asmitha chandini
INDIA
This review may contain spoilers
A beautiful, original and profound drama about forgiveness.
OK, I have a lot of words to say about this drama. But honestly your best choice is not to waste anymore time on reviews and just go watch it. I can’t possibly do it justice so just trust me when I say, it’s incredible and there’s no better use of your time. Go now!
The cinematography, soundtrack, screenplay and the handling of product placements are all fantastic. Then there’s IU, who has long been my favorite Kdrama actor. She’s always fabulous, with a dark intelligence that suggests hidden depths and an astonishing range. She chooses her roles well, but this is the part she was born to play - a complicated, twisted but charming supernatural who has the self awareness to see her situation clearly but lacks the humility to get herself out.
Astonishingly, the storyline bears no resemblance to a classic kdrama. There’s no male CEO, no stalker second female lead, or even a second male or female at all. It starts in the Josean era but rather than the usual “our story ended badly then but we’ll fix it this time around” it’s all a continuation. And then there’s this crazy plot structure where a seemingly minor character is actually the emotional heart of the story. And, it’s thematically consistent, with all the stories layering and adding clarity to the theme.
I used the word “profound” earlier and that’s a word I don’t think has ever occurred to me to apply to a kdrama, but damn if I didn’t learn something important from this one. In fact, I consider an alternate title for this drama could be “Forgiveness, You’re Doing It Wrong.”
OK, so now I’m going to go into literary analysis mode and talk about the story and the themes. I’ll try to do it without revealing any plot points but if you don’t want to know what the themes are -just go watch it now and avoid my boring rehash! (Seriously-go now!)
The first thing that needs to be said is, this is a thoroughly Buddhist storyline. And by that I don’t just mean in it’s use of traditional Korean cosmology (the goddess Mago, the grim reapers and other gods). The central message of Buddhism is that attachment is the root of all suffering and the premise of this drama - a hotel where the dead go to work through their attachments so they can pass peacefully to the next world is the perfect set up to explore all the myriad attachments that keep us humans stuck even when we know we need to let go. As they say multiple times in the drama, “it takes more strength to let go than to hold on.”
While the drama does take the time to explore other kinds of attachments, the main character’s story is about grudge holding and the inability to forgive. Ostensibly she’s waiting around to find the person who wronged her so she can destroy them and thus destroy herself. But, as she herself recognizes, “It’s not them that you hate. It’s yourself you loathe for not having been able to protect what matters most to you.”
Which brings me to what I think of as the “iceberg character.” There’s a seemingly minor character with very little screen time (the 10% of the iceberg you can see) whose story, when fully revealed, is the heartbreaking emotional center of the drama (the 90% you can’t see). At the end of episode 14, when you find yourself wrung out and damp beside an empty box of Kleenex, you’ll know you’ve hit it. Because the theme of this drama isn’t just that we need to forgive ourselves so we can let go and stop suffering, it’s that we need to forgive ourselves because we are at our most cruel and implacable when we’re projecting our self hate outwards onto others. Even though it isn’t really about them, the harm we cause is real.
And once again, I’m blown away by the psychological astuteness of kdrama writers. There’s one scene (slight spoiler ahead-sorry I can’t resist) where she takes the version of herself from the time of her trauma, the version of herself she most hates, (We see a heart broken young woman overwhelmed by circumstance, but we know she sees her as hatefully foolish and weak.) and turns her into a curse. It’s only when this cursed self is returned to her and she accepts it that she can begin to forgive This is literally the most perfect (and accurate) depiction of what traumatized people do with their memories and of what they have to do to heal.
And last of all, I want to say, I don’t watch dramas looking for the profound and life changing either, I’m looking for fun and entertainment. And this drama is a blast. Even though I was bawling all through episode 14, this isn’t the kind of devastating drama that’s practically a trauma to watch. (“the Smile Has Left Your Eyes”, I’m looking at you.) In fact, I turned right around and watched it again because it’s a perfect blend of fun, funny and deep.
Why are you still reading this? Go watch it now!
OK, I have a lot of words to say about this drama. But honestly your best choice is not to waste anymore time on reviews and just go watch it. I can’t possibly do it justice so just trust me when I say, it’s incredible and there’s no better use of your time. Go now!
The cinematography, soundtrack, screenplay and the handling of product placements are all fantastic. Then there’s IU, who has long been my favorite Kdrama actor. She’s always fabulous, with a dark intelligence that suggests hidden depths and an astonishing range. She chooses her roles well, but this is the part she was born to play - a complicated, twisted but charming supernatural who has the self awareness to see her situation clearly but lacks the humility to get herself out.
Astonishingly, the storyline bears no resemblance to a classic kdrama. There’s no male CEO, no stalker second female lead, or even a second male or female at all. It starts in the Josean era but rather than the usual “our story ended badly then but we’ll fix it this time around” it’s all a continuation. And then there’s this crazy plot structure where a seemingly minor character is actually the emotional heart of the story. And, it’s thematically consistent, with all the stories layering and adding clarity to the theme.
I used the word “profound” earlier and that’s a word I don’t think has ever occurred to me to apply to a kdrama, but damn if I didn’t learn something important from this one. In fact, I consider an alternate title for this drama could be “Forgiveness, You’re Doing It Wrong.”
OK, so now I’m going to go into literary analysis mode and talk about the story and the themes. I’ll try to do it without revealing any plot points but if you don’t want to know what the themes are -just go watch it now and avoid my boring rehash! (Seriously-go now!)
The first thing that needs to be said is, this is a thoroughly Buddhist storyline. And by that I don’t just mean in it’s use of traditional Korean cosmology (the goddess Mago, the grim reapers and other gods). The central message of Buddhism is that attachment is the root of all suffering and the premise of this drama - a hotel where the dead go to work through their attachments so they can pass peacefully to the next world is the perfect set up to explore all the myriad attachments that keep us humans stuck even when we know we need to let go. As they say multiple times in the drama, “it takes more strength to let go than to hold on.”
While the drama does take the time to explore other kinds of attachments, the main character’s story is about grudge holding and the inability to forgive. Ostensibly she’s waiting around to find the person who wronged her so she can destroy them and thus destroy herself. But, as she herself recognizes, “It’s not them that you hate. It’s yourself you loathe for not having been able to protect what matters most to you.”
Which brings me to what I think of as the “iceberg character.” There’s a seemingly minor character with very little screen time (the 10% of the iceberg you can see) whose story, when fully revealed, is the heartbreaking emotional center of the drama (the 90% you can’t see). At the end of episode 14, when you find yourself wrung out and damp beside an empty box of Kleenex, you’ll know you’ve hit it. Because the theme of this drama isn’t just that we need to forgive ourselves so we can let go and stop suffering, it’s that we need to forgive ourselves because we are at our most cruel and implacable when we’re projecting our self hate outwards onto others. Even though it isn’t really about them, the harm we cause is real.
And once again, I’m blown away by the psychological astuteness of kdrama writers. There’s one scene (slight spoiler ahead-sorry I can’t resist) where she takes the version of herself from the time of her trauma, the version of herself she most hates, (We see a heart broken young woman overwhelmed by circumstance, but we know she sees her as hatefully foolish and weak.) and turns her into a curse. It’s only when this cursed self is returned to her and she accepts it that she can begin to forgive This is literally the most perfect (and accurate) depiction of what traumatized people do with their memories and of what they have to do to heal.
And last of all, I want to say, I don’t watch dramas looking for the profound and life changing either, I’m looking for fun and entertainment. And this drama is a blast. Even though I was bawling all through episode 14, this isn’t the kind of devastating drama that’s practically a trauma to watch. (“the Smile Has Left Your Eyes”, I’m looking at you.) In fact, I turned right around and watched it again because it’s a perfect blend of fun, funny and deep.
Why are you still reading this? Go watch it now!
Was this review helpful to you?
