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A great, gentle and tender love story
An amazing, beautiful show. The script is a gem, open and careful discussion of social issues is so rare and this drama accomplished it naturally. The difficulty of the age difference in this noona drama and the way in which their relationship begins is never ignored. The town in the mountains from which Li Wu is rescued by Cen Jin is neither sentimentalized nor forgotten; its beauty is celebrated along with Li Wu's country-boy strength of character and integrity.Modern Cdrama's forte is this sort of graceful semi-realism and really great OSTs; Sniper Butterfly possesses in addition two formidable acting talents: Zhou Ke Yu/Daniel Zhou and Michelle Chen, a Taiwanese actress who catapulted to the top of her field early in her career. The main director is also Taiwanese, and he and she have worked together several times.
Zhou Ke Yu, however is an astounding new talent. In his early 20's his mastery of his craft is refined and careful. You will find yourself following the progress of his emotions through his complex handling of glances, breathing, timing and movement rather than through his laconic dialogue. Michelle Chen has the opposite strength, she plays perfectly a talkative, nervy copy writer in the advertising industry who needs to work her way through issues via discussion. She provides the tension and edge which lifts the romance out of banality.
The script follows a doubled time-line: It begins in 2024 as Li Wu returns to China from his graduate studies in the US, to seek out Cen Jin who has created a happy successful career for herself after the tumultous period in which she and Li Wu met. Thereafter the beginning of their relationship in 2016 runs parallel to the present day, until we finally understand a) why Cen Jin broke off their developing love affair then and sent him away and b) why their love and affection for each other was so strong that Li Wu is able to win her back.
Just beautiful.
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A richly satisfying completion of Flourished Peony
A 2025 historical Cdrama which completes the story begun in Flourished Peony, of the love of He Wei Fang (known as Mudan) and Jiang Changyang. 24 eps x 45mins. ea = 18 hrs watch time. This was originally scripted and mostly produced as a grand drama of 56 eps., but as a result of new rules limiting dramas to no more than 40 episodes it was broken into two and renamed. I would advise chunking it up into a few large sections for bingeing which bridge that break.I have reviewed Flourished Peony separately but to summarize the overall plot: He Wei Fang, the daughter of an apothecary and a peony cultivator, escapes a dangerous and loveless marriage in the provinces with some coincidental help from the Floral Envoy of the Emperor (a part of the Ministry of Rites). He, for his part, was evading a betrothal to a princess (the 'County Princess') who had been the long-time secret and devoted lover of Mudan's husband.
Mudan then escapes her family on her own and, penniless in the capitol city of Chang'an, gathers together capital and loyal associates and recovers her stolen inheritance, her mother's store. ChangYang never forgets her and helps her in hidden ways, since his public persona is of a corrupt and heartless imperial playboy. As they fall slowly in love, he becomes her investor, her friend and eventually her contract-husband in a fake concubinage-marriage.
ChangYang is engaged in a long-term secret and dangerous plan, together with his childhood friend the Emperor, to root out corrupt officials throughout the government. His ostensive patron is the older brother of the Emperor, Prince Ning, who plans to become emperor himself. Prince Ning is the father of the County Princess and the father-in-law of the now humiliated and crippled ex-husband of Mudan, Liu Chang, who has since become obsessed with recovering Mudan, and, in his delusions, his original 'honourable' self. The continuous danger posed by the Ning household's machinations and interventions dogs our couple throughout the story.
This is not a drama for the impatient. The affection of the leads for each other is palpable very early but they have to endure many trials before they can finally confess their love to each other. Never boring, the love between two very strong and independent individuals, separately shaped by their complicated pasts, is masterfully depicted.
Truly excellent cast. Even tho it is such a largescale production, many separate individuals still stand out clearly. This is a powerfully theatrical script and it offers the leads big roles, with subtle emotions and grand gestures. The performances of Li Xian, Yang Zi and Miles Wei were stratospherically good. The Emperor, the Prince, the County Princess, and more, were great.
An original and strong script situated in a really fine, grand production; lovely music, beautiful spectacles, costuming, etc. This is a show to savor intensely, for much more than the central romance and the political intrigue. The depiction of the world of pleasure and entertainment in Tang society which dominates Part One is a treat. Differently so, the well-done high dramatic tone of Part Two is masterful. It manages to weave together poetry, proverbs and political speech (which can be insanely jarring in many cdrama productions) as the fundamental pleasure of the revelation of of the plot's long term developments.
Flourished Peony covers the struggle of Mudan to establish her horticultural business and the evolution of the Mudan's and ChangYang's relationship from patron/client to a more equal and enduring affection. The fragility of the spaces for women of energy and ambition provides much of the drama. Men in the community and in her profession utilize whatever they can to challenge her efforts, for all sorts of reasons, from the personal to professional competition. The County Princess' desperate attempts to recover her husband's love begin to escalate dangerously.
In this second part the very dangerous long-term political project of ChangYang and his friend the Tang Emperor comes to fruition. We learn more about his past through Mudan's increasing knowledge. The romance between Mudan and ChangYang hovers for a long time in the grey areas of an intimate friendship. They pledge their loyalty to each other tentatively, over and over again. When they become lovers it is richly satisfying to see. Li Xian and Yang Zi are veterans of modern cdrama romances and are at ease with the move into physical affection. They are beautiful lovers, and the script takes pains to situate their love in the community that Mudan has built for them. You will absolutely love the ending(s).
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This review may contain spoilers
Possibly the best, certainly the most interesting forced-cohabitation-sageuk you will ever see.
Possibly the best, certainly the most interesting forced-cohabitation-sageuk you will ever see. 2024-5, 16eps at 1hr10mins ea. Absolutely amazing, brilliant acting by both leads.Ever-evolving chapters of fiction and disguise. Im Ji Yeon's character, a runaway slave named Goodecki, lives in fear of what her discovery would mean -- the deaths of her entire household for harboring her. Choo Young Woo successfully carries off the role of an actor's lifetime -- he plays two separate characters, one the doppelganger of the other, both her husbands, in sequence.
Epic cinematography, original and intensely theatrical plot. Experienced direc tor,irector Jun Hyuk, composer Chung Yea Kyung, writer park Ji Sook
The true lovers meet at a street fair in disguise. They comically destroy, by accident, a proposed marriage of the ML to Goodecki's obsessively cruel mistress . We follow Goodecki: brutal punishment, escape and mistaken recognition as the long-absent daughter of a noble family, the Oks, from a neighboring provincial county. The ML disappears for 2-plus episodes. He is a novelist/performer and a disgraced illegitimate son, Song Seo In (stage name Seung Hwi), It is a relief when he reappears. You will have longed for his merry presence to relieve the tensions of Lady Ok's new life.
The magistrate's son, Seong Yun Gyeom, whom the FL is forced to marry (because of one of those interfering royal edicts), looks exactly like the ML. Yun Gyeom is a closeted gay activist, needing disguise as much as she does. His projects result in danger for the FL, so Seung Hwi gives up his identity to become her husband in his place. True love indeed.
Over and over again Lady Ok faces disaster and survives. Im Ji Yeon deserves more credit than she gets. Her steady powerful performance is not as glitzy as playing doppelgangers but it is outstanding. An excellent supporting cast includes two second couples, one noble and one humble, who provide the comic relief and tears necessary for a satisfying romedy.
The suspension of disbelief is almost complete. You will ask yourself, how does Choo Young Woo make his two roles still feel like distinct characters? The moment where the doppelganger appears is so subtle-- Lady Ok cannot reveal her surprise, so you too hold judgement until you can figure out what is happening, thus neatly participating in the life that the main characters must lead in the dangerous circumstances of Joseon.
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magnificent
oh.....my.....god. A magnificent show. Villainy unfolded layer upon hidden layer and hidden heart-wrenching love. 30 eps at 45mins ea, and I was riveted to the screen for every single one. Shock and awe mixed with both pity and love may not be to your taste but this is the kind of show where even a few episodes will be worth it for the memory.Give it a try. I recommend it.
An FL who resorts to biting or murder when all else fails, Zhuang Han Yan, played by the actress Chen Du Ling, is a realistic character who has never been loved by anyone except a piratical female bodyguard and childhood friend. Abused from the beginning of her helpless infancy she does not trust, and given the family she meets when she comes back for revenge, she is right not to do so. She still yearns and quietly hopes for some form of love in some corner of her heart, but she is definitely psychotically possessed by a need for revenge.
She is a lonely goose poetically who flies back north to find a home. There is a great moment about exactly halfway through where she hangs an anonymous poem about herself on a festival tree where girls invite poems in response. Fu Yunxi finds it by sheer powerful instinct and writes a perfect reply, which then gets lost and one despairs of these two, even though fireworks rain down overhead.
An ML both stoic and vulnerable, Fu Yun Xi, played by Xin Yun Lai, is a shadowy personage, an criminal investigator for the imperial govt, who plans so far ahead into the future that he knows when he sees ZHY that she is the wife he needs. A man who is playing a dangerous game that is not easily guessed by the viewer, he is so calculating that he manages, thank goodness, to predict when his love is about to go off the rails in some murderous rampage. Unlike the usual romantic hero he doesnt so much as magically rescue her from danger as protect her from herself. How does he understand her so well? She is baffled by him, as are we. Xin Yun Lai is gorgeous, so it is a pleasure to wonder and watch him as he plays out his long-term strategies.
It is a character-driven story, written by a novelist who has had other works successfully adapted to the small screen. The scriptwriter and director however must still receive great credit for emphasizing the classically 'tragic' elements successfully. Pity, fear and awe (w/a bow to the Poetics), all are evoked.
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This is has been a cult show for years. Smooth as silk kdrama, laughter and tears regularly provided. Essentially a teen love story about a teen band, mostly situated in their "dorm", an utter pop 60's fantasy piece of architecture, but all organic curves (what is this building??).
First hook-- a separated-twin story and a twin-masquerade story (in the West, 12th Night and The Menaechmi likewise floated to the frothy top of their respective cultural scenes).) The opening scenes have a mediterranean feel, is it the "technicoloring", the nun costumes , the naked marble statues or the scooter jokes? Thereafter the show is about the emotional interactions of a small cast. So deceptively simple.
Second hook -- missing parents and other relatives provide the nec. structural mystery, and they and the antagonists swoop in and out of the 2 main sets as if they are making stage entrances. In an HS script, look for what the HS do better, those places where their absolute bravura breaks through; not essentially in original plots or characters , but in how well they do them.
In this production, the use of what is essentially a chorus in ancient classical comedy/tragedy is wonderful. The fangirls who camp outside the company (afterschool?) wail and beat their breasts astoundingly and comment upon the action in silly ways. In the countryside visit the three old women are incredible, not only does their performance have perfect comic rhythm, but HS weaves in references to trot singers and specialized tv shows where the other half of Korea gets its impressions of entertainment. A quick meta to the history of music in SK, in an idol drama!!!
The recognition-of-the-lovers section comes a little later than expected, but when it does the carefully built-up system of metaphors and puns explodes as the characters deploy them in the service of conversations practically in code. The light of the "star" (and awfully, the moon as reflector of it/the sun) versus the light of the sun which blots out the recognition of others, darkness and light, hiding and paying attention, seeing and not seeing, showing and not showing. The ML has night-blindness, oh yes he does. The pleasure of the final tensions being resolved in poetic language is so intensely the HS' territory.
Here is a question, are the Hong sisters basically insanely lucky in casting and directors so that their intelligent, flippant and tightly constructed scripts are thus given that HS stratospheric oomph? You're Beautiful is a show on par with Hwayugi in characters who are almost instantly recognizable after just the 1st episode. I loved Lee Hong Ki there as the unforgettable PK (and his zombie friend Richie!) and I love him here as Jeremy, a character who reflects a prototype love-is-love theme. Jang Geun Suk rises from the ashes of Hong GilDong as a Heathcliff-ian ML.
Park Shin Hye is one of those heroic kdrama actresses who started working at the age of 13 and is still going strong 33 dramas later. Although her trippy little dove-of-christ characterization made my teeth grind, I can believe that that sort of naivete existed somewhere before my own era--nowadays most nuns and novitiates after Vatican II are amazingly truehearted, practical and energetic persons. And of course, PSH's performance is a perfect, absolutely perfect, foil to the comedy (the term 'straight man' in reference to comic pairs is now unusable or I would use it).
ps. I think it is not useful to trace influence in a hectic renaissance time like this one where dramas run only for 2 months, performers and writers work for cheap for companies which have state monies to spend, and where many of the behind the scenes creatives have one of the excellent university degrees in theatre and film available in SK. The consequence of the hurly-burly is that any successful show is instantly imitated piecemeal by competitors looking for that secret sauce. Only those on the scene have any memories of what went into that creative process.
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Gong Hyo Jin is creepier than the ghosts to start off with, and the CEO constantly saves her even though he wants nothing to do with her. Do not watch just after The Greatest Love -- the pairing only superficially resembles those fabulous characters.
The script and soundtrack are more powerful than Gong Hyo Jin's admitted acting skill and the charm of Jo Si Seob (he went onto success as a romantic lead after this), and the revelations of their slow and prickly romance are fueled by another of those complicated structures of allusion and jokes which the HS can produce, and which are frustrating to guess at from the subtitles. A total guess on my part, but most of the subtitles appear to be so literal (i.e.close to the meanings of individual words in Korean) that I think the translators decided to try to give a taste of the verbal humor and play that way, throwing caution and pronouns to the winds.
Physical touch/sexual attraction and the psychic invisible phenomena are the concepts which are constantly played with (the two words are"sound-alikes" in Korean, hehe). The pair discusses invisibility as part of selfishness -- she was so needy she couldn't "see" him...he is stuck in a mirroring past experience and couldnt see her real self. The title Masters Sun and her name Tae (means sun) refer to another set of metaphors -- she is a shining light (sun) to ghosts in their world, so they flock to her like moths, but in the outer world she fears she is a darker light.
The attraction of total opposites is compared to a children's fable or book about a wolf and a goat. It sounds like when in Aesop the lamb tries to escape through fancy talk but the wolf cuts in with realpolitick and eats her/him, enough so that the viewer is quite worried about how it will all end. There is a reference to a "Candy" -- The CEO calls Seo inguk charater "Candy Kang" with great relish -- but is the bodyguard really he is a gender-reversed Cinderella character?
Anyway, the HS always create instantly recognizable characters, and all the supporting actors in Masters Sun were genius. The romantic pair in each show always have over-determined motivations, allowing for lots of audience interpretation. The HS scripts seem to always catch the top of the wave generically, and each show is distinct from all the others. This was the last of the annual productions they had kept up with since 2005, and thereafter the shows come every other year more or less. 2015, '17/18, '22 and soon '25/26. Cant wait.
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A classic kdrama romedy about dating, with forced cohabitation etc. Leaping from one crisis to another, the romance is slow but lots of fun.
LSG is the guy-est of 20-year- old guys as Dae Woong, a character in the kind of role done to death by the FL lately (but with no psychological problems) -- DW is handsome, kind, everyone's idea of a great boyfriend, but hesitant in love and conflicted about what he really wants; he spreads misunderstandings through the small group of college friends and the acting company he wants to work for.
Shin Min Ah was a relative veteran at 26 with 4 movies and 4 dramas under her belt. Her vibrant energy crackles from the the tips of her toes to the top of her head as Mi Ho the gumiho who wants to be a human woman. Vulnerable and gullible, alert and suspicious, she is utterly without pretense, and very very curious about human mating behavior. Part of the fun is a series of Korean expressions about responsible, adult, respectful and decent behavior which is characterized as "being like a human".
DW's grampa complains that he isnt even human yet -- DW is immature still and innocently self-centered. MH is an innocent wild animal, a fox spirit, recently freed from a 500 year imprisonment. Not just animal lovers will be rolling in the aisles at her near-miss at drinking from a toilet bowl which she mistakes for a water fountain. At one point she licks an in-bus advertisement for restaurant food/"meat".
Secondary characters are great. As in My Girl, the secondary pair of lovers (absolutely standout comic talents!) incorporates the lovers fart joke .
The HS often pack some character development into a forced separation in the last two episodes, and indulgence in a little ambiguity is common event in kdrama when tidiness isnt possible. Until recently, the plot of a series is written on the fly after the first few weeks, try ta negotiation or balancing act between the audience reactions in real time, the scriptwriters original intentions if any, and the director's plans, if any. The SK television audience has a much higher tolerance for loose ending, in consequence. But now with the internationalization of asian drama on streaming svcs, as drama lengths shorten and regional differences (unfortunately from my sentimental perspective) tend to be ironed out, likewise quick or ambiguous wrap-ups will become less common.
ps.This is the first time In this watch of Hong Sisters' scripts from 2005 to 2024 that I noticed a circling shot of the main character at an emotional climax. There are books to be written about the changes in techniques in kdrama as influenced by the Hallyu shift from movies into TV (essentially being a massive shift in funding as well as expenses), the Covid phenomenon both in audiences and in the age of the actors, the use of techniques from blockbusters etc etc etc.. interestingly accelerated by the furious pace of productions coming out in increased numbers every season, , so that in the space of a year you can see a sudden interest in one new camera trick or angle sweep through many shows like a wave and then ebb away. So cool.
pps. I admit to congenital 2ML syndrome but Noh Min Woo, another musician like LSG, is haunting and gorgeous and does a yeoman's job of his role.twins...the true lovers do unite! But the now older younger twin looks exactly like his older brother, duh!).
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This review may contain spoilers
"who you are [to me] is someone who leaves....to Arthur you're someone who stays"
I started crying at the point (1/2 way) when Teo Yoo's character, Hae Sung, enters the lobby of a NY hotel on a quixotic quest to meet his first love, Nora Moon. The soundtrack kicks into high gear with slowed chords and intense swelling volume. The flashbacks previous to this had simply the discreet continuous background hum of NY, Seoul and Toronto which is never bothersome. After abt 20 minutes points of music begin to well up through it , starting while HS is on his military service.Great movies have a series of carefully framed and placed lines which reverberate backwards reinterpreting the scenes beforehand, and forwards to color what is to come. To quote them is often to misinterpret or spoil a movie, so I use one to just point to the frame of the story, only a very mild spoiler.
The lines above are from the very first scene of the movie, but they are unheard until the scene is played out in realtime later. Hae Sung sits at a bar in NY with Nora and her husband Arthur Zaturansky, the night before HS returns home to Seoul. He and Nora chat casually in Korean, using references to drama plotlines to knit together their different understandings and feeling,s about their meetings and partings, now and in the past. Arthur can only vaguely follow their conversation, but he (graciously) trusts Nora and I think partially understands that a continuing friendship that includes him might exist.
Because both Nora and Arthur are writers, HS's interactions with them are both more and less perilous. More because imaginary scenarios have the emotional power to destabilize emotions, but less because a writer's curiousity confers a sort of double vision of recording and thinking about lived emotions while experiencing them, which slows reaction times. Teo Yoo's emotions (as HS) wash across his face but Greta Lee's face (as NM) catches light while she looks at him and we think -- is he flirting, does she resist it, what are these feelings? The movie is in English, and she is the POV, the way we see HS. As viewers of kdrama the juxtaposition of the felt lives of Korea and the US hurts to watch, just as within Nora Moon the collision of her past and present hurts.
Teo Yoo is an interesting actor in that he is fully bi/tri lingual, and intelligently so -- it makes him especially able to navigate these cross-cultural scripts. The soundtrack was composed by two members of a band called the Grizzly Bear -- why do I know this? Because I was sure the composer/sound editors had to be Korean, they were so dominantly in emotional control, so I looked them up and they werent. The cinematography is gorgeous. My favorites: a Staten Island Ferry ride, the bar scene and the flashbacks to childhood in Seoul where the mess of electrical lines above the streets reminds me of the innocence of 2006 Seoul in One Fine Day.
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just right for a summer binge
Perfect in itself and unassuming. Fun, light and pretty with a twin complication and true love. The very best kind of an idol drama. 2021-22, 12 eps at 1hr ea.Just right for the weekend binge with ice cream (dreaming of summer). Or try a few evenings in a row, it wont trouble your dreams, but work will be the better the next day.
The band really rocks. Jun (Lee Jun Young) almost overwhelms the acting mix with his already powerful expressive skills, but he 'harmonizes' tactfully. He is so good. Watch his micro-expressions.
An FL with loan sharks chasing her. Yay! Classic experienced romedy supporting cast outside the main leads; a nice time jump near the end. Good street scenes and rooftop views of Seoul -- maybe standard now but love of the city still shines thru them and it has resisted the tarnish of time.
Enjoy.
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still one of the best romantic-fusion modern dramas ever
Also known as Rain Or Shine. A story of healing true love in the aftermath of a national disaster. A quiet and delicate show, punctuated by the intrusive memories of the two leads of being buried alive as children in a shopping mall collapse. A fictional story which reflects a national trauma in '95; the show's accident happens in '05 and the action of the story is set over a decade later.Junho and Won Jin-ah are brilliant in the leading roles, magnetic personalities with a powerful and romantic attraction to each other. Their performances overshadow a second lead couple who hold an important place in the script. The two pairs demonstrate a contrast between families broken by the aftermath of the disaster and those from families who were responsible and who retained relative wealth. All are psychologically scarred by it. A third lead couple is one of my all-time favourites because they are fully developed characters and funny without being over-the-top sterotypes.
The soundtrack by Nam Hye Seung, is compelling but not overpowering. Memories contrast the pastels of the intact mall and the following billowing clouds of dust and glittering shards of class, with the grey dark scenes of the entrapment and rescue. The RL scenes are shot mostly in a clear daylight (out on the construction site etc.) or a well-lit office where the first couple end up employed by the second.
To begin with, neither of the pair recognizes each other from the event so long ago. The FL has traumatic amnesia but deals daily with her parents' pain; they are unable to move on from the death of her younger sister. The ML only has one family member, his younger sister, left and lives in poverty; his opportunities were destroyed by his severe injuries and by the corrupt blockage of his family's compensation package. Slowly all concerned shift away from their long-held coping mechanisms: anger, forgetting, sadness, guilt and regret.
The favorite quote of one of the more unique characters (a loan shark by day and a doctor at night for those who cannot afford healthcare) is from Im Chul Woo, whose books often deal with the aftermath of the bloody Gwangju uprising of '80. "..Suffering, resentment and regrets are your strengths. With these strengths, somehow survive [this] ugly and frightening life."
A Studio Dragon show with the composers Park Sang Hee and Nam Hye Seung. Writer -- Yoo Bo Ra.
posted simultaneously on viki
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This first kiss is both wonderful and hilarious
Thank you to Director Lim Hyun Hee and to Writer Lee Shin Won for this lovely, funny show. !Fighting!A cute little kdrama BL. My reactions: (E1-2) I am so happy! Laughing like a nutcase. This looks like it is going to be good. (E3-4) Great, great first kiss. Completely bananas long-haired lover! Nam Shi An bias. Main romance gets sunny cool house scenes, heart-wrenching-already second romance gets yellow streetlight in darkened backstreets. (E5-6) (holding myself back from spoilers) A lesbian bestie, smiles, tears, a seriously heart-fluttering hug and a heartbreaking embrace. Oh that ominous fitbit. (E7-8) Ouch, very very PG. Sweet as honey.
This is standard kdrama sequence in mini-mini form (8 eps at 30 mins ea.), all the best bits condensed. Several annoying loose ends/teasers for poss. sequel. Confession as the main issue, and its relation to personal growth. Some commentators seem puzzled -- I think because the show at the very last minute loses its surreal edge and comes down to earth (a very nice earth) with a tiny thud. I still go with 10stars for quality, cinematic intelligence, art, and for Nam Si An ripping up any official documents within reach (adorably).
If immature behavior is a topic I will grab the chance to say that I think the young guy/young girl/cute kid/charley-chaplin comedy characters work in Jungian terms, igniting psychological needs or functions in us, the spectators. In this comedy the childish terrors of our doll-like protagonist Jin Woo make us laugh as he ineffectually tries to stop the no-boundaries Id-representing Gi Seop from entering his house. [As Jade hinted] in BL these men will blossom quickly into true lovers, like flowers in a desert spring. They enable us to remember/compare/hope for our own spring and gain emotional strength.
Maybe that R rating is because there is a lesbian character. Ooh so scary.
first posted on viki april 30th 2024
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classic heart-wrenching healing drama
Kdrama at its best. 2025, 12 eps at 1hr10mins ea = 14 hrs watchtime. The plot, deceptively simple and predictable to begin with, is a joyful surprise by the finale. An elegant, streamlined version of the classics within the boundaries of the new double audience for binge-watching and on-air experience. Kudos to the writer, Lee Gang.The director, the composer and the two leads in themselves are all fabulous and very famous. In particular check out Nam Hye Seung's track record in producing the soundtrack for so many hits . The director Park Shin Woo is also an experienced romance-hit director, who I imagine kept this drama soundly on track. This review is a little long , apologies. The show deserves a little more praise than usual.
A pair of twins, Mi Ji and Mi Rae, secretly exchange their lives temporarily. Mi Ji , a chaotic and loving part-timer who takes care of her grandmother in a nursing home in Dusan-ri, puts on heels and skirts and bluffs her way through Mi Rae's corporate office job (which financially supports the family In addition to their mom's work).
The English title alludes to the roles of a poet and her poetry in the show and to the ways in which the twins finally learn to write their own stories. The Korean title, Miji's/ Yet Unknown Seoul, on the other hand, helps clarify that there is a steady dramatic focus on Mi JI and her first love, Ho Su.
The doubling of practically all the characters. is fun, but the arc of Miji's and Hosu's love is central to the plot. She is the narrator. Her story continues with unabated power until the final episodes where, in tune with new patterns, several storylines wrap up together at once (in older more desultory patterns, storylines begin and finish in sequence) .
Two settings, two moms, two lover-to-be. Both sisters, distinct in character, have a chance to stretch themselves within their new situations. Each puts her own distinct spin on the other's problems and each goes through a the temporary re-assortment of personality which accompanies psychological change and transformation.
Park Bo-Young, a profoundly good actress, playing both twin roles, accomplishes something even more difficult than playing only two separate parts consistently. The sisters become more like each other while suffering their psychological crises through the central portion of the show, and when they pull themselves together, are even more distinct people. PBY portrays psychological change in double.
Mi Rae's tightly-wound, organized and reserved character does not change as much as her goals do; they change to better fit her real interests and her hidden independence.
Mi Ji and Ho Su have long-term psychological wounds that they have to face. Hosu in particular, who is more physically limited than he looks (from the serious car accident which took his dad), must face his own profound fear of rejection and his desperate hope for a normal life.
Park Jin Young is a magnetic and amazing talent. In his role as Ho Su he is both beautifully clumsy and gracefully tactful. How does such a graceful dancer balance the fully buttoned-up, disabled, and overcoated lawyer with his own exuberance? Mainly he uses his eyes and a sort of hopeful stillness which his training enables him to precisely calibrate. Watch it happen. The absence of wider gestures (the character actually has to avoid losing his balance) gives the way he catches Mi Ji's hands when she sputters off track and his little goodbye waves, wordless eloquence.
Mi Ji's personal changes and her triumph over depression and lack of self-confidence are key to unlocking the estrangement of others, even characters as close as twins are. Ho Su's damaged health and painful memories estrange him from his stepmom, Mi Ji's failure in high school estranges her from her mom, secrets divide both the moms from each other, and divide the twins mom from their grandmother. As Mi Ji changes, the whole web of relationships shifts and others cease to be stuck in previous patterns too. The two sisters find improvement in relationship with their own mother, as does Ho Su with his stepmom.
My favourite supporting characters, the wonderful Jang Young Nam as the twin's Mom, and Won Mi Kyung as the companion of the poet Rosa, also change alongside Mi Ji as she starts her journey. Mom and grandmother finally share their stories at almost the last minute. The elderly restaurant owner learns to read the poet's poems.
Ho Su's first boss, one of Im Chul Soo's fabulous characters, also disabled, is an excessively competitive and unfeeling lawyer zipping around in a wheel chair when not leaning on his silver-headed cane. Even he eventually even becomes helpful when Ho Su's disabilities worsen.
And so, of course, as expected in a rom-com, the leads find love as they straighten out their misunderstandings. What a great watch!
a spoiler ---
ps. Friendship between the poet and Sang-Wol, my foot. True hearts and flowers full blown love in full sight. Miji and HHosu listen to her story and the openness in their hearts shows on PJY and PBY's faces. This is as healing as anything else in the story, Very daring for South Korea and very nice for Pride month.
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This review may contain spoilers
A classic by the Hong Sisters
This is a solid classic. I loved it and stayed up way too late to binge it last Friday night.Listen to no one, not even me. Proceed with caution, and try this out for yourself. The summaries given out publically before the show aired may have been somewhat misleading.
The frame is that of a crew and actors shooting a romantic dating-reality show. The two stars of this show-within-the-show, the Korean actress, suddenly made famous by a role as an axe-wielding zombie, and the princely Japanese romance lead, have to summon romantic feelings as part of their jobs. The basic genre which develops inside of that frame is that of a psychological thriller, because it turns out that the actress has crazy difficulty with romance. The issue of sincerity -- how do you know if someone means what they say? -- is thus handled very cleverly at both levels.
The misunderstandings of the OTP turn out not to be linguistic, since both the interpreter and the lead actress speak Korean. The ML, played by the legendary Kim Seon Ho, struggles wryly, as will you, to understand the FL. The SML, Hiro, the Japanese co-star of the dating show, also struggles; he doesnt know Korean, she understands neither Japanese nor English, so he ends up learning Korean.
Go Yoon Jung really shines. The actress she plays, MuHui, constantly hallucinates an intensely funny, mischievous and irresponsible alter. She suffers from a classic case of dissociative personality disorder due to a very traumatic childhood. Do-Ra-Mi, the alter, takes over MuHui's personality in her off-hours and meddles with MuHui's love life..
Zombie love. Most of MuHui's energy and joy is captured in her alternate self. She slept in a coma through the growth of her fame. The ML, a classic taciturn lead, is still enraptured by a love he could never achieve. He has a richly difficult family life, swiftly introduced but not given as much visual time as his amazing house full of books tottering on every surface. The house itself is allusive, literary. It is inhabited by a wild-haired author, a family friend; also by the love rival from the frozen past, a bohemian brother. Many more secondary characters are clearly drawn and reflect issues brought up by the OTP. without their own entire arc made visible.
The script and dialogue of Can This Love Be Translated are classic Hong Sisters: heavy on metaphor, difficult to translate into English, thick and rich with all sorts of plot textures. THE HS ARE NEVER EVER PREDICTABLE. HS shows often involve some incredibly creative twists on currently popular genres which put them at the top of the class. Some love the HS, some hate them. Find out who you are.
My favorite visual trick amongst many lovely scenes, shots and sequences, is that the show starts out in the open light of day, in Italy, Japan and most notably in the wide open spaces of the Canadian West. At the end of the Canada episodes the crew chases the spectacle of the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis, only to fall asleep exhausted and miss the show. The lovers, up late by chance, do see it. The show, then moving to Italy, dives into darkness psychologically and frequently visually, as the two begin to heal her illness. The show finishes in Korea at a dark sky reserve where the lovers stargaze under the brilliant night sky. Nice, huh?
But before we get there there is a lot of translation to be done by the viewer. Does Hiro fall for MuHui, will MuHui and the interpreter ever wake up and fall in love, why ever does MuHui appear at one point to try to seduce poor Hiro? Why are certain conversations between the ML and FL completely opaque; how do they suddenly turn into fights? (tbh, this is a RL experience for many of us, right?) At some points at the ends of one or two scenes the actors' dialogues are left unsubtitled -- horrifyingly, this may have been deliberate?
The romance is a bit old-school, for my taste. The structures of the 12ep plot may seem old-school too, since the HS wrote that book on 16 episode romcom that you are reading from. The halfway mark is hit at ep6 -- the lovers commit. Troubles and travails begin in episode 7 right on cue. Instant resolutions and sudden wrap-ups are held in the final episodes 11-12, as a vestigial representation of the old scramble of non pre-produced shows. I was actually happy that this took up two episodes instead of the often crazy old-style one episode wrap.
The Hong Sisters have written 14 shows, each distinct, in many genres, It is a mystery how they manage to hit the public sweet spot every time. If you want your favourite romantic recipe, this isnt for you. But this is the real warning: they mostly write smash hits, so you may miss out.
ps. I normally strive for short, somewhat condensed reviews. Apologies for this one. It confuses me that my own view of the show was so different than most others', so I tried to lay out why. Probably not very well, but whatever.
pps. here is another way to look at it. People always contrast the Hong sisters' top shows to those of Kim EunSook, the writer for Goblin and most recently, for Genie Make a Wish. For me the imperfections of even the best of the HS still have more heart and sincerity than the slicker and often more entertaining KES. Both brilliant. Both classic.
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Social commentary and Kim Young Kwang
A really great watch, although quite violent. 2025, 10eps x 50mins ea = abt 9 hrs watchtime. A police procedural becomes a kdrama with the addition of a fantastical villain, scads of social commentary and traumatic pasts all around.Excellent vignettes of individuals encouraged to pick up a gun to address their crushing grievances. The legendary action star Kim Nam Gil wearily struggles against the seductive desire for violent vengeance. Kim Young Kwang, all tattoos, swagger and excellent tailoring, takes revenge upon the society which abandoned him as a child. His performance is what makes this small kdrama so enjoyable.
The merciless bullying and barely suppressed anger of daily life in SK is the context, guns are the 'triggers' and the grand climax of this 10 episode series is a large cleansing violent setpiece. The use of smoke renders it dreamlike and poetic. The shadowy mostly American gangs of armsdealers who back Young Kwang's character seem determined to see SK as a market opportunity for gun sales.
Gun violence is not as common in kdrama since guns are banned in RL Korea -- villains in drama usually use an imaginative array of other weapons. The discussion of the use of guns and their potential effect on SK society is therefore uniquely interesting. Always interesting to consider, given the fact that in a society with universal male conscription, exactly half the population is already trained to handle guns.
An excellent Netflix production. The soundtrack is great, by the experienced composer Hwang Sang Jun. Director, Kwon Oh Seung.
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