Call It Love (2023)

I wanted more Chemistry between the Leads

Subjective Gut Rating - 8.25

“Call It Love” is a melodrama through and through. The pacing is slow, the conversations are meaningful, and the romance is slow burn and quiet. South Korea really likes its revenge drama in all genres. However, what differentiates “Call It Love” from other revenge dramas is that love, healing and forgiveness are more central to the plot, than revenge itself.

I had high expectations before I watched this drama. Kim Young Kwang was the main attraction and he did not disappoint. What a versatile and amazing actor he is! From an adorable and sexy CEO in “The Secret Life of My Secretary”, to a psycho serial killer in “Somebody”, and now a lonely and sad CEO, he was just perfect for the lead role. Han Dong Jin (ML) is a man of few words and walks with a sad and slightly crouched posture. He exudes loneliness, yet his caring side shows when he’s with FL. Kim Young Kwang is able to portray subtle facial expressions and looks/eyes that can convey all he wants to say without actually speaking the words.

On the other hand, I have mixed feelings about Lee Sung Kyung’s portrayal of Shim Woo Joo (FL). I am happy to see her venture out of the rom-com genre and challenge herself to play this role. Shim Woo Joo is another sad and depressed character. However, I find Lee Sung Kyung’s acting one-note throughout most of the drama. She often maintains that one facial expression - a sad and bland look/gaze. I actually like her character in the first ⅓ of the drama. Woo Joo speaks her thoughts with no filter and no reservation. I like her no nonsense approach and doesn’t care what other people say. But then, she seems to lose that straightforwardness and barely utters a few words.

Another reason I want to watch “Call It Love” is because I was craving some angst and melo-romance. I thought this drama would satisfy this urge of mine but I am disappointed. The first few episodes reminded me of “My Mister”. When the romance starts to slowly build up, I was hoping for the angsty, sizzling chemistry similar to Mr. Gu + Yeom Mi Jung in “My Liberation Notes” or Lee Boo Jung + Lee Kang Jae in “Lost”. Unfortunately, I did not feel that tension and longing in Han Dong Jin and Shim Woo Joo. I do like how honest and open they are with each other (in their own introverted way). I enjoy the depth of their conversations. Without really having long conversations, they are able to speak their minds succinctly. But they don’t move me. I wasn’t sad. I didn’t cry for them. I didn’t pray that they could live happily ever after. The chemistry was not bad, but did not live up to my expectations. I am sure many feel very differently and am in love with the leads.

“Call It Love” does explore the message of healing and forgiveness. I do think the drama does a good job by showing the effects of the father’s betrayal and the mistress’ calculated scheme. Oh yeah, I hated ML’s mother but I’ve seen worse parents in K-dramas. However, the secret was so long drawn out. At times, I wanted ML to know the truth already, so we can deal with the aftermath and damage control. On another note, I like the somewhat dysfunctional Shim family and the love/hate sibling relationships. I love what Shim Hye Seong (eldest sister) said to ML that, their family doesn’t know how to comfort each other, and feels awkward consoling someone, thus, they went out to karaoke and party hard instead.

Love triangles technically don't exist in this drama and I’m glad a couple friendships did not turn into unrequited love. Men and women CAN have platonic relationships. I’d rather see more of the bromance between ML and his fellow CEO buddy, than the lukewarm secondary romance. I find Shim Hye Seong (sister) a little annoying in the beginning but I understand why she acts that way once we get to know her. Once the forced smiles are gone, she becomes so much more tolerable. Yoon Joon (pharmacist 2ML) is a great and loyal friend to FL, and I’m glad to see Sung Joon plays this role after being introduced to his handsome guy in “I Need Romance 3”.
Many commented on the pink tone and the use of different colored filters. It doesn’t bother me, nor does it add to how I feel about the drama. It just doesn’t matter to me, but it might to you. I also quite enjoy the OST.

Overall, this is a good melodrama if you are in the mood for a very slow burn and slow-paced romance. I just wanted more in the chemistry department to give this a solid 8.5+ rating.



Completed: 4/18/2023

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LLike a warm and nostalgic cuppa

I don't know why but when I had initially tried watching this show, I couldn't. When I tried the second time, I realized that with each episode I wanted to know more about the story of SWJ and HDJ. The story for me felt like a warm yet nostalgic cuppa. It's a melodrama so expecting to instantly like or get hooked on the 1st episode is not a good idea. I liked the development of the main characters. They were both flawed yet at the core, both of them were good, I think DongJin and Woojoo were the best for each other because he was initially a pushover and needed someone to not pity him but show him what he was doing not entirely right, and someone needed to make Woojoo realize that taking revenge wouldn't make everything go back to normal. I would, however, want the reunion to be a bit longer, but it aligned well with the rest of the episode. The filter, the back and forth of the times, and the prologues at the beginning of some episodes made the show interesting. However, it would have been better if it was 12 episodes rather than 16. But I would say this is worth watching because you will see how a broken girl could be strong enough to protect the right people.

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For Lovers That Bloom In Spring

Lee Sung Kyung & Kim Young Kwang have completed their circle of genres as professionals (in my opinion) and Call it Love is one of the most interesting additions. It starts off as a revenge tale that slowly turns into one of the best slow-burn romances that I think we will have the privilege of watching this year. It was a soft piece to help transition from the winter blues into blooming spring, showing healing in the most aesthetic and healthy ways possible.

One thing I loved was the writer's ability to portray relationships WELL, in every aspect I think the dynamics were fully met. It showed the dynamic of siblings in a home of infidelity and divorce, how it affected their relationship with each other, how it's impacting their current lives, and their ability to love others. The toxic yet endearing relationship of Dongjin and his mother (whom i hate with passion) and the amount of things he had to give up because of it. The love and understanding of a family allowed time to heal their wounds and move on with their lives without holding on to the past and the grace that comes with honesty to oneself and to the ones they love. More importantly, the character growth was the chef's kiss! you could see how they changed over the course of the drama and how they re-discovered themselves in a place of peace and stability, for Woo Joo it was finally letting go of the pain and desires of revenge and for Dongjin, it was living the best way he could, for himself. That growth allowed them to heal fully from the evident pain that they had at the start of the drama.

At first, when I began it bared a too similar resemblance to My Liberation Note, with the 3 odd but fascinating siblings, an older sister who longs to find romance at every corner, and a brooding but intriuging male lead. I am happy to say it is nothing like My Liberation notes. But its nothing of the sort, in its own right it is beautiful and engaging, more than I would've thought

The color grading in this drama is one of the best I've seen so far, and how it changes as the characters warm up and fall in love was storytelling to the next level. And the quality as well!! Damn, everything a close-up was shown I had to search what camera it was filmed on. Apart from the quality of the performances and cinematography, the music was also top-tier, not any to my taste but it was the best use of a soundtrack so far this year. Watch it, it will not dissapoint.

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My

After a long time, a series attracted me and I finished it in two days
It's a light melodrama that I think you have to be in the mood to see
For months now, no series attracts me, not even one episode
But this series was interesting to me from the very beginning...
The acting of the actors was very good, even the secondary roles
The good thing about this series was that it cared about my subs and treated them well.
The main roles were great for me, who was not a fan of Lee Sung Kyung at all and I always saw her in the role of squealing girls, this series was great.
Symbols, color of clothes, lighting, everything comes to the series
It reminded me of Liberation Notes, but I personally did not like the story of that series at all (some things were similar).
Overall, I would like to give a score of 9/10

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This drama is a welcome antidote to all of the revenge dramas out there. Watching revenge dramas such as "The Glory" or "Vincenzo" is vastly entertaining and satisfying. "Call It Love," on the other hand, shows the emotional costs to one’s humanity and to innocent bystanders when one seeks revenge. Refraining from seeking revenge after one has been deeply wronged can be a sign of strength, not cowardice or weakness, and choosing to forego revenge can paradoxically leave one satisfied and more at peace with oneself. I’m glad that this drama shows the other side of revenge.

Shim Woojoo’s and Han Dongjin’s stories and their developing attraction to each other are beautifully told. I was impressed with Kim Young Kwan’s acting, which nails the still waters run deep-personality of Han Dongjin. Too often such attempts result in wooden acting (like Bo Hyun Ahn in "See You In My 19th Life"), but Kim Young Kwan is excellent. Even his back does a great acting job (you’ll understand if you watch this drama).

I watched this on Hulu but the subtitles were pretty bad and too often unintentionally funny. For example, when a tall, broad-shouldered, deep-voiced guy would laugh the subtitle would show, “Giggles.” Someone would cry and the subtitle would say, “Sniffles.” Big sigh. Or, as the subtitle would say, instead of sigh, “Snort.”

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Beautiful Leads drowning in Melodrama tropes

Melodrama is not my thing but I've been waiting for this pairing so.... I powered through.

Positives:
1. ML & FL pairing. He's tall & a model. She's tall & a model. It's basically hotness overload.
2. Sibling dynamic
3. That Rich Friend

Negatives: ALL the Melodrama tropes:
1. The walking dead. Sad people living but dead inside
2. Slow .... everything, talking, walking, reacting.....
3. Standing & staring .....
4. Wrist pull & save you from some kind of running vehicle
5. The comeback desperate ex
6. FF flashback moments overload

Yes I get it, it's supposed to connect 2 lonely sad people making their slow burn love more beautiful. I think the pair worked for melodrama lovers.

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Call it Satisfying

When I finished Call it Love I I honestly felt like I was satisfied in a well that was a grand days work kinda way as opposed to oh my god im totally blown away kind of way. But yet i look back at this as time well spent it kind of grows on you and you go through a certain kind of coming to terns with whats happening along with the characters.

At times this drama really had me moved and totally absorbed and at times I was feeling this is getting dull only for it to pull away from the edge and remain engaging and it makes you interested to hear what others thought.

Pros:
Some great chatacters and exploration of same and a sense of understanding them gradually in a satisfying way.

A really good fairly realistic story not OTT and well brought together. I genuinely felt any number of endings would satisfy me no anxiety re a happy vs sad vs open ending a few episodes out as the story was making sense to me (eventually) regardless.

The Secondary characters were all really engaging and not filler material and no really extreme characters (though some might say close to)

For a drama with virtually no comedy it was still not gratituosly depressing.

Some genuinely powerful moments.

The normalised and gentle treatnent of sister struggle with mental health issue, note not a central part of plot but nicely introduced and explored with subtlety and normality.

Cons

The leads at times were too monotonous and almost unable to express any emotions outside of a narrow range of stoic silence and underlying sadness.

The FL in particular some of her scenes were like oh come on say something, its actually getting weird now. Tropes were not rampant in this script apart from the miscommunication/no communication between leads trope which weared just a little at times.

The chemistry between leads lacked i felt I dont know if it was directing acting or both but it was a bit too low key to match where they get too in their relationship. However this may be because this was not just a story about romance it was that and a bit more so even the romance had to be in balance.

To put it simply the acting was anazing to capture a certain tyoe of mood or moment which was then repeated a lot so while many fekt the acting was great i felt it was within a narrow range and not mind blowing sorry.

The use of the split scene then flash back was done really well except maybe a bit too often esoecially where verbal communication was sparse it was at times a long wait to find out what was actually said when.

Overall I feel like this is really really a great watch but maybe not all in one go. I have a fulfulling sense of satisfaction even though at times i was not sure what to make of it. Somehow this drama didnt neccessarily always go they way I wanted and yet i never felt cheated or had an oh i hate this type of story moment. I still havent settled on a no for my rating im curious what people feel.

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It's okay, if you are in the mood for some moodiness.

Honestly this is nowhere near as bad as the makjangish and super silly setup would suggest.
I have two big problems with the show.
The first is that the OTP romance is not very believable. I think acting shortfalls are definitely part of this issue & the chemistry was just not enough for me to fully immerse myself in their relationship.
The second is that the ending is extremely low effort. There was all this crying/suffering/hardship & then everything just worked out senselessly, also following the always annoying separation followed by a 1 minute happy ending formula. It's better than people dying I suppose, but not by much. I don't know if this was live filming or not, but it sure feels like it. Then again, it's quite normal for kdrama writers to not give a fork about well thought out endings, so that could be it. (This is pretty much the industry standard now, if anything.) On a positive note a well thought out, reasonable ending would've been exorbitantly difficult with the setting we've had, so perhaps embracing the silly is not the worst thing in the world. I would hugely prefer though if writers made scripts that can be wrapped up in a way that makes sense, instead of making convoluted messes & then just yolo-ing the ending.

As for what I liked.. There is a lot of reasonably well written dialog existing outside of the plot-driving conversations. I liked the moody presentation & the pink filter was part of that too I suppose. I liked the visuals on my color calibrated displays, but I can see why someone would hate this, if watching the show on an LG oled TV or a Galaxy phone..
The OST is pretty good too!

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This is a feel-good revenge drama, but honestly the revenge is forgotten about early into the show. While it starts out strong, I felt myself skipping through a lot of the smaller storylines that are weaved throughout. There are no secret murderers in this slice of life, but many love triangles, relationships, dating and finding yourself going on.

One thing that needs to be pointed out is: Lee Sung Kyung... Wow! She did such an incredible job in this drama. The character of Woo Joo is amazing and I kept seeing myself in her so much. A strong, beautiful, focused woman who doesn't back down to life and the people who walk all over her. The way she holds herself and the way she speaks yet cares about everyone around her, especially her family all really helped me relate to her. I loved her acting so much with Woo Joo. The emptiness that you get from her in the beginning and even towards the end that all ends whenever she is around Dong Jin. It's incredible, honestly. I can't think of another actress that has had me so wowed from a drama in a while.

Now for the story, I did love the main plot going on that followed with the lead's relationship, but I really didn't care for all of the siblings stories playing out. I found Woo Joo's sister to be kind of annoying and it was hard for me to follow her relationships or sink any emotion into them at all. Especially when it started to become a 3 person love triangle that I just couldn't follow. Jun was basically in love with her and Woo Joo, so the whole thing seemed pretty weird. I was finally glad when it all settled and they wrapped it up. The brother's story is really a backseat honestly and doesn't really serve a purpose to the overall plot other than him wanting to follow their father's career path and not the one Woo Joo set up for him. As for the lead story line, it was pretty dragged out and I hate when dramas wait until episode 15-16 to start dropping truth bombs that prevent us from getting more of the relationship we watched for. This one does exactly that.. I felt like right when it was starting to get to the happier part of everything, it came crashing down with them trying to wrap up the house story.

I do slightly find the step-sibling relationship slightly weird, but it was easy to look past when you realize they didn't know each other at all in their lives growing up. His mom just so happened to marry her dad. I just found it really weird that was the main story line going on with them also having a romance.

I could see myself re-watching this if I wanted to watch a nice melodrama slice of life. One that gets you thinking about life and its ups and downs. It was almost a favorite for me, but the slow pace of everything with the story just didn't grasp me as much as others have. It's still such a good watch.

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Amazing

So, I just finished this drama last night after binging it. This drama is amazing I loveeee the plot, it did start making me mad how long they were making dongjin suffer from his mothers actions (the family). They only had one kiss... and only had .1 second of a happy ending. I didn't care for the second lead couple whatsoever, I actually hated them, a lot. But overall the plot was amazing, the acting was great for the most part ( mainly kyk did a v good job ) the ost was okay. This drama was actually the only drama I've cried so hard for, literally cried at least once every episode, saddest episode has to be the episode where Dongjin was about to get hit by a car.(ep. 4/5 i think). I don't know I feel like dongjin is a very relatable character. woojoo was a great character too, i just hated how she basically let her family control her dating life for the whole drama, she did overall have great character development. Still sad for dongjin, he had to suffer the entire drama. One last thing, the main couple was amazing but I feel like a lot of their scenes were a bit awkward and wish they had a bit more skinship and cute moments rather than just the last 1 second of the drama.

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Well acted, somewhat problematic romance drama

There is a lot that is really good in this drama. The acting is really good, the script flows pretty well, and there is in my opinion strong chemistry between the main characters. The problems lie more in the directing. There is massive overuse of flashbacks which end up placing a very heavy handed forced third person omniscience over many of the emotional scenes. This shortchanges the actors, the cinematography, and the script leaving the watchers unable to be interpreters. Also the massive use of song tracks and backing music again does not suggest, it pushes towards emotions not always earned.

It is a family drama in addition to being a romance, in fact it is arguably more the former. I guess, I would call this a relationship drama- it is about how the many interconnected lives evolve. I do recommend this if you are in the right mood to have a good story a bit forced on you.

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A subtle and well written melo

This was my intro back to dramas after a good 8-month hiatus and the bar was set pretty high after completing this. The has the elements of a melodrama but told in an almost slice-of-life way that makes it entertaining but still easy to digest.

I think the best of this drama are the characters and, of course, the actors who brought them to life. I was looking for a female lead like Woo Jo. I love her straightforward (but not entitled) attitude. I like that she is not perfect. She is very flawed and frequently gets called out on her flaws but still very likable and relatable. I like how, though the ML’s character, she calls out the hypocrisies and fake “nice person” behavior we often see in drama and real life. LSK does an excellent job portraying her. I really liked our male lead and how gentle he was. It was nice to see how our leads matured and changed because of each other. In fact, I loved how all the characters stayed consistent while being allowed natural development as the episodes progressed. I really appreciate the story that was told. Given the character set-ups, they had a lot of opportunities to turn to annoying cliches (unnecessary love triangles or misunderstandings) but they didn't. In fact, it kind of feels like the story that could be told when you take away cliches. This lets the show explore its themes in a more mature and meaningful way, especially the concept of revenge.

The execution was decently good. There were a couple time the camera work, although on theme with the vibe, would feel a little slow, or an angled or artistic shot would be a second too long. Plus, the filter felt a little dark at times; I appreciated the daytime shots more. The music fit the mood of the drama well but not memorable outside of the drama.

Overall, this is a very well written and acted "subtle melo" with strong character development.

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