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A heartwarming story only eldest Asian daughters can relate to
Nothing beats an Asian mom’s love. Right now, she’s bragging you in front of your neighbors, but on closed doors she’s scolding you for your failures. That’s the life of an Asian eldest daughter, with emotional trauma included.
But seriously, I love this show. It starts off lighthearted and comical, but both the story and the characters are multilayered, with many facets to reveal. The entire cast is flawed, relatable and on top of it all funny without being irritating.
Bae Seok Ryu (Jung So Min) returns home to Korea after working in the United States for almost a decade. Unfortunately, her family won’t be too thrilled to hear why she came home unannounced – she quit her high-profile job and broke off her engagement. Choi Seung Hyo (Jung Hae In) is Seok Ryu’s childhood friend and neighbor. He is already a successful architect but is now back living with his parents as he just opened his own company in their old neighborhood. They haven’t seen each other for a long time so one might think they would go emotional and teary-eyed the second they meet. In true sitcom fashion, they started bickering back and forth that it feels like they hate each other with every fiber of their being. And this is just the beginning. All the chaos and pent-up emotions start to spill out here.
So Min and Hae In are my favorite actors so imagine how ecstatic I was to hear that my fave versatile actors are starring in a romcom, which also happens to be my fave genre. These two can eat up any genre from romcom, thriller, action, fantasy to sageuk.
So Min portrays Seok Ryu with a chirpy, feisty yet vulnerable persona, capturing the very essence of every eldest Asian daughter and her fake façade. At first, she seems to shrug off every scolding and earful she gets from her mother, but as the story moves along, we learn that this is just a cover-up and she has already harbored ill feelings toward her parents for their favoritism and high expectations of her. Seok Ryu is one of the most complex yet relatable characters I have ever seen. Perhaps this just hits too close to home as an Asian daughter myself who knows all the dynamics and inexplicable relationships in an Asian household.
Hae In establishes a nice balance in Seung Hyo’s noble yet reserved personality, which he shows to everyone except Seok Ryu. On paper, he is the ideal guy and has all the qualities every Asian mom would adore – successful job, company owner, handsome looks, and kind manners. But in reality, he is too much of an idealist rather than keeping his foot on the ground, which is the result of coming from a privileged background. It was so nice to rub in everyone's faces that Seung Ho also has flaws and is not the perfect boss, son and friend we want him to appear to be. He is selfish just like any of us and tries to live in his ideal world even if it is not practical.
An Asian household is not without its dysfunctionality. Love Next Door depicts the two extremes of Asian family – one is a seemingly perfect family from outside with prestigious jobs but barely talks and eats together, while the other is a working-class family founded on tough love and good food but with bottled-up emotions. This just goes to show how you don't get to have the best of both worlds. Every time they get drunk, the two dads spill out their guts about how they are jealous of each other’s lives. Two different people living two different lives, yet they are envious of each other. Our achievements and wins in life are always just the tip of the iceberg, yet they are always the first things people see in us. They try to equate our value with how well we do in life and that’s the sad reality. Our hardships in reaching the peak of success is unknown to many because only we how hard it was for us.
I don't understand the low reviews from other viewers. They keep saying the show lost its potential, even though it’s clear this has some of the best character developments and most fleshed-out characters in K-drama. This is character-driven and has an unconventional storytelling. It does not follow the usual climactic formula and over-the-top conflicts. There are many characters yet they don’t drown out the theme and conflict of the show. I love that this show celebrates the seasons of life, that through the course of our lives, we will experience all four seasons: the joy and brightness of summer, the quiet and pensiveness of autumn, the cold and gloominess of winter, and last but not the least the warmth and hopefulness of spring. Seok Ryu and Seung Hyo’s winter were the harshest of them all. It took a lot of time and energy for them to finally achieve a fresh beginning.
Watching this feels like visiting your old neighborhood and everyone is excited and nosy about how you have been. As you excuse yourself from your neighbors and walk towards your house, you can still hear the faint chitchats and gossips going around. It’s the same neighborhood you know inside out - whether it's the moms bragging their children’s achievements, dads getting drinks and falling back to their intoxicated behaviors, siblings nagging one another or childhood friends hanging out outside a convenience store – everything feels familiar and the same, yet you have already changed at the same time you feel lost on what your next step should be. This is Seok Ryu’s dilemma from the get-go. The familiarity of the place became her safe space and shield against all the horrible things that happened to her. With all the love and support she got from the people around her, she was able to bounce back which is definitely a feat because Asian families are not fond of failures haha Despite the miscommunications and missed timings, everything eventually fell into place.
What seems to be a lighthearted K-drama turns out to be a compelling and poignant story about all the relationships that formed and nurtured us - from family, platonic to romantic. I love how this has a modern take on marriage, dreams, family dynamics, marital difficulties, introspection and everything Gen-Z is revolutionizing for.
Ultimately, Love Next Door centers on motherly love. Seok Ryu’s mother treats her two children differently but still cooks and serves food even if she’s mad. On the other hand, Seung Hyo’s mother barely stays at home and rarely spends time with her husband and son. It’s such a drastic contrast to Seok Ryu’s house which is cozy, noisy and always smells of homecooked food. Mo Eum’s mother finds it easy to get along with her neighbors and newcomers, and she is also very supportive and protective of her daughter’s future. Despite being a single parent, she is not obsessed with her child’s success allowing Mo Eum to pursue her own path unlike Seok Ryu and Seung Hyo’s mothers. Three mothers portray three different kinds of maternal love which is essentially our foundation and basis of what true love is.
To sum up, Love Next Door is a realistic portrayal of families, relationships and everything in between. I will forever treasure this for its unapologetic vulnerability and how it unexpectedly infuses touches of humor, mirroring how life is—full of happiness and tears.
But seriously, I love this show. It starts off lighthearted and comical, but both the story and the characters are multilayered, with many facets to reveal. The entire cast is flawed, relatable and on top of it all funny without being irritating.
Bae Seok Ryu (Jung So Min) returns home to Korea after working in the United States for almost a decade. Unfortunately, her family won’t be too thrilled to hear why she came home unannounced – she quit her high-profile job and broke off her engagement. Choi Seung Hyo (Jung Hae In) is Seok Ryu’s childhood friend and neighbor. He is already a successful architect but is now back living with his parents as he just opened his own company in their old neighborhood. They haven’t seen each other for a long time so one might think they would go emotional and teary-eyed the second they meet. In true sitcom fashion, they started bickering back and forth that it feels like they hate each other with every fiber of their being. And this is just the beginning. All the chaos and pent-up emotions start to spill out here.
So Min and Hae In are my favorite actors so imagine how ecstatic I was to hear that my fave versatile actors are starring in a romcom, which also happens to be my fave genre. These two can eat up any genre from romcom, thriller, action, fantasy to sageuk.
So Min portrays Seok Ryu with a chirpy, feisty yet vulnerable persona, capturing the very essence of every eldest Asian daughter and her fake façade. At first, she seems to shrug off every scolding and earful she gets from her mother, but as the story moves along, we learn that this is just a cover-up and she has already harbored ill feelings toward her parents for their favoritism and high expectations of her. Seok Ryu is one of the most complex yet relatable characters I have ever seen. Perhaps this just hits too close to home as an Asian daughter myself who knows all the dynamics and inexplicable relationships in an Asian household.
Hae In establishes a nice balance in Seung Hyo’s noble yet reserved personality, which he shows to everyone except Seok Ryu. On paper, he is the ideal guy and has all the qualities every Asian mom would adore – successful job, company owner, handsome looks, and kind manners. But in reality, he is too much of an idealist rather than keeping his foot on the ground, which is the result of coming from a privileged background. It was so nice to rub in everyone's faces that Seung Ho also has flaws and is not the perfect boss, son and friend we want him to appear to be. He is selfish just like any of us and tries to live in his ideal world even if it is not practical.
An Asian household is not without its dysfunctionality. Love Next Door depicts the two extremes of Asian family – one is a seemingly perfect family from outside with prestigious jobs but barely talks and eats together, while the other is a working-class family founded on tough love and good food but with bottled-up emotions. This just goes to show how you don't get to have the best of both worlds. Every time they get drunk, the two dads spill out their guts about how they are jealous of each other’s lives. Two different people living two different lives, yet they are envious of each other. Our achievements and wins in life are always just the tip of the iceberg, yet they are always the first things people see in us. They try to equate our value with how well we do in life and that’s the sad reality. Our hardships in reaching the peak of success is unknown to many because only we how hard it was for us.
I don't understand the low reviews from other viewers. They keep saying the show lost its potential, even though it’s clear this has some of the best character developments and most fleshed-out characters in K-drama. This is character-driven and has an unconventional storytelling. It does not follow the usual climactic formula and over-the-top conflicts. There are many characters yet they don’t drown out the theme and conflict of the show. I love that this show celebrates the seasons of life, that through the course of our lives, we will experience all four seasons: the joy and brightness of summer, the quiet and pensiveness of autumn, the cold and gloominess of winter, and last but not the least the warmth and hopefulness of spring. Seok Ryu and Seung Hyo’s winter were the harshest of them all. It took a lot of time and energy for them to finally achieve a fresh beginning.
Watching this feels like visiting your old neighborhood and everyone is excited and nosy about how you have been. As you excuse yourself from your neighbors and walk towards your house, you can still hear the faint chitchats and gossips going around. It’s the same neighborhood you know inside out - whether it's the moms bragging their children’s achievements, dads getting drinks and falling back to their intoxicated behaviors, siblings nagging one another or childhood friends hanging out outside a convenience store – everything feels familiar and the same, yet you have already changed at the same time you feel lost on what your next step should be. This is Seok Ryu’s dilemma from the get-go. The familiarity of the place became her safe space and shield against all the horrible things that happened to her. With all the love and support she got from the people around her, she was able to bounce back which is definitely a feat because Asian families are not fond of failures haha Despite the miscommunications and missed timings, everything eventually fell into place.
What seems to be a lighthearted K-drama turns out to be a compelling and poignant story about all the relationships that formed and nurtured us - from family, platonic to romantic. I love how this has a modern take on marriage, dreams, family dynamics, marital difficulties, introspection and everything Gen-Z is revolutionizing for.
Ultimately, Love Next Door centers on motherly love. Seok Ryu’s mother treats her two children differently but still cooks and serves food even if she’s mad. On the other hand, Seung Hyo’s mother barely stays at home and rarely spends time with her husband and son. It’s such a drastic contrast to Seok Ryu’s house which is cozy, noisy and always smells of homecooked food. Mo Eum’s mother finds it easy to get along with her neighbors and newcomers, and she is also very supportive and protective of her daughter’s future. Despite being a single parent, she is not obsessed with her child’s success allowing Mo Eum to pursue her own path unlike Seok Ryu and Seung Hyo’s mothers. Three mothers portray three different kinds of maternal love which is essentially our foundation and basis of what true love is.
To sum up, Love Next Door is a realistic portrayal of families, relationships and everything in between. I will forever treasure this for its unapologetic vulnerability and how it unexpectedly infuses touches of humor, mirroring how life is—full of happiness and tears.
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