Twinkling Watermelon (2023)

Coisa mais lindinha do mundo esse dorama

Gostei da mãe dele se desafiando a viver sem deixar que a surdez fosse um obstáculo e ver todos que fizeram mal pra ela no olho da rua. As expressões faciais do irmão mais velho do protagonista falando em libras são fantásticas, pena que apareceu poucas vezes. O final foi até onde deveria, talvez se estendessem mais ficaria estranho, mas achei meio forçado eles ficarem ricos. Queria ter entendido melhor como foi essa transição e ver mais sobre alguns personagens menos explorados como a mãe da menina surda e os pais da menina que viajou no tempo, não ficou bem claro o motivo do divórcio.

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I believe the makers of this misunderstood who the main characters are…

This was amazing, I actually watched it twice before finishing the last EP cause I wanted to watch it with my sister before finishing it.

I enjoyed pretty much every part of this each time. I cried, I laughed…

This could have been a 10/10 drama, but the ending made that impossible. It wasn’t a terrible ending. Just way too much missing. Too many unanswered questions, leaving me vastly dissatisfied. This is the first time I believe a drama might need another episode, just to actually make the story be complete.

This in part had to do with the fact that I was watching this thing for what appears to have been the „side couple“, which for me was 100% absolutely the center of the whole series and they should have 100% elaborated a lot more on that.

Overall I still 100% recommend watching this though.

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Mastercall

It has been a staple ever since I remember, that K-dramas are associated with, corny, mid, pacey, and shallow stories on the level of every other bland soap opera trash show. With all the rosey plots that have the same characters, the same build-ups, and the same resolution. They feel like lazy reskins of otherwise, very boring third-grade media releases. Or so I thought, prior to watching Twinkling Watermelon.

Before watching, or even attempting to give this show a go, I was recommended to do so, but to avoid looking at any posters, or reading the synopsis, or even looking up the tags or the genre. I went completely and utterly blind on the show, and I think, that was the best way to experience it, as those mentioned give off way too much about the whole mystery running the narrative.

Think of it as the coming-of-age story that would change your outlook on all sorts of levels. Family, friendship, education, compassion, and dreams.

For me, this show taught me not just about life, but also that I shouldn't underestimate Korean dramas anymore, because this has been peak television.

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I feel like I want to eat watermelon too

when I saw the dragon studio logo, I was obviously going to watch the drama. At first I wasn't interested but there are lots of videos on TikTok showing footage of the drama which looks warm.

Sure enough, when I watched episode 1, this drama was already very interesting. Maybe the plot was a little slow in episode 1 and almost made me distracted, but in episode 2 it started to get more interesting.

I appreciate the acting of all the actors in this drama which is very soulful and beautiful. The sign language they displayed really made me want to remember the sign language lessons I had studied.

I really enjoyed the acting, ost, storyline, production and all the details. I hope this drama will get an award because it is very beautiful and heartwarming.

thank you to all the crew and cast for creating this very beautiful drama.

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Very Good Indeed!

This is honestly such a good coming-of-age Kdrama. Firstly, the acting was very stellar, I was especially impressed by Ryeouns performance here. The show also blends romance, comedy and drama in a very good and natural way. I was invested in both romances even though the parents love story hit a bit different. Honestly its difficult to point out all the good things about this drama because most things just work and tugs on your heartstrings. I even shed a tear or two watching it. Lastly, the soundtrack is just *chef´s kiss*. That being said, it does have a few flaws in my opinion which takes it down a bit.

What did not work as well imo:
- The first 2 episodes did not grab my attention, I was genuinely considering watching something else instead, happy I didn´t though.
- The show was a bit frustrating at times, with all the misunderstandings etc.
- I honestly wish they had ended it in a different way. It´s supposed to be a happy ending but I honestly felt a bit sad (not in a bittersweet way), because like...Eun Gyeol kinda missed out on his entire childhood? All his childhood memories didn´t matter in the end. Also I think it kinda went against the ethos of the drama. Because they had a happy life despite all the struggles, but now they ended up basically in the same way but rich? I think the ending would have been a lot more impactful if nothing had changed, just that the Eun gyeol now feels more connected to his parents and is able to follow his dreams. This was also how I predicted the show to end, because it kinda pointed in that direction, but I was wrong.

Overall, I totally understand the people who give this drama a 10/10. I just had a few issues with it that I couldn´t look past. I can imagine that this drama will grow on me as time goes by, but right now it´s a very respectable 8.5/10.

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Good Enough

Korean Drama '' Twinkling Watermelon '' is a slice of life, music, and fantasy drama.

The drama uses time travel to its fullest, smoothly using it to push the story forward, without forgetting about it once the plot starts unfolding. Rather, it is always there, and spices up the story here and there.

Also, the family drama was at its finest, intense enough to keep things dramatic, but also with sensitivity and sweetness throughout the family interactions.

The music, in addition, was pretty enjoyable, as were the performances by everyone in the cast. And even though the romance was cheesy and not its strongest suit, it was nice enough.

So, overall, seven out of ten.

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A High Quality Drama But The Emotional Weight Is Not As Consistently Strong As You Would Hope.

I’ll start by saying I put off watching this one. I purposely did not watch it while it was airing. There are certain dramas that I know I won’t get the most out of them if I don’t watch them at a time I am most receptive to them.

Disclaimer * I don’t think this was the most receptive time either, even though I enjoyed watching it. I plan to watch it again in the future to see if I can get more out of it.

That said, for now I think it is a 9/10 drama and not a 9.5 or a 10/10 drama. The positives for me are what makes it a 9/10 and not the usual 8.5/10 that I give to solid k-dramas is that it is a heartfelt story, the plot is pretty solid and the acting is pretty good. The reason I won’t elaborate on the positives is because I’ll be honest; apart from recognising it as a solid production, this story did not get me as deep as it ought to have. I’ll go into why I think this was.

Starting from episode 2, although I was aware that time travelling was involved, the abrupt introduction of the time traveling element at the end of ep 2 felt like a sharp turn transition wise. It was not smooth at all. It was like being in a race car and suddenly making an extreme turn with little to no preparation, except this was done with the theme. Usually in dramas that include fantasy, they sprinkle a little bit of the fantasy elements in the lead up to the full blown reveal of the fantastical part of the drama. With this one, it was almost two full hours of a slice of life family drama that seemed rudely interrupted by the fantasy element suddenly being dropped in. And this was my reaction as someone who WAS waiting and expecting the fantasy element.

Another thing was, I couldn’t help but feel like this drama was an amalgamation of several movies, music and popular culture storylines and references, all pieced together. It made a huge chunk of the drama feel like a knock-off, ensuring that I could never really get into it as all I could think was, “they’re copying so and so”. I don’t mind things serving as an inspiration for others but you really have to make it your own and create something new with it, but with this drama, a lot of the concepts and scenes seemed borrowed. Whenever I was drawn into the drama, I’d notice that a scene or concept resembled something else and it would immediately take me out of the scene.

I have a minor point to make about the way the scenes were cut/edited together. It didn’t affect the majority of the drama much, as it fit that youth-indie style type of visual aesthetic but when it came to the emotional scenes, it felt somewhat choppy aka not-so-smooth transitions. It meant that the emotions didn’t hit fully 100% because the viewers weren’t able to sit with those scenes and absorb the depths of emotions before it suddenly changed to another scene. Typically for emotional scenes to work best, there needs to be a build up of emotional tension that is finally released and the cameras should not cut away in the middle of that emotion being expressed. For example, the cameras should not cut away in the middle of someone’s heartbreaking crying scene as it’s like cutting off the climax of emotion right at the top, which results in an immediate plateauing of the emotional weight built up when our focus is shifted to another scene. Instead it should be like a hill with a slow rise to the climatic top and a smooth decent to the other side of that intense emotion. This must be done in order to properly build and sustain the emotional weight of what the characters are experiencing and their plight, to help forge the bond between the viewer and the character and to allow the viewer to really connect to what the character is feeling.

This fourth reason was the most jarring for me. I have to preface this by saying I’m not trying to assume what’s best for the hearing impaired community, I’m coming at this solely from the perspective of someone who knows what storytelling mechanisms resonate with an audience. That being said, the thing about this drama that made it the hardest for me to get into it was the fact that they dubbed the deaf characters. I can understand from a practical pov why this was done but surely someone in the creative chair should have known how much of the connection and the power of the performances of the actors playing the deaf characters would have been lost by doing this. If you don’t understand what I mean, go watch CODA and tell me that by having the focus of communication solely on the deaf characters’ facial expressions, the movements of their hands and only the silence to convey their ‘lines’; you didn’t feel everything they signed just a little more deeply. That you didn’t feel the frantic and the hard hitting angry signing or the soft signing in tender moments that much more. That you couldn’t feel the frustration of the characters through their hands more than with a dubbed voice overlayed on top to explain what they are saying. I’m sure it was useful for Korean viewers to not have to read subtitles but I’d argue they lost some of the power of the performance by doing this. Of course, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have dubbing. I understand that having dubbed dramas makes it more accessible for different types of audiences such as vision impaired viewers. I’m not saying dubbing should not be available. Just like I’m not saying subtitles should not be available. I know these are both very useful features for making dramas more accessible to others. What I’m saying is that these should have been optional and the drama should have been released un-dubbed with the option to select dubbing as needed, as you do with subtitles.

If at the end of this you are wondering why I rated it so highly if I had so many critiques. It’s because of three things. One, this drama had excellent characterisation. Like truly excellent (especially the father and son). Two, I did enjoy watching it. It won’t make it on my favourites list but I really did enjoy it. And three, I like to give dramas and movies their dues. Even if I don’t fall in love with a drama, I still rate them objectively by what they have to offer and what they do well. This drama was a solid, above average and at times, truly above average, drama.

If you ask me what could have made it a 10/10, I’d say, not rushing past the emotional scenes too quickly, not dubbing the deaf characters and finally; trusting the foundation of the story more - which was a story about a boy’s love for his father and vice versa, while grappling with the difficulties of being a CODA. If they did this without trying to borrow from other films, dramas, music or American popular culture; it could have been a 10/10 drama that stayed with me.

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solid show with great actors

I binged this show in 2 days!!! I was totally hooked!!! I seriously adored all of the actors, every one of them played their parts really really well (especially the young cast) !!!!!

HOWEVER, I found parts of it a little cliche, I honestly expected a better soundtrack for a show about music, and I didn't like the ending. The ending felt very rushed and like they just wanted to put a bow on top of everything all pretty without doing all the effort to get there. I actually didn't hate the love triangle in this show, I felt the time-travel aspect put enough of a twist on it so it wasn't too cliche. I also sincerely appreciate how the love triangle didn't last for the entire show like many others do. I felt like the plot got a little messy in the fourth quarter, but it was acceptable, there really is no way to make a time travel show not have plot holes and weirdness going on. I also felt like they kind of overdid it with the connections thing, like not everyone has to be connected in weird ways... sometimes people just live unrelated lives.

BUT I still found many many things I loved about this show. I loved how good the actors were and I felt like (as someone who isn't deaf and knows exactly 0 deaf people) it was good representation of deaf people and the struggles they face. I really liked
Ha Eun Gyeol's character arc, and Ryeoun's acting was quite good. He really mastered his character and I felt that he wholly cared only about the others, without a hint of selfishness (for the most part). . I also sincerely loved every single second that Ha Yi Chan was on screen (he's so hot). I felt that Choi Hyun Wook absolutely devoured this role, like there wasn't a single time during the entire length of the show where I felt like his acting was off. Same thing for Shin Eun Soo she absolutely ate up this role and perfectly conveyed her character in every single scene. Seol In Ah's acting was good, but I didn't feel the same greatness that the other actors delivered. I really can't pick anything out in particular that I thought was bad or wrong, but her vibe wasn't quite there as much as the others.

FINAL THOUGTS:
It was definitely worth the watch and I might recommend this to friends and such. It was a fantastic coming of age story and it was very touching. The time travel was much better executed than many other similar shows, and overall I enjoyed this show. I wasn't bored once!!

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Viva La Vida! ✨

This was my first time travel drama, and it surely did not disappoint!

I thought it would be a simple story of a boy travelling back to the past to meet his parents with a bunch of crackhead moments, but this was a tearjerker. :')

Things I loved:
- I SOOOO LOVEEE both the female leads. Both have such strong characters !!!
- The chaotic relationship between Eun Gyeol and his father!
- The family dynamic between the bandmates!
The friendship that was made even if it started out as a chaos between them
- Episode 15!
- The OSTs! Chef's kiss! Shining was so good!
- RYEOUN! He got my heart tbh.

Even though he wasn't able to change the fact that his father lost his hearing, he absolutely changed how he viewed life from then on and got him to enjoy what he actually loved. He also helped his mother which was my favorite scene, by the way.

Everything about this drama was seriously worth the hype despite its minimal flaws.

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