Hermès! Served exactly as intended: a (rarely pure) rom-com delight.

Most romance stories, in my experience as a lover of the romance genre (and as somebody who aspires to write in the genre), will follow a very specific pattern. It typically seems to go something like:

-two people who are well-suited to one another meet
-who want to be together
-and share moments of growing emotional, and often physical, intimacy
-but who struggle against internal and external obstacles
-that build up until there's a major complication
-which gets resolved happily.

Romance, as a whole, does not tend to deviate much from this structure; it's why a lot of people return to it, time and time over again. And in terms of being exactly this – a very, very sweet, wholesome, lighthearted and funny romance, in my opinion, this drama excelled.

There is no secret serial killer or hardcore thriller plotline, and in this way, it feels like a "pure" rom-com – most misunderstandings are easily resolved, and a lot of the drama consists of different scenarios involving the leads being sweet and falling deeper in love with each other, supporting each other when the relationship is tested.

The drama wastes no time in having the leads fall for and get with each other – it's certainly no slow-burn where the characters' hands brushing against each other will leave you gasping for air, but I personally found a lot of beauty in this drama's simplicity. Rather than missing the aching slowburn, or yearning for the higher stakes, this drama's low stakes kept me focused on the relationship, kept me believing in the strength of its foundations, and got me attached to them. Though these are perhaps not the most complex or layered characters, I found them well drawn out, acted, and lovable. In a lot of ways, it became my weekly injection of sunshine.

I admired how much it kept to its theme and heart in the pro-worker throughline. The ways that (especially service) workers are often mistreated, and especially how that interplays with the power/wealth disparity between the two leads as boss and employee felt like it was given the kind of treatment I'm not used to seeing just yet. I ended up liking how I felt the respect the female lead got in her romantic relationship was not only extended to her in her professional life, but to the professional lives of many in her line of service work.

To some, it might be slow, boring – I've even seen "lazy" tossed around, but to me, I don't think it was lazy at all. There were bits of symbolism, love shown in small, almost unnoticeable acts (like him closing the gate up to her apartment behind her, or them saving their names as stars and angels) that all add to the larger picture – there are themes and undercurrents of pro-worker sentiment and of the role of women, the links between their personal and professional lives (exploitation at work, and exploitation in the home – divorce, too, as a cultural taboo that threatens a woman's professional life) rippling throughout. There was meaning in their names – the male lead's full name, Gu Won, meaning "salvation" – a part of her name, Sa-Rang, meaning "love" (I'm not sure how the context/meaning is changed with her family name Cheon) – with salvation and love being the foundation of their mature, adult relationship. I found a great deal of small personal meaning in this drama.

Overall, in terms of the acting (Lee Jun-Ho's acting especially; I look forward to digging into his acting from before too – but Im Yoon-A I felt like did a very believable job of a woman working in service and of selling the chemistry too – the side cast of characters, and especially the woman who played the villainess Hwa-Ran, Kim Sun Young, who gave dimension to a character I feel like could have fallen quite flat, the direction, the writing, the music (my personal favourite from the OST being 'Confess To You' by Lim Kim) – I feel like they did a very very good job in delivering exactly what they promised: a fluffy rom-com.

While in terms of other, more complex and nuanced dramas that have captured my heart, it might not compare with my other 10/10s, which is why I will not rate it as such, but within its own genre, I think it deserves to be seen as extremely well crafted, and I do not believe it deserves a low rating for being what it is. For the other people this kind of lighthearted story will appeal to, I hope they feel just as well served as I do.

Read More

A waste of a potentially great adaptation

I know with adaptations from well-beloved sources, there is more of a general tendency to recommend seeing them as separate entities, but I think there's a legitimate argument for feeling upset when an adaptation fails to such a degree as this has to me to meet expectations.

I didn't start out with many; I'll admit that I had never heard of the story before this drama came out. I'm not well versed in Webtoons, nor comics in general (Pyramid Game and See You In My 19th Life being the two that I have readat the time of writing this) – but I fell so deeply in love with the concept of somebody remembering all of their past lives, and going back to re-enter into the lives of the people they had left behind – using all of her previous knowledge and confidence to equip her in this endeavour, I found Ban Ji-Eum to be a magnetic protagonist, masterfully portrayed by Shin Hye Sun (whom I'd seen previously in Still 17, and was already a fan of). The ending to the third episode made me weep buckets, and by then – my mind was made: I would read this comic, as a way of tiding me over until the next episodes came along.

I engorged myself on it, binging it easily within the span of a week. I fell even deeper.

Coming back to the drama from the Webtoon was a bit of a shock to the system, but I felt – if anything – even more on-board than before. There were a few pacing issues I noticed; some scenes where it felt like it didn't linger enough for me to feel connected to them, scenes where the ML, Seo-Ha would just... be in the pool. A lot of gruesome (and quite badly triggering to the two people I was watching with, who had both been in serious vehicular accidents – which is something to keep in mind if you're sensitive to crashes even in the slightest) flashbacks. All the same, I was excited for where the story was leading.

Then came the murder plot.

I'll admit, the revelations, and the resolutions of it in the Webtoon didn't feel jaw-dropping to me – but it acted there more like a periphery, and a way to keep the characters together and motivated for long enough to stay close to each other. To me, I didn't feel like the resolution to the murder plot in the Webtoon needed to be stunning – because it lead to everything else I loved about it.

But the drama's version was something else, truly. It felt like, rather than lending itself to the romance plot, leading to answers that were good enough, and that made sense – I feel like it took over, and that the answers didn't give me nearly enough for me to believe in its motivations.

Seo-Ha's mother getting more of the spotlight as another reincarnation who remembers, I feel like was another change that added absolutely nothing to the story. The actress has her own charisma, but I didn't feel like she portrayed a character who had life experience enough to have been married with a kid, and the story behind why she was there was another addition that didn't make a lot of sense to me.

All in all, it felt like a definite downturn at this point. And for me, it didn't pick itself back up – it just kept digging itself into a grave.

One of my favorite plotlines in the entire Webtoon involved a plot turn that came in towards the end, involving Ji-Eum's first life. A lot of pieces that had already been lain down beforehand suddenly fell into place, and made it so that it didn't matter to me I'd already (accidentally) read spoilers, and knew what was coming. I really felt the deep tragedy, and the heartbreak of her past, and it changed the rest of the story in an interesting way for me, that flipped expectations for the reincarnation fantasy romance story-type, and made me love the characters even more.

I should have felt surprised when they dropped that storyline, exchanging it for something so much worse, but at this point, it felt like it was just another disappointment. By connecting the characters in such a flimsy way, it felt like it was leaning right back into the exact anticipated, tired cliches that the Webtoon was trying to avoid. I think the saddest thing is that this was the point of no return for my opinion of the drama – I feel like if they had set it up well, and nailed this one part of the plot – I might have come around to the drama as not being great, but not being so terrible either. Instead, it felt like I was served a kick in the teeth.

I don't normally feel so bad when I feel like a story's gone bad, or it disappoints me somehow. As a writer, I know how hard it is to write – I know there can be a million different expectations to live up to, and how impossible it can feel to live up to every single one – especially when it comes to adaptation, where there are people who will love the original more, no matter what.

But I also feel like it failing at being an adaptation is its own valid critique. When there's already a fully fleshed out story, and there are many people who are just looking for a faithfulness to the essence of the story; the most familiar story beats – I feel like there's less leeway there I'll give to an adaptation that changes it so much, and ends up making a huge mess of it in the process over an original story that makes a mess of itself.

On what I did like: most of all was its potential, but second of all was the strength of the OST. Standouts to me being (from the top of my head): Star by Colde, I'll Embrace Your Past by the lead actor Ahn Bo Hyun, and DOWN (Juicy Juicy) by JO YURI. This side of production, I loved.

I feel like the Seo-Ha that Ahn Bo Hyun played was almost a different character entirely from his more expressive, grumpy shut-in Webtoon counterpart – but I did love to watch the moments where he was completely bewildered and rendered speechless by Ji-Eum's shamelessness, and while I don't feel like he was perhaps the right casting choice for the Webtoon, I feel like he had enough of his own endearing charm he brought to the role to largely not be included in my other, weightier and more substantial grumblings.

The child actors were all outstanding, and they all (I felt) brought something very special and unique to the drama; I've seen a lot of their other projects, too, and there's a lot of incredible skill there already. A lot of the supporting cast, in fact, were very very good. Cha Chung Hwa is always phenomenal, no matter where I see her – and I have my eyes on Ha Yoon Kyung (having already noticed her in Extraordinary Attorney Woo) and Ahn Dong Goo, as the second leads. I feel like they both brought a lot of depth and warmth to their roles while still feeling like their Webtoon characters.

If I were to revise this story myself and offer constructive feedback as a writer, I would've focused more on what the main characters want, and what they might lose. I would've had less accident flashbacks or pool scenes, and focused more on the development of relationships. I would've gotten rid of the "consequences" to knowing, and simplified where it didn't need to be that complicated. The scenes which fleshed out the relationships that Ji-Eum had with people like her niece, her mother, and her sister from a previous life were beautiful additions, and I would have leant a lot more into that.

While I don't feel very encouraged to pick up the future dramas of these writers – I do genuinely hope that they will improve from here. There was something almost magic to me about this drama, and it's always the "almost" that gets me.

Read More

Living life, and accepting it for the journey if it, is the journey completed

Make no mistake, this is a slice of life through and through. And if you're not one to be pulled in with characters over action—if you don't like the introspective and sometimes crushingly realistic journey of these characters change, or if you don't like heavy symbolism and an ending that isn't the clear-cut "life is all good now", then this drama might not be made for you.

It was very much made for me, though, and I'm sure a lot of others too.

First off, let me appreciate the writing for a minute. The level of skill, and dedication to craft it takes to create a story that's so emotionally resonant—where every disappointment, every bit of happiness, every piece of love, contempt and grief that the characters feel—you feel. Line by line, it's impressive, but character to character too. Even if the ending was heavy on the symbolism—none of it felt cheap, and all of it can be pieced together with fragments of the earlier episodes. The Netflix subtitling, even when very notedly wrong in some places, still manages to encapsulate some of the great feeling of this drama.

"I wish I could go back in time and sit quietly next to your younger self."

"Rather than going through exhausting, difficult times without you, isn't it more admirable that I'm finding strength thinking of you?"

"Come eat. This is me worshipping you."

It's not just the writing that should be lauded though. Everything culminated beautifully in this drama; the acting, the direction, the music. It feels like you're watching a work of love.

These are characters on a journey of liberation, which is a constant process of identification, acceptance, change—then the cycle keeps on going, and never stops until right at the very final destination. Even if that cycle feels monotonous, like it's unchanging and you're caught in a world of apathy, there is a freedom, a beauty and a joy to be found in it too. This drama feels like a therapy session I needed, and it has given me a lot to take on with my own journey of liberation.

Read More

This is a love story.

In Moving’s world, there are people with superpowers. People who can perform feats of super-strength, supernatural healing – people with super-senses, people with electrical powers, X-ray vision – among many others. But life isn’t all so rosy as a superhero here – often, it’s seen as something to extort, to hunt – for many in the younger generation of individuals with superpowers, it has been something to conceal away, to protect and keep to oneself.

Meet Kim Bong-Seok, our teenage male lead. He loves bulgogi. He is late to school every single day. He has a recurring dream of flying, where the reality might not be so different. With a personality like pure drops of sunlight, he is weighed down every day – quite literally – by the weights his mother attaches to him wherever he goes.

There is also Jang Hui-Soo – a fellow teenager, a transfer student into the very last year of school. She loves her father more than anything, and she is extremely aware of their poor financial situation. Fortunately, this new school of hers seems to have just the facilities she needs to score high in physical exams – with any luck, she can get on a scholarship, and actively work on clearing her own conscience.

But this is only one part of the whole.

Then there are the adults, viscerally aware of the horrors that lie in wait as their children live out their idyllically sweet, budding school-age romance.

The whole story is told non-linearly, going back and forth throughout time, across multiple different perspectives – at one point breaking entirely away from the teenagers to focus on the adults. This might be a potential hang-up for some, but I personally felt like it really managed to capture a full immersion into the life of each of the characters it explored. It highlighted to me, too – that though the adults experience their own beauty, peace and acceptance in their romantic lives (and as a romance fan myself, I was impressed by each of them; from teenagers to adults, all of the romance in this felt well-rounded, mature and believable) – it also managed to capture another kind of love story, told in different forms, each just as powerfully:

The love story of a parent and their child.

In a drama filled with the things that I love, this theme has to be one of my favourites. Such a full range of complex relationships between parents and their children is explored – the responsibility, sacrifice and protection of some parents, the complete distance, apathy or disinterest of others – the presence and the non-presence of a parent. Even the simplest and purest of bonds between the older and younger generations of this show can become complicated through obligation and guilt. As much as orange is not the same as yellow or red (as the in-drama metaphor goes), there is a sameness and a difference between each child and their parent that I felt like was portrayed with such an incredible nuance, both acting and writing-wise.

Speaking of orange, yellow and red – the direction of this drama; I genuinely feel like the level of thought put into the colours, the framing of shots, as well as the music direction and sound design were all outstanding. Before the drama ended, I found myself rewatching – and having knowledge of the future episodes meant that I was able to pick up on so much of the subtlety I missed the first time around. One scene that immediately comes to mind, is the scene at the end of episode 7, from about the 49:19 mark, with the camera perspective that goes overhead, and the music weaving in and out and aligning so perfectly with the feeling and emotional charge. Multiple characters have their musical "themes" which flow very well – and being largely instrumental (except for the rare external song – like Jannabi's 'TOGETHER!', and 'Alone Again' by Memory Lane, it feels overall different to the way that Korean drama OSTs are, typically.

If I were to nitpick on anything, I personally felt like more time could have been given to the finale to make it feel more fleshed out and rounded. There was quite a lot of implied setup for potential continuation (which I have a feeling will follow on to Kang Full's other comics; Timing and Bridge), but in that, I feel like there were some details left loose that I wouldn’t understand if I were to take this story on its own. But otherwise, there were so many satisfying elements all tied together by the end – and I know I’ll be among those waiting eagerly to know if there will be another series following on.

Make no error about the fact that this is an action story – filled with violence, gore, bloodshed, and killing; but somehow, when I think about this story – that’s not what’s stuck in my head (not like in shows such as 'The Boys' which are similarly superhero-oriented, but rather seem to rely on the gore and shock value as its substance). It’s the power of the characters, and the potency of their love, the bonds they form and the compassion embedded into the very heart of this drama that stay for me. “Moving”, in so many ways, remains true to its name.

I've rated this a 9.5/10 because, even with my nitpicks, they weren't nearly as substantive as the love I felt for this story.

Read More