OkDragonfruit2320

Definitely a comfort watch

Re-watching this series after getting ML hangover from “Can this love be translated?”. I’m not good at remembering details from series I’ve watched before so going into this was familiar yet surprising still. I’ll break it up into 3 parts: Story, characters, and overall thoughts.

The story was straightforward with not too many frills – an upper-class dentist moving to a local, close-knit neighborhood where he meets a handy-dandy, jack-of-all-trades man. I would consider it a feel-good series with realistic conflicts here and there. I’m not into dramas with too much side stories as it gets too overwhelming for me, but this one had a moderate amount, with each story having its own time to shine and not just all thrown out at once.

Hye-Jin was an unlikeable character at first but not insufferable enough to be steered away from watching the series. I think her character was quite relatable. As a city girl who was not a social butterfly, she was overwhelmed by the connectedness and openness of the Gongjin neighborhood. She was not used to people being too involved in her daily life, and I could relate to that as a person who values personal time and peace. I think the progression of her warming up to the people was paced correctly. I would have to say that the only thing I did not like about her character was her sudden shift of energy once she was in a relationship. I think there was a drastic shift from her serious and professional demeanor to this bubbly and cutesy personality. Chief Hong or Hong Banjan reminded me of “your friendly neighborhood spiderman”, willing to help everyone in need. He was reliable and good with people but not in a cringey, inauthentic way. He was frank, direct, and honest, not afraid to say what is on his mind. Except, there was one thing that he was keeping from everyone. When asked about his past and the reason for his unconventional lifestyle, he would always divert the question, but you could notice in his expression that he was carrying something heavy. When his story had unraveled, it explained a lot of things about Chief Hong and the decisions he had made. I would say that the was a truly kindhearted person who just had a lot of unfortunate things happen to him and mostly to the people around him and so naturally, he carried guilt with him. He did not directly do anything wrong but because so many people who were close to him had suffered, I think he was unable to disassociate himself from what had happened and couldn’t logically think that he was not the instigator of these happenings. I was contented with the development of the relationship between the FL and ML. They were a “polar opposites” trope which led to a lot of differences at first. I loved how both leads had a strong personality but somehow matched each other quite well and I think it’s because in reality, Chief Hong had a soft and loving side to him contrary to the tough façade he had shown. There was a lot of characters in this series, and it would take a long time for me to discuss all of them. All I could say is that I was shocked but happy to see a bisexual/homosexual representation with Cho Hui. I also loved the healthy relationship between the SML and ML, it was like they were practically brothers.

Hometown Cha-cha-cha was definitely a comfort watch. You could feel the warmth of the neighborhood, and it was expressed in a beautiful way where you would think that you were a part of the community. I thought the stories fit well with each other and were portrayed with perfect timing and emotions. Everything was realistic enough to believe that this could be a real-life story in a small village somewhere out there. I have ML hangover but in a different way. In CTLBT, I was hungover by the actor mostly but in HCCC, I became attached to the character itself. I loved Chief Hong and I think he would be an ideal guy if there really was a real-life Chief Hong. I have to commend Kim Seon Ho for his acting here. I think he did a much better job in this one than CTBTL, but it may have just been the character that he played which gave him more liberty to express emotions. I re-watched so many scenes to admire all of the expressions he would make – they were so natural and refreshing to see. It was one of the most natural acting I have seen, and it made me appreciate his talent in acting more. I’m happy I was able to rewatch this, I think I appreciated it more now than four years ago. I’ll miss the village of Gongjin.

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