SPOILER WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU STILL PLAN ON WATCHING THIS SERIES OR HAVEN’T FINISHED IT YET!!

The Package
(더 패키지 / Deo Paekiji)
MyDramaList rating: 7.5/10

This drama has been on my list for a while -well, since they started promoting it in 2017- because I generally like dramas that focus on situations where a group of different people gather and get to know each other. Also, it seemed to have the amount of romance and of course nice scenery that I tend to appreciate in a drama. So here we are.
I have to say that I haven’t seen many dramas like this one. It was easy-going in pace, easy to follow in storyline, and still it incorporated a lot of human feelings and emotions.
I think the concept for this series was very nicely established.

The Package is about a group of Korean tourists taking a 10-day package tour of France. The main characters are these 7 tourists and their tour guide. Along their trip, we get to know all the characters and their background and -most importantly- why they came on this trip. Some of them had a situation at home that they were taking a break from, others had health- or relationship-related reasons.
One of the most important lessons to take from this drama in my opinion – and I will get back to this later – not to judge anyone from the outside. Being brought together as a group on this tour, there are a lot of first impressions that turn out to be not as they seemed.

I will briefly introduce the main characters first and then go a little deeper into their respective stories.
First of all, there’s the tour guide, Yoon So So (played by Lee Yeon Hee). She has been living in Paris ever since she came there with her husband to get married. However, some things happened and her husband abandoned her. She’s not in a good place with her family at home, so she chose to stay in France and now works as a tour guide for package tours directed at Korean tourists.
Then there’s San Ma Ru (played by Jung Yong Hwa), the only passenger in the group travelling by himself. He came on this trip that he planned with his girlfriend whom he also works with, but some trouble in the office created tension between them and his girlfriend doesn’t turn up at the airport to come on the trip, so he goes by himself.
The other tourists consist of 3 pairs: an elderly couple, a young couple, and a father and his daughter.
The elderly couple, Oh Gab Soo and Han Bok Ja (played by Jung Kyu Soo and Lee Ji Hyun) seemed to have a strained relationship. The husband is a very conservative Korean man, he complains about the service and the waiting times, he compares all the places they go to to places in Korea, and he prefers Korean food over everything else. His soft-spoken wife keeps telling him to not make a fuss and keeps apologizing in his place. However, it turns out that she is much more done with her husband’s behavior than she shows.
The young couple, Kim Kyung Jae and Han So Ran (played by Choi Woo Shik and Ha Si Eun), also seem to have their relationship troubles. The boyfriend has just invested in a business and is constantly on the phone with his investor to get updates. The girlfriend expresses the emptiness she feels in her own relationship by talking about other people a lot, she likes shopping a lot, and she has an unfortunate case of indigestion which causes her to run off to the bathroom a lot.
The father-daughter duo, Jung Yun Sung and Jung Na Hyun (played by Ryu Seung Soo and Park Yoo Na) give off a mysterious vibe in the beginning because they don’t explicitly clarify that they are father and daughter. The father seems quite jovial, he gives his daughter whatever she asks for. The daughter seems caught up in her own world mostly, taking a lot of photos and videos and posting them on social media.

As I mentioned earlier, a lot of this series was about first impressions. I thought it was really clever how the makers of the series used its mere 12 episodes to cover everyone’s story and point of view equally clearly. You could say that between the first and the last episode, the viewer makes a complete U-turn when it comes to knowing the characters. Almost all impressions we get from the first episode turn out to be wrong.
To start with So So – she gives off a kind of melancholic feeling from the start. A lot of the places she goes to on the tour remind her of times she visited them with her ex-husband, and it seems that since he went away she build a wall around herself and lost the self-esteem to go back home to her parents (the parents who had forbidden her to move to France for that guy in the first place). She’s scared that her family is still mad at her.
In the meantime what we also see is a guy who is released from prison and immediately goes out to find her. Our first impression therefore is: this guy in prison is So So’s ex-husband, he went to jail and that’s what went wrong with them. And now he’s back for some reason he’s really angry at her and wants to find her again.
It isn’t until he finally meets with her during the tour that we find out this guy is actually her little brother who wants to bring So So back home. Although he has a bit of a temper, he’s actually a good guy.

San Ma Ru makes a big impression on the group as soon as they arrive in France – he is held back by customs because he shares a name with a noted sex offender. It doesn’t really help that he still has female underwear belonging to his girlfriend in his suitcase. He causes more trouble during the tour, and people tend to think that he is a bit of a pervert for coming on the tour all by himself.
As it turns out, Ma Ru recently found out a big secret about his company, something to do with drug testing, and he leaked this secret, causing the company to turn on him. His girlfriend, who swore to be on his side, also took the side of the company and has been telling him to come back and settle things. As it is, Ma Ru is now on unaccepted absence of leave.

Han Bok Ja is a depressed woman. She recently found out she has cancer and she has been keeping it a secret from her husband. She has been seeing a psych and already accepted in her mind that she doesn’t have long to live. Realizing that she is envious of all the people living ‘pretty’ lives while she can’t, she wants to at least see pretty things before it’s time.
Oh Gab Soo is a very stubborn man. He has found out about his wife’s cancer and tries to make her as comfortable as possible, but because he is so bad at expressing his emotions he mostly just comes off as impatient and rude. He truly cares about his wife, he really loves her and thinks she’s pretty, but he can’t actually tell her that -I mean, of course “he wouldn’t be a real man if he did”. So the little things he does for her go pretty much unnoticed by her, creating a gap between them. He also booked this trip for the two of them because he remembered her saying she wanted to see France before she died. Still, he’s convincing himself and wants to convince his wife more than anything that she’s not going to die and in doing so, always forces her to take it easy and eat well.

Han So Ran is not happy. While she’s nearing her seven year anniversary with her boyfriend, he has been more distant with her every year. And now that he’s started his own business he’s almost constantly on the phone, even though they’re in France. They look like a typical young and superficial couple, So Ran is always gossiping about other people and acting a bit spoiled. As it turns out, her boss at work has been pursuing her and before she went to France, he told her that he will propose to her when she comes back. So this trip for her is also a kind of last chance check whether she can stay with her Kyung Jae or not.
Kyung Jae loves So Ran a lot, and he has been so busy with his new business because he wants to create a situation in which he has enough stability to propose to her. He was planning on proposing to her in Paris, but then the investment suddenly got shaky. In the meantime, a distance is created between the two because they, too, don’t communicate well enough with each other.

When they see Jung Yun Sung and Na Hyun for the first time, everyone seems to think something suspicious is going on. Because they don’t clarify their relation to each other, everyone kind of assumes that he is her sugar daddy or something – at any rate, that they’re having an affair. It’s only revealed later on in the series that they are simply father and daughter. The affair-impression is created by the fact that Yun Sung is occasionally on the phone with a woman whom he talks to very affectionately, as if she is his wife. To create an even bigger misunderstanding, we see the woman on the other side of the line with another man – as if she’s cheating on him as well.
However, it’s eventually cleared up: Yun Sung has been dating a new woman after his wife’s death and Na Hyun has trouble coming to terms with the idea of a new mother. That’s why she acts so cold towards her father when it comes to this woman he’s constantly calling.

Okay, so now I will talk a little more about the story in general.
First of all, it’s a tour of France, Paris mostly and some nearby places, which provide a lot of beautiful scenery shots. I’ve personally fallen in love with the image of Mon Saint-Michel, which I’d like to visit now as well. I think it was also a clever way for promotion – I wouldn’t be surprised if this drama increased the number of Korean tourists wanting to go to France. I also read something about the main actress Lee Yeon Hee becoming the PR Ambassador for the French Tourism Bureau in real-life. Besides the stories following every character, we learn a lot about France through So So’s guide tour. The tour also includes a lot of locations where famous movies were shot, and places with wonderful myths surrounding them.
Of course, So So’s own myth was that many fortune tellers told her that she would meet her destined love at ‘the foot of an angel’. Or that he would ‘lead her to the foot of an angel’. During the tour Ma Ru causes an accident and in exchange for his picture as a offender, the mayor of the town promised to open the passage that would lead all the way up to the statue of angel Michael on top of Mon Saint-Michel. It is at the literal feet of this angel that So So and Ma Ru come face to face. Because Ma Ru is the only passenger travelling by himself, he finds himself in So So’s company more than once and they start bonding without even noticing it.
When they get trapped on an island surrounded by water (the flood came in and they weren’t fast enough to get back in time), their feelings connect and they realize they have feelings for each other.
But because of So So’s wall, she still seems to want to keep it low-key during the tour, not wanting to let the others find out about it even though it’s so obvious everyone already knows.

I think a great aspect of the drama was that everyone’s character was clarified one-by-one, and in the end I was able to relate to pretty much everyone. Because first we see Bok Ja’s point of view we think ‘oh her husband is so unreasonable!’, but then in the end we get to see Gab Soo’s story and we’re like ‘oh but he means so well!’
This was the case with basically everyone in the story. It’s nice that, even though the drama only has 12 episodes, nothing felt rushed and everyone’s story was equally distributed and written. I feel like no one got left behind in the writing.

In the last episode we see how everyone deals with the situation back home. Although many relationships become shaky during the tour, they all work out in the end, the tour ultimately brings everyone closer to one another.
Gab Soo is finally able to open up to his wife about how he feels, how lost he would feel without her. So Ran accepts Kyung Jae even after his investment plan fails, saying they shouldn’t put locks on their relationship but just love each other freely no matter what.
Na Hyun accepts her father’s new girlfriend and even sends her a video of a bunch of edited clips she took of her dad during the tour with the message ‘thank you for accepting my dad’. She also sends everyone else who went on the tour videos of them, as she has been filming a lot during the tour -not just to put on social media but because she has an affinity for editing movies, even though one she made about her school almost got her expelled.
Ma Ru goes back to his work, but after finding out no one is on his side he quits – but only after leaving the last piece of evidence that he took with him on a USB stick to France. After that he leaves the company and goes on another vacation.
So So also decides to go on a vacation and calls her little brother to tell him she’s coming back to Korea for a bit. She also talks with her mother and all is well.
At the airport, So So and Ma Ru meet again, both being drawn to a picture of the angel Michael. Once again, they are brought together at ‘the feet of an angel’.

The funny thing is that, during flashbacks shown from before they went on the trip, a lot of the people on the tour have already met one another on the streets before. Not in a way that would remind them of each other, but just casually. Like they happened to be in the same room, or they accidentally bumped into each other.
These little things. I didn’t really see the value in adding that, because they still met as strangers on the tour, but it was fun, in a way.

I knew some of the actors beforehand, but most of them just from 1 or 2 other series I think.
I knew Lee Yeon Hee from Reunited Worlds – I have to say I have yet to see another side of her acting. I have difficulty distinguishing expressions from her face, even when she smiles it seems like there’s something behind it.
I knew Jung Yong Hwa (of course) from You’re Beautiful and from Heartstrings, but I feel like he’s always cast as the calm and kind type of guy, The Package being no exception. Even though they gave his character a bit more quirkiness, such as his urge to try out everything by himself even if that gets him into trouble (the chastity belt scene being one of the most hilariously awkward situations).
I’ve seen Choi Woo Shik before in Rooftop Prince (where he was adorable) and in Fated to Love You and Fight For My Way (in which he was a bit of a douche). It’s hard to see someone with a cute face like his to be a jerk, but I think it added a lot of character to Kyung Jae. It gaves him more depth, not just being a seemingly handsome boyfriend.
I found out Ha Si Eun was actually in Another Oh Hae Young, she played the best friend but I didn’t recognize her because in Another Oh Hae Young she was really dolled up and here she was a bit more casually-dressed and less make-up.
I remember Jung Kyu Soo’s face, but I think I’ve mostly seen him in historical dramas. I didn’t know Lee Ji Hyun, but I thought she was one of the most interesting characters in the series.
I’ve also seen Ryu Seung Soo’s face before, but I can’t remember from where. And I didn’t know Park Yoo Na, but looking at dramawiki she hasn’t done a lot yet.

Anyways, the cast wasn’t spectacularly famous or anything, but that had its own charm. Although I think that that’s one of the reasons why it hasn’t been hyped that much. When it was just out, I did see some promotional trailers and stuff but afterwards it went quiet. But maybe that’s just because I waited so long before watching it and by the time I did it was already a long time ago people talked about it.

Anyways, I really like these kind of stories with a relaxed pace, beautiful scenery shots and a thorough but not too much exploration of all the characters. The comments on the videos I watched were all very positive, as well. Stories like these don’t need more drama than just the relationships between the characters, because they already fill up the whole story. It was nice watching something short and light, yet still profound and entertaining and emotionally loaded. I think the message about the first impressions was very accurate (someone mentioned that in the comments as well), and it really makes you think about life. The characters, all the way in this foreign country with only one person they really know, are almost forced to think about their way of living and whether they have to change or not. Forced into the situation where they have to get along with each other, they have to face each other whether they like it or not.
It’s always a terrible feeling to fight while on vacation together, you just don’t want to do that, it’s supposed to be a nice time away from all the sorrows at home. So halfway through the series I was just really begging for everything to work out for everyone. Luckily, it did become a happy ending for all the characters, so that’s nice. It had enough emotional ups and downs in it already, it didn’t need a bad ending.

One thing, though, that I have to note: of all the main characters, I actually felt the least emotions coming from the main couple, So So and Ma Ru. Even though So So was occasionally crying, neither of them reached their emotional climax in the same way the other passengers did. The remaining six all went through an emotional rollercoaster and were pushed to their limits, while So So and Ma Ru overall remained very calm.
So in the beginning I found it a bit hard to acknowledge the chemistry between them, because even though the kissing scenes were really intense, the next moment they would be walking together again as if they were strangers.
Except from that I thought it was a very refreshing concept for a Korean drama series.
Especially because they went as far to show the liberty of the French in ways such as erotic shops and So So’s homosexual friends. Even Ma Ru was still too conservative to fully embrace that kind of liberty. It was clear that So So had become really used to living in France, and she was even referred to as ‘having become a French woman’.
As someone living in Europe where this kind of liberty is pretty much common sense, for me it was fun to see the Korean tourists with their Korean state of mind witness this kind of ‘liberal’ lifestyle. Even to the point of rolling my eyes when Ma Ru said ‘but… they’re both men?’ Come on man, get with the times.

I would like to stress again how much I liked seeing everyone’s point of view in the story. I was able to agree and disagree with everyone. I think it’s very important to have characters that are very relatable in both their positive and their negative behavior. One moment you think someone is overreacting, the next you get a new insight and you’re like ‘ahh so that’s why she’s behaving like that’. It just all made sense to me and in the end there really was no one that I really disliked (except of course Ma Ru’s betraying colleagues at work).

I would like to see more of these kind of dramas where the focus isn’t on the prettiness of the actress and the handsomeness of the actor. Stories about real people with their own deal or struggles and how they deal with them. That’s why I really loved Han Bok Ja in this series, I felt like they could’ve just picked her off the streets and told her: ‘just act like yourself’. Her acting was so natural and her character so relatable (even though of course I’m not age yet).

So yes, I liked this one. I’m going on to the next one quite fast, although I don’t want to rush anything. It’s just that I have a very long list and I’m very behind in my own opinion. Please keep following me!

Also, I haven’t mentioned this before but if you have anything to discuss about any of my reviews, please feel free to comment! I hope to be able to have nice talks about these series with fellow K-drama lovers 🙂