A masterpiece of 3 generations(Greek Review)
I don't usually write about TV shows. Nor do I get emotional easily (90s kids don't cry, after all).
But "When Life Gives You Tangerines" found me at a moment when maybe I needed it. I randomly decided to watch the Korean drama on Netflix titled "When Life Gives You Tangerines." In Greek, the title translates to "When life gives you tangerines"
In Korea, the series is known as "Pokssak Sogatsuda" , a phrase from the Jeju Island dialect meaning "thank you for your hard work."
The series tells the love story between Oh Ae-sun and Yang Gwan-sik, starting in the 1960s and unfolding over the course of 50 years. It showcases the challenges they face - natural disasters, family objections, political unrest - while also highlighting moments of personal achievement, death, life, and family joy.
Starring IU (Lee Ji Eun ) as Ae-sun and Park Bo-gum as Gwan-sik, with Moon So-ri and Park Hae-joon portraying the older versions of the characters.
The series doesn't shout. It doesn't impress with big speeches or shocking plot twists. There are no Hollywood fireworks, no over-the-top romances. And yet, it carries a quiet strength, almost underground. It softens you, breaks you down, makes you feel things you thought you had forgotten - or believed you would never feel again.
What touched me the most was endurance. The power of patience. The virtue of persistence. Two people who didn't live a fairy-tale romance, but never betrayed it either. They didn't abandon it. It broke them, tested them - but they held it tight inside themselves for years, for decades.
By the end of the series, you'll catch yourself wondering: Have I ever lived something like that?
Maybe, to experience such a love, you have to be either very lucky... or very unlucky. But it's comforting to know that it can exist. Even if only inside a story.
Another thing that struck me is how, even though it's a Korean series, it reflects Greek emotions through Korean frames.
Korea or Greece - in the end, the fundamentals, the emotions, the heart, have no borders.
And if there's one thing that stayed with me after it ended... it's the silence. Not the empty kind, but the full kind.
The one that says "salanghaeyo" - "I love you" - with the eyes, without needing words.
I wholeheartedly recommend it - but it's not for everyone.
The melancholy it brings is terrifying... because, in the end, if life gives you tangerines... make sour cherry juice.
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