like the writers had a dartboard full of random plot twists and decided to go with whatever they hit that day. Conflicts were introduced and dropped at will. Motivations? Nowhere to be found. Continuity? Who needs that?

By the end, it was just a mess of pointless scenes, forced emotions, and empty action. A waste of a talented cast and a decent soundtrack.

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