This review may contain spoilers
Eve, the Ezer Who Remembered the Garden
A dazzlingly original Korean drama, rich in profound ideas, with outstanding casting and performances across the board—not to mention a beautiful soundtrack. Eve (Kong Hyo-Jin) and Ryong (Lee Min-Ho) portray the biblical depth of belonging between two mature adults, with all its beauty and pain, through a rare and powerful affinity.
Here, I only share a few reflections that may help some viewers recognize the deeper message of the drama.
This drama must be seen. Whether or not it breaks viewership records is irrelevant.
I’ve avoided describing the emotional or heartbreaking moments—let everyone discover those for themselves.
Postscript:
At first glance, the following remarks might seem like a religious reading of the drama—but that is not the case. While K-dramas enjoy huge popularity across Korea’s neighboring countries, outside of Korea and the Philippines, viewers familiar with Christian religious culture are very much in the minority. Even so, the scriptwriter appears to have taken the bold step—at least it seems so—of drawing on a modern re-interpretation of the Bible.
In this reading, the biblical Eve is no ordinary figure. She is portrayed as trustworthy; the Bible describes her as ezer—God’s gift, first among protectors. The writer sweeps aside the unjust medieval portrayals of Eve as the source of sin, depictions that caused centuries of suffering for women in the Christian world. The director nods to this as well, when Eve herself asks in Episode 12 (0:11:05), during a drinking scene with Go-Eun: “Do I seem like a boring woman to you?” This ezer-like role seems to rest on Kong Hyo-Jin as if it had always belonged to her—she wears it with a quiet radiance, an ease and truthfulness that make the character feel less performed than simply lived.
I will not attempt to reframe my earlier thoughts on the drama; I will simply leave them as they stand, now with this addition.
End of postscript.
In the Christian Bible, the myth of the “founding tragedy” ends with humanity’s expulsion from Eden. By disobeying a divine command and eating from the Tree of Knowledge, humanity enters the drama of the world and its own history.
Writer Seo Sook Hyang boldly takes up this theme, and her interpretation likely resonates with modern theological understandings of the Bible. She rehabilitates the biblical first woman through the actions of her distant descendant, Kim Eve—a commander with an inquisitive gaze and deep respect for life, played by Gong Hyo-Jin.
Seo Sook Hyang almost certainly drew inspiration from the Bible’s original description of the first woman. Eve only receives her name after the expulsion. Before that, the Bible refers to her as ezer kenegdo—“a helper fit for him,” or more precisely: “a divine companion given to man.” The meaning of ezer is crucial:
ezer – a gift from God; equal (partner); first among protectors.
This casts the first woman in an entirely new light. She is God’s favorite, assigned to stand beside Adam. Her “sin” is not desiring the fruit of the Tree under the serpent’s influence, but rather protecting Adam from temptation.
Eve believes they must not eat nor even touch the tree, or they will die. The serpent says: “You will not die.”
[This contradiction might arise from the fact that the command was given to Adam before Eve was created, which may explain the miscommunication.]
Eve, as ezer, the first among protectors, resolves this paradox. The Bible simply says of her thoughts: “She saw that the fruit was good, desirable, and would grant knowledge.”
And so, as ezer, she eats first. If she dies, Adam will know the serpent lied. Only afterward does Adam knowingly eat the fruit.
Once humanity is expelled from Eden, the question remains: Does humankind possess the capacity to handle knowledge without destroying itself?
This is a sharply relevant question today—atomic weapons, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, environmental crisis, the sanctity of life… These are all forms of knowledge not always accompanied by moral maturity.
The drama echoes with this very question.
It’s worth noting the director’s use of grotesque sequences—absurd quarrels over lottery tickets, the obsession of MZ’s leader, and nearly theatrical mise-en-scène.
Even in seemingly minor details, this grotesque humor emerges. The leader assures everyone that a mini-storage unit will protect a mulberry sprout from all “unknown radiation.” The absurdity lies in the phrase itself—“unknown” radiation is, by definition, something we don’t understand (and might not even be aware of). If I were in the leader’s place, I’d find it far more reassuring if the sprout were protected from known harmful radiation.
God loves the righteous. Whoever seeks truth is seeking God, and such a person dwells close to God. To their eyes, the actions of the deceitful seem grotesque.
God is love. One of the most quoted declarations of love in Christian tradition is from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (Chapter 13), which essentially says:
You may be crowned with glory, power, and wealth—but if you have no love, you have nothing. And the opposite is true:
You may be poor and possess nothing, but if love resides in your heart, you have everything.
Grotesqueness, then, is a form of judgment.
Eve is never depicted grotesquely—on the contrary, she serves as the contrast.
In this light, Christian culture often returns to a haunting question: Why does God allow the righteous, the innocent, to die? Where is the justice in that?
If this question doesn’t arise naturally in the viewer’s mind, Ryon raises it, quoting Eve: “She jokingly said that I should die instead of her.”
A possible answer is offered in a brief, emotional one-minute short story: Paulo Coelho’s The Two Jewels
[https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2017/10/09/the-two-jewels/]
Or in the Book of Wisdom 4:7–15 (excerpt):
“The righteous, though they die early, shall be at rest. For old age is not honored for length of time, or measured by number of years… Their soul being pleasing to the Lord, He took them quickly from the midst of wickedness.”
There is no better place for a person than beside the Lord.
Eve, the ezer, is only temporarily on Earth. God wants His beloved by His side. He does not let her suffer any longer.
In the final scene, we see Ryon in a wheelchair on the beach, filmed from behind.
From behind the camera’s point of view, a little girl runs into the frame, followed by a tall, radiant woman—
As if the Lord Himself were offering comfort:
“I have not forgotten you either. When your time comes, I will send them for you.”
Here, I only share a few reflections that may help some viewers recognize the deeper message of the drama.
This drama must be seen. Whether or not it breaks viewership records is irrelevant.
I’ve avoided describing the emotional or heartbreaking moments—let everyone discover those for themselves.
Postscript:
At first glance, the following remarks might seem like a religious reading of the drama—but that is not the case. While K-dramas enjoy huge popularity across Korea’s neighboring countries, outside of Korea and the Philippines, viewers familiar with Christian religious culture are very much in the minority. Even so, the scriptwriter appears to have taken the bold step—at least it seems so—of drawing on a modern re-interpretation of the Bible.
In this reading, the biblical Eve is no ordinary figure. She is portrayed as trustworthy; the Bible describes her as ezer—God’s gift, first among protectors. The writer sweeps aside the unjust medieval portrayals of Eve as the source of sin, depictions that caused centuries of suffering for women in the Christian world. The director nods to this as well, when Eve herself asks in Episode 12 (0:11:05), during a drinking scene with Go-Eun: “Do I seem like a boring woman to you?” This ezer-like role seems to rest on Kong Hyo-Jin as if it had always belonged to her—she wears it with a quiet radiance, an ease and truthfulness that make the character feel less performed than simply lived.
I will not attempt to reframe my earlier thoughts on the drama; I will simply leave them as they stand, now with this addition.
End of postscript.
In the Christian Bible, the myth of the “founding tragedy” ends with humanity’s expulsion from Eden. By disobeying a divine command and eating from the Tree of Knowledge, humanity enters the drama of the world and its own history.
Writer Seo Sook Hyang boldly takes up this theme, and her interpretation likely resonates with modern theological understandings of the Bible. She rehabilitates the biblical first woman through the actions of her distant descendant, Kim Eve—a commander with an inquisitive gaze and deep respect for life, played by Gong Hyo-Jin.
Seo Sook Hyang almost certainly drew inspiration from the Bible’s original description of the first woman. Eve only receives her name after the expulsion. Before that, the Bible refers to her as ezer kenegdo—“a helper fit for him,” or more precisely: “a divine companion given to man.” The meaning of ezer is crucial:
ezer – a gift from God; equal (partner); first among protectors.
This casts the first woman in an entirely new light. She is God’s favorite, assigned to stand beside Adam. Her “sin” is not desiring the fruit of the Tree under the serpent’s influence, but rather protecting Adam from temptation.
Eve believes they must not eat nor even touch the tree, or they will die. The serpent says: “You will not die.”
[This contradiction might arise from the fact that the command was given to Adam before Eve was created, which may explain the miscommunication.]
Eve, as ezer, the first among protectors, resolves this paradox. The Bible simply says of her thoughts: “She saw that the fruit was good, desirable, and would grant knowledge.”
And so, as ezer, she eats first. If she dies, Adam will know the serpent lied. Only afterward does Adam knowingly eat the fruit.
Once humanity is expelled from Eden, the question remains: Does humankind possess the capacity to handle knowledge without destroying itself?
This is a sharply relevant question today—atomic weapons, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, environmental crisis, the sanctity of life… These are all forms of knowledge not always accompanied by moral maturity.
The drama echoes with this very question.
It’s worth noting the director’s use of grotesque sequences—absurd quarrels over lottery tickets, the obsession of MZ’s leader, and nearly theatrical mise-en-scène.
Even in seemingly minor details, this grotesque humor emerges. The leader assures everyone that a mini-storage unit will protect a mulberry sprout from all “unknown radiation.” The absurdity lies in the phrase itself—“unknown” radiation is, by definition, something we don’t understand (and might not even be aware of). If I were in the leader’s place, I’d find it far more reassuring if the sprout were protected from known harmful radiation.
God loves the righteous. Whoever seeks truth is seeking God, and such a person dwells close to God. To their eyes, the actions of the deceitful seem grotesque.
God is love. One of the most quoted declarations of love in Christian tradition is from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (Chapter 13), which essentially says:
You may be crowned with glory, power, and wealth—but if you have no love, you have nothing. And the opposite is true:
You may be poor and possess nothing, but if love resides in your heart, you have everything.
Grotesqueness, then, is a form of judgment.
Eve is never depicted grotesquely—on the contrary, she serves as the contrast.
In this light, Christian culture often returns to a haunting question: Why does God allow the righteous, the innocent, to die? Where is the justice in that?
If this question doesn’t arise naturally in the viewer’s mind, Ryon raises it, quoting Eve: “She jokingly said that I should die instead of her.”
A possible answer is offered in a brief, emotional one-minute short story: Paulo Coelho’s The Two Jewels
[https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2017/10/09/the-two-jewels/]
Or in the Book of Wisdom 4:7–15 (excerpt):
“The righteous, though they die early, shall be at rest. For old age is not honored for length of time, or measured by number of years… Their soul being pleasing to the Lord, He took them quickly from the midst of wickedness.”
There is no better place for a person than beside the Lord.
Eve, the ezer, is only temporarily on Earth. God wants His beloved by His side. He does not let her suffer any longer.
In the final scene, we see Ryon in a wheelchair on the beach, filmed from behind.
From behind the camera’s point of view, a little girl runs into the frame, followed by a tall, radiant woman—
As if the Lord Himself were offering comfort:
“I have not forgotten you either. When your time comes, I will send them for you.”
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