Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha
(갯마을 차차차 / Gaenmaeul Chachacha)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

Hey there! It’s new review time~ As I mentioned in my last review, I decided to catch up with some more recent drama releases before continuing with my own list, and this is item number two! I was really excited to see this as soon as I saw it came out, because I really like Shin Min Ah and Kim Sun Ho and was eager to see them in a romance drama together. I’m glad I pushed it forward on my list, because it was a nice start-of-summer drama. Sometimes you just need to watch something that matches the season you’re currently in, you know? It just puts you in the summer holiday mood, it makes you want to take a trip to the countryside to clear your head and maybe even find an unexpected gem along your journey that will bring you a beautiful memory. That’s the vibe that I got from this drama and I’m excited to share my ideas and thoughts on it. So, let’s get started!


I will say right off the bat that I found this a super relaxing and healing drama to watch, mostly because of the beautiful seaside village sceneries. It just made me want to be there and take a stroll along the ocean or a hike up into the mountains. The opening sequence song also set the mood every single time, I never skipped it even once. The happy melody, the depictions of the daily life that the protagonists would experience in the village, it just put a smile on my face. I went into it without any expectations because I didn’t know what the story would be about, and it was nice to just watch everything unfold. In the end I think I can say that the story isn’t just about the main leads, but about all the people living in the village, and in a more general sense, about life as a whole.

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is a 16-episode Netflix K-Drama with each episode lasting about 1 hour and 20 minutes. The main story is about Yoon Hye Jin (played by Shin Min Ah), a dentist who works at a practice in Seoul. However, when she can’t see eye to eye with her employer anymore, she quits and then finds it hard to find work elsewhere in the city because said employer spreads bad rumors about her. Shortly after she quits, Hye Jin decides to drive out to Gongjin Village for her mother’s death anniversary, as she visited the beach there with both her parents when she was a child. After arriving in Gongjin, things suddenly all start working against her and she’s forced to stay the night as all ATMs are broken down as well as her car and she’s lost one of her shoes on the beach (it was taken away by the tide). She also keeps bumping into the village handyman, Chief Hong (played by Kim Sun Ho), but as he’s not extremely helpful towards her and just encourages her to work in order to make money, even for just that day, she’s reluctant to keep asking for his help. But her forced stay in Gongjin does leave an impression on her, especially after she’s informed that there is a no local dental practice. Since there are many elderly people living there who could definitely use some dental care, it’s very inconvenient for them to travel to the nearest one in the city, and when Hye Jin returns to Seoul, she makes up her mind to move to Gongjin within a day. She is joined shortly afterwards by her best friend Pyo Mi Seon (played by Gong Min Jung), who also works as a dental assistant. The two city women start a dental practice, and consequently a new life together in Gongjin Village.
The story basically followes both Hye Jin and Mi Seon as they get used to the village life. While the slowburn between Hye Jin and Chief Hong builds up, Mi Seon also finds herself falling for a local police officer, Choi Eun Chul (played by Kang Hyung Suk) and they also get their own romantic storyline. Finally, there’s also the storylines of several villagers who all have their own (daily) struggles to deal with.

Let me make an overview of the main villagers.
First of all, there’s the three Gongjin Grandmothers, Mrs. Kim Gam Ri, Mrs. Lee Mat Yi and Mrs. Park Sook Ja (played by Kim Young Ok, Lee Yong Yi and Shin Shin Ae). The three of them are usually seen together. Mat Yi and Sook Ja are usually bickering together while Gam Ri, the eldest, is more calm and refrains from getting into too much hassle. Gam Ri has been like a real grandmother to Chief Hong ever since his own grandfather passed away, and she always manages to steal the hearts of everyone new coming to Gongjin because of her pureness and the fact that she always welcomes and makes food for everyone.
Then there’s Oh Chun Jae, stage-named ‘Oh Yoon’ (Jo Han Chul), a single dad and former musician now turned café owner with lingering attachments to his performing days, and his teenage daughter Joo Ri (Kim Min Seo). He lost his wife when Joo Ri was very young and still misses her.
Then there’s Yeo Hwa Jung (Lee Bong Ryun), the zone chief who provides Hye Jin with the estate arrangement of her new house and dental practice in Gongjin. She also runs a seafood restaurant. Her ex-husband Jang Yeong Gook (In Gyo Jin) works at the town hall. They have a son together, Yi Joon (Ki Eun Yoo), who is incredibly mature and smart for his age. The true reason for their divorce is one of the three main mysteries of Gongjin. At the start of the series, their former college friend (and Yeong Gook’s first love) Yoo Cho Hee (Hong Ji Hee) returns to the village as an elementary school teacher and this creates even more friction between the ex-couple.
Then there’s Jo Nam Sook (Cha Chung Hwa), a restaurant owner with a very nosy and eccentric disposition, who’s always at the center of gossip in the village. She actually lost her young daughter due to cancer (I believe) and regularly makes donations to children’s hospitals in her memory.
Then there’s a young married couple, Choi Geum Chul (Yoon Suk Hyun) and his wife Yoon Kyung (Kim Joo Yeon) who is pregnant with their second child. They already have one daughter Bo Ra (Go Do Yeon), who is classmates and best friends with Yi Joon. Geum Chul is also the brother of police officer Eun Chul and he works at the village hardware store while his wife runs the small local supermarket.

So yes, there’s a whole bunch of people to meet in Gongjin and yes, all of their stories are covered in this series. It might seem like a lot to put into 16 episodes, but in hindsight I think they did a really good job with that. Overall I think it’s safe to say that by the end of the series, everyone’s story got concluded, and all in a good way.
It’s funny, because I initially thought that the story would really be about Hye Jin, how she would break from her slightly snobby city girl mindset and really find a new side to herself as she starts to adapt to life in the seaside village, but it turns out to be about so much more than that. It’s about everyone, really. Every single character’s life and story is significant.

Let me talk a bit more about the main characters. First of all, Yoon Hye Jin. As I mentioned, she decides on a whim to leave her familiar and material life in Seoul behind and moves to Gongjin Village to start her own dental practice there. This in itself is already quite characteristic of her. As she herself says at some point, she always makes very well-considered choices in a short period of time since she doesn’t have a lot of patience and doesn’t like waiting. She always needs to know where she stands and what needs to be done. Apart from her mother’s death when she was still young, she doesn’t seem to have any major emotional baggage from her past. She’s not really close with her father, who remarried and managed to move on with his life, but she also doesn’t really have a lot of close friends except for Mi Seon. She doesn’t have a lot to leave behind, so to say, which probably makes her decision to leave Seoul easier. When she arrives in Gongjin and meets Chief Hong for the first time, they really don’t get along very well – in fact, they seem to be polar opposites. Chief Hong is incredibly social and gets along with everyone in the village because of his cheerful and informal behavior towards everyone, regardless of age, gender, etcetera. Hye Jin is a really pragmatic and rational city woman who does not tend to be very affectionate or friendly per se towards people she meets for the first time. She’s initially pretty distant, and has a kind of ‘prim and proper’ vibe. For her, it suffices to just greet someone with a polite smile, she doesn’t feel the need to immediately mingling into her neighbors’ business. Her behavior stands in stark contrast with Chief Hong’s, and we also see this in her father when he comes to visit her one time – he gets very insulted by the casual and informal way in which Chief Hong treats him. From the first episode on, we are inclined to believe that Hye Jin will not easily get used to living in the countryside, given by her frustration with the lack of conveniences. There’s no fast solution to her car problem, she can’t use an ATM, the coffee isn’t to her taste, etc. She also initially seems to look down on the village people a bit. Still, it doesn’t take her long to decide it will be worthwhile to move there. The initial reason may be just money, as she sees a business opportunity and grabs it, but she gradually grows to care for the village people in her own way. Mi Seon seems to be much better at the mingling part, but Hye Jin always keeps a bit of a distance, it seems. She only becomes affectionate once she and Chief Hong become an item, and I will get to that later because that is a whole different story.

Chief Hong, or Hong Doo Shik, has lived in Gongjin his entire life. He grew up there, he lived there with his grandfather after his parents passed away, and he only left to study at Seoul National University. After graduating, there is a mysterious 5-year gap before he returned to Gongjin by himself. No one knows what happened to him in those 5 years, but something significant must have happened because when he came back he had turned into a completely different person, gloomy and listless. He only turned into the lively and cheerful area chief that we are introduced to because the villagers made sure he got involved in all the work in the village. They kept asking him to help out with chores and such, and this in turn made him an indispensable part of the community. When Hye Jin arrives, someone new who has difficulty warming up to the village and its people by herself, Doo Shik decides to help her with that in his own way.
Despite his initial firm behavior towards her, she piques his interest from the moment they meet on the beach for the first time. He first sees a lot of sadness in her eyes, but then he also sees her smile very widely as she interacts with the people she meets in the village.
After Hye Jin moves to Gongjin, he keeps calling on her to attempt to get her to participate in village activities such as cleaning the neighborhood, all because he wants her to get involved and get to know the people better. There are a few times when he gets disappointed with her, moments where he feels that she really is just a conservative city woman who won’t be able to change her ways that easily. But he himself always winds up coming back, he always forgives her because that’s his nature. He has become the kind of person who is really easy-going, easy to deal with, and he doesn’t make too big of a deal about awkward situations with people. He seems to be such a carefree person, always rooting for other people, but you can see clearly that he’s also never actually committing to any personal relationships that go too deep. He keeps everyone at a safe, easy to deal with distance so that there won’t be any unpleasant situations which can’t be solved over a nice talk or meal. I will talk more about Doo Shik’s unresolved trauma later, because that also deserves it’s own paragraph of coverage.

In any case, it’s safe to say that Hye Jin and Doo Shik are polar opposites when they meet on the beach. They both have completely different mindsets and they just can’t seem to get on the same wavelength (pun intended) in the beginning. But that also immediately makes for a specific kind of tension between them, in which you can sense that they’re actually more interested in each other than they wish to show. Just as they start to warm up to each other more, we are introduced to Ji Seung Hyun (played by Lee Sang Yi), Hye Jin’s former college senior who is now a successful variety show director. He initially comes to Gongjin because he gets lost on the road, but is then captivated by the beautiful scenery and decides to shoot his next show there to promote the beauty of Gongjin to the rest of the country. He coincidentally meets Doo Shik, who mistakes him for a lost tourist and misinterprets that he makes amateur mukbang videos. Still, the two somehow manage to get along pretty well. They are both quite open-minded and are more amused by their differences than that they start an argument about them. Seung Hyun happens to see Hye Jin there and, as he’s had a crush on her since college but never got the chance to confess, he sees this as his second chance, as stroke of destiny, even. However, at this point the slowburn between Hye Jin and Doo Shik is already in full throttle, and even though Hye Jin did like Seung Hyun at some point and is still very fond of him, she is not able to return his feelings. He deals with it very well, he doesn’t get petty, and he just tells Doo Shik to take care of her and not make her cry. He accepts his defeat like a real man, and that also makes him a very sympathetic character. He still remains by Hye Jin’s side as a true and loyal friend, and even when things between the main couple get shaky for a moment, he never tries to get an opportunity to still win her for himself, he just tells Doo Shik to not make him regret accepting Hye Jin’s rejection. In his own storyline, he is working on his show which they film at Mrs. Gam Ri’s house, he frequently moves back and forth from Seoul. At the end he returns to Gongjin to watch the premiere of the show with all the villagers.
I honestly cannot remember the last time I felt so at ease with a love triangle like this, in which they all just felt so comfortable around each other and it didn’t get awkward after the third person was rejected. In the end, Seung Hyun becomes aware of the feelings his colleague writer Wang Ji Won (Park Ye Young) has for him and ends up with her.

I feel like I really need to start on addressing the elephant in the room: Doo Shik’s past. Not gonna lie, I was quite surprised to learn that the emotional depth of this series came from him. In a way, it was rather refreshing that there was not a lot of emotional heaviness in this drama, and even the female protagonist wasn’t holding on to too much baggage herself. Chief Hong, however, definitely had his baggage, and a lot of that. I guess you could call him the perfect example of someone who you’d never think struggled with mental health issues. He always seems to be so cheerful and carefree, but then in-between we see shots of him in which he has nightmares of being all alone in the dark, in which he visits a doctor and takes pills. We only find out what really happened in the 5-year gap in Seoul after a member of Seung Hyun’s film crew recognizes Doo Shik’s name and suddenly punches him in front of everyone, blaming him for “what he did to his father back in Seoul”.
Long story short: Doo Shik lost his college senior and best friend Park Jung Woo (Oh Ui Shik) shortly after his graduation from university in Seoul. Jung Woo was like an older brother to him after his grandfather passed away and he even persuaded Doo Shik to come work with him at an asset investment company, although Doo Shik wasn’t really interested at first. Anyways, due to a major issue (I don’t know anything about asset investment so please don’t ask me to repeat exactly what happened) the stock rates dropped and a lot of their clients ended up losing money. The father of that film crew member was a security guard at that company at the time and Doo Shik had given him advice on what he might invest in, but he also specifically warned him not to make any rash decisions. The father ended up betting on the wrong horse and lost his entire investment while he’d already taken out a loan and everything. When Doo Shik heard that the man had attempted suicide, he and Jung Woo went there in a hurry and got into a car accident on the way, which killed Jung Woo. Doo Shik has always blamed himself for his death since the situation was something he caused.
But that’s not all. His trauma was caused even more heavily because of other people blaming everything on him. In desperate situations, people just need someone to blame, even though rationally they know it’s not directly that person’s fault. They might come to see that after a while, but in the heat of the moment it’s just easy to have someone to get angry at. Doo Shik unfortunately just happened to be that person on several occasions. Throughout his life, he somehow always became the person to blame for others. When his parents died, when his grandfather died, and then when his best friend died. His best friend’s wife even told him, in the heat of her grief, that she wished he’d died instead of her husband. And then that film crew member also blames him for causing his father to become paralyzed (in his suicide attempt, I suppose). Even though they all came to see clearly that it wasn’t directly Doo Shik’s fault after processing their grievances, they never actually went out of their way to apologize for what they’d said to him. So as a result, Doo Shik has always carried this immense guilt with him. The guilt of being involved in these situations caused him to start believing that he was indeed responsible for the deaths and misfortunes of these people, and this is why it’s hard for him to fully commit to a relationship of his own that goes beyond casual friendship. He just genuinely doesn’t believe he deserves to be loved like that. He’s always afraid something will happen and it’s incredibly hard for him to talk about, as expected.
However, when Hye Jin comes into his life and they find that their feelings for each other are mutual, it becomes so clear that he has been waiting for something like this, for someone that he can just wholeheartedly embrace without restraint, someone that supports him and is always on his side to hug him at any given moment. He knows he won’t be able to escape his issues, that they will come back to haunt him at some point, but before that happens it’s so clear as day that he wants to savour every single moment of his relationship with Hye Jin. He just wants to enjoy the feeling of being loved like that, and that’s really endearing. It was good that at least in the beginning, he was able to admit to his feelings for her and really didn’t hold back, even when he hadn’t told her about his issues yet. And even after Hye Jin finds out that there are things he is not telling her, she doesn’t give up on him. She does give him an ultimatum, she tells him that she is willing to wait for him if he just promises her that he will eventually talk to her. It’s okay if it’s not right away, but she needs to just know that he will come to her at some point, and that she knows it’ll have merit for her to wait for him – her pragmatic side popping up again. But this does give him the momentum he needs to eventually tell her everything. Even though the way they clashed when she finds out something’s not okay with him had me feeling a little uncomfortable, it was nice to see that she was thinking of both of them already at that point, she didn’t just get pointlessly mad at him. She really emphasized that they should just take a break until he’d be ready to talk, and as soon as he was ready, she was there to listen. I think that the maturity in that, the confidence that Hye Jin had already established in their relationship, was definitely significant in what saved them. She’d already decided that she was going to accept anything he was going to say, as long as he would just be honest with her.

This conveniently brings me to my next point: Hye Jin’s and Doo Shik’s romance dynamic. As we’ve established, all in all Hye Jin is a quite conservative woman. She tends to hold back a lot, she’s not very affectionate, and used to be a real goody-two-shoes proper student in college. She’s always been well-behaved and mature for her age ever since her father became listless after her mother died. She had to grow up fast and learn to take care of herself from a young age on.
It was exciting for me to imagine what she and Doo Shik would be like when they’d fall in love. I was really curious to see what the dynamic of their relationship as a couple would be like once their slowburn exploded. They both seemed to be holding back so much at some point, that they would either jump on each other, or they would just be really adorably awkward together when they’d finally confess their mutual feelings. Either way, I was definitely waiting for an explosion of feelings and was eager to see what their first kiss would be like (not counting Hye Jin’s drunk kiss at Doo Shik’s house, of course).
However, things unfolded in a way I definitely did NOT expect. First of all, the fact that they both just transformed into two love-crazy teenagers. Especially Hye Jin, she just became a completely different person. From the prim and proper conservative city woman, she just turned into a child. A very needy and cringingly affectionate child. Doo Shik also became very affectionate, but also very accommodating to the point of where I went, “you know, you’re allowed to find this too much too soon, my guy”. I just really didn’t know what to think of their behavior as a couple but I can’t lie and say that it never made me a little uncomfortable. At some moments I cringed. VERY hard. The scene that got me cringing the most was definitely the tooth brushing scene, I mean… that was just too much for me.
The moment I found Hye Jin most insufferable was when she created that bucket list of all the things she wanted them to do together, but then actually pushed him to do every single list item with her within a single day. Like, what was her hurry? It wasn’t as if they had limited time together, why was she in such a rush? And then she got all pouty and childish when he expressed that he was tired, I mean, can you blame him?? I don’t know, they suddenly just started acting so out of character, especially Hye Jin, and it threw me off a little. I also hadn’t expected to see that side from Doo Shik, as he was such a practical, casual guy in the beginning. It doesn’t happen often, but I think that in this case, I actually liked their dynamic during the slowburn build-up to their confession better than what they became like after they’d confirmed their mutual feelings. During the slowburn, we already see glimpses of how Doo Shik catches Hye Jin off guard, she shows him many clumsy and awkward moments of herself, but that was nice because you could see they were starting to feel more comfortable around each other as friends. If you watch the first episode and see their dynamic there, it’s impossible to imagine that 10 episodes later, they’ll be taking cheesy couple pictures in high school uniforms together.
What makes me link this paragraph with the previous one is the fact that I had some mixed feelings about their relationship dynamic during the period in which Doo Shik was struggling the most. Of course Hye Jin didn’t know anything about Doo Shik’s unresolved mental health issues at first, so I can’t blame her a 100% for being a bit negligent, but at some point it just seemed to me that she wanted to make Doo Shik fit into her own image of perfect romance so badly that she actually forgot to check properly if he was on the same page with her. I mean, it was obvious that they both loved each other very much, but if she’d paid a bit more attention to him, she would’ve noticed that it really was too much too soon for her to already bring up marriage and children to him. They hadn’t even talked about any of that yet and there she was already, proclaiming that she was dreaming of starting a family with him after JUST dating for a couple of weeks. I was not surprised that he was startled by that. Of course, it was characteristic for her to want to arrange everything in advance without wasting too much time. She was sure of both their feelings, she saw it working out, so she wanted to clearly put out her expectations to him. I now realize that the bucket list thing was probably also because of this character trait, she may have wanted to check all these things fast so as not to waste too much time and get over the dating part so their relationship could already evolve into what she was heading towards. But that was my problem with her at that point: the fact that she seemingly failed to fully acknowledge that there were two people in the relationship. I think she should’ve taken his feelings into more consideration before she started making plans of her own like that. Especially since it turned out that he had some serious issues to figure out first.
As I said, I did think it was nice to see how she comforted him and was immediately there for him when he was ready to talk, because she wasn’t planning on breaking up with him over something like that. Her decision for them to take a break was also for the best. But it was just that part from when they just started dating until the point where she became aware of something bothering him that didn’t sit right with me for some reason. She was already thinking ahead while he was still just trying to enjoy the moment and getting used to being loved like that. So there was still definitely some friction between them, only maybe this time it wasn’t necessarily because of them being polar opposites. It was just Pragmatism VS Mental Health Issues.

This may be an unpopular opinion as well, but I actually didn’t really feel the need to add in the destiny element between them. Like, it was nice that they met in Gongjin before as children, but then there were some other instances where apparently they’d met again as teenagers. There was even a flashback in which they were in the same high school or something? They ended up just using these as coincidences, as ‘That was you? Wow, that’s crazy’ moments, but that was it. I mean, even if they’d never met before, I don’t think it would’ve made any real difference to how their relationship worked out in the end. I actually didn’t really think there was a necessity to create a scene in which they’d met before. It’s not like they remembered each other all those years and were yearning to meet again. And then the scene where Hye Jin actually saw Doo Shik on that bridge when he was about to jump and she reported to the police that there was a seemingly bewildered person that probably needed to be rescued – what was the point of that? It didn’t even seem like something Hye Jin would do, as she always minded her own business. What was the reason they put that flashback in? It’s not like they remembered and acknowlegded that specific instance, it’s not like Hye Jin at some point realized that that was him on that bridge that night. It just seemed to be a bit overkill to force the destiny element like that.

Random comment in-between, but I initially thought that Hye Jin remembered the little boy from that childhood memory on the beach. In the epilogue of the first episode (I believe) we see the flashback of their first meeting as kids, where Doo Shik is walking on the beach with his grandfather while Hye Jin is there with her parents. Doo Shik’s grandfather ends up taking a picture of Hye Jin’s family, and little Doo Shik tries to make Hye Jin laugh for the picture. Shortly after moving to Gongjin, Hye Jin stops to look at a photo that’s displayed out of a photo studio, which portrays that little boy and his grandfather. She looks at it and then scoffingly says to herself, “I know a mischievous face when I see one”, after which the shot immediately shifts to Doo Shik. That in itself made me think that she recognized the boy somehow, either from her past, or even that it was Doo Shik, that she recognized his “mischievous smile”. The comment just suggested some recognition, in my opinion. But then when they eventually discover each other’s pictures and find out that they actually met as children and remember that instance, Hye Jin doesn’t even initially remember that there was a boy trying to make her laugh at the beach that day. And she certainly didn’t seem to know that the boy in the picture was Doo Shik. I may be thinking way too deeply about this, but then what was that comment of hers about? It really sounded to me as if she recognized the boy’s mischievous smile. But I guess apparently it was just a random comment on that the boy in the picture had a mischievous smile? Tiny detail, but I was just confused about that, lol.

Anyways, I think I’ve talked about the main couple for long enough now. I liked their individual characters, and they were certainly a unique couple as you wouldn’t expect two personalities like theirs to match so well somehow, but I still had mixed feelings about their couple dynamic. It was just so weird to suddenly see Hye Jin turn into such a giddy, affectionate, physical child who had to hug Doo Shik as soon as she saw him. Her whole conservative image just suddenly went out of the window, it seemed. And Doo Shik too, he just kind of melted away to make way for all her cheesy plans and actions and it’s just not how he seemed to me in the beginning of the series, I thought he’d be more firm and have more backbone, if that makes sense. Of course towards the end his mental health got the better of him, so I can’t fully blame him for losing grip. Anyways, I did really enjoy their slowburn, because their chemistry when they were still holding back and denying their own feelings was really amazing.

And now it’s finally time to talk about all the other characters in the story! There are so many stories yet to be discussed, so I will try to keep it as short as possible. I’m still going to devote at least one paragraph to each villager since they all deserve a proper mention as they are all very important to the story in their own way.

First of all, I would like to start with Hwa Jung and Yeong Gook (and Cho Hee and Yi Joon). One of the biggest mysteries in Gongjin is the real reason behind their divorce, since it seems that Hwa Jung just kicked Yeong Gook out one day. Yeong Gook himself doesn’t even know what happened, just that his ex-wife suddenly started hating his guts.
It all comes down to this: Hwa Jung, Yeong Gook and Cho Hee were all good friends in college, and despite her aloof behavior, Hwa Jung really loved Yeong Gook a lot. Yeong Gook may have initially liked Cho Hee, but his marriage to Hwa Jung was definitely not against his will. However, at some point during their marriage, Hwa Jung overheard him talking to a friend (I believe it was Oh Yoon) over drinks saying that he only married Hwa Jung out of pity, or at least so that she wouldn’t be left alone. He was drunk and not completely aware of what he was saying, so he never remembered saying anything that may have upset her. After that she started creating a fuss at home over how he never cleaned up his socks and this made him think she’d suddenly lost her mind and they got divorced. When the series starts, their son Yi Joon is the only thing still (barely) keeping them together. The only occasions on which they meet up are for Yi Joon’s birthday, or when he gets a special prize at school for being so exceptionally smart. Yi Joon doesn’t like that there has to be a special occasion for his parents to get together, but he never says anything about it. When Cho Hee suddenly reappears and becomes Yi Joon’s new teacher, Hwa Jung struggles with it. She seems to struggle with her feelings for Cho Hee in general. It’s not that she doesn’t like her, but she just sees how excited Yeong Gook gets when she returns and that he thinks he might now actually have a chance at getting back together with his first love.
Cho Hee, although she is seemingly really fond of Yeong Gook ( and I honestly thought she had feelings for him at first), rejects his feelings. I cannot tell you how much I liked this plot twist to be honest, although I did feel it coming at some point. Just because Cho Hee kept coming to Hwa Jung and it just didn’t feel like it was merely out of apologetic reasons. And then there was that flashback of Cho Hee’s mom visiting her and making her out to be crazy and Cho Hee asking her what was so crazy about liking someone. Then it just hit me. Cho Hee had actually been in love with Hwa Jung all this time. I am so happy that this was taken up into the story and that it was normalized like this. Even when she went to tell Hwa Jung, Hwa Jung never flinched, she just smiled at her and told her she already felt it. And she was so respectful too when she said that while she may not be able to return Cho Hee’s feelings in the same way, she still really likes her and wants her to be happy and not feel guilty about anything. Cho Hee may have been a relatively minor character, but I’m still glad she also got her own storyline and that it was wrapped in a positive way like this.
In the end, Yeong Gook is reminded of what he did on that drunk night when he is again drinking with Oh Yoon and the latter reminds him of it. He suddenly realizes how much he’s messed up and confronts Hwa Jung to talk about it and the two eventually make up, to big excitement of Yi Joon.

Can I just say in-between that I LOVED Yi Joon and Bo Ra so FREAKING much??? These two kids, seriously. It’s obvious that they’re getting married in the future, it’s just meant to be already. But man, I enjoyed these kids so much, their dynamic was so adorable. I loved that when Bo Ra sang in that competition you could just see Yi Joon fall in love with her, and then when he heartfully gave her his heart-shaped dalgona and she just ate it T^T And then when Yi Joon got super emotional over his parents getting back together and Bo Ra was just bawling to her parents about how she was going to live with Yi Joon in the future so that he’d never feel lonely again T^T These kids really stole my heart in this series, I’m going to give the child actors a big shoutout in my cast comments.

Speaking of Bo Ra, as the wild, carefree tomboy that she was, I think it was definitely good that she was constantly playing outside with Yi Joon, because I would not be so carefree if I had to witness my parents arguing with each other like that every single day. Geum Chul and Yoon Kyung were still a very young couple, so Yoon Kyung must have been even younger when she got pregnant with Bo Ra. I guess they were just the types that had quarrelling as their love language, but sometimes I really feared that they might split up or something. Especially leading up to the second birth, Geum Chul sometimes just seemed like a very lax husband. He even made a big deal about tying his wife’s shoelaces for her while he knew that bending down with a belly like that could not be comfortable. And come on, they’d done it before, so didn’t he learn anything from that? Anyways, there were definitely some tensions between the two of them, although I do think that it was just their love language to treat each other like that. I would’ve liked to see some more tender moments between them, though, because now I just found myself wondering why the heck they got married to one another, lol.
I think the only part in which we could see some reluctant affection between them was when Yoon Kyung gave birth, I just liked getting a bit more insight in their relationship dynamic, like how they were when it was just the two of them. There wasn’t anything really heavy going on between them, so their storyline mostly revolved around Yoon Kyung’s second pregnancy, but it was still nice to get to know them a little better.

Then there’s Oh Yoon, or Oh Chun Jae. I really liked how, even though people kind of ignored him when he talked about being a former musician, everyone in the village really respected him and he was actually pretty easy on the ear and good on the guitar. It was nice to see a sensitive side of him when he talked about his wife and about how much Joo Ri meant to him. I’m glad we got to see a bit more of their father-daughter dynamic. Oh Yoon was really made out to be more than just the comical character he appeared to be in the first episode. I really liked that at the end of the series, when Seung Hyun’s show about Gongjin Village is broadcasted, Oh Yoon actually gets a call from another variety show asking him to appear in a segment about former legendary celebrities. You could see how much that meant to him, even after he’d already resigned from trying to reclaim his past fame.
Joo Ri is really in that phase where nothing really means anything to her besides her favorite idol group DOS, and she just wants to look pretty for her bias. She doesn’t really pay a lot of attention to anyone in the village except for people who can help her with something. I think kids that age (I think she’s 14?) don’t really stop to look around them and consider that much yet. But I think that deep down, she really does appreciate the community that she has in Gongjin Village.

The story of Nam Sook is one of the tougher ones to swallow, because she’s also been through something really traumatic. Just like with Doo Shik, she’s also the kind of person that you would never expect to have gone through such a loss, and consequently I think her character gives a very powerful message of how someone can pick up their life again after going through something horrible like that. Nam Sook is the busybody of the village, she always pokes her nose in other people’s business and is basically the village chatterbox – I believe she also calls herself that at some point. She has lost her daughter, who was around Joo Ri’s age, to cancer (or another terminal disease) and after processing her loss, she returned to her lively, energetic self all the while making regular donations to children’s hospitals. Her loss has also made her become even more loving and doting towards kids, and she really treats Joo Ri like her own daughter. Despite her overbearing personality, Nam Sook is definitely very naive as well. At some point, she is almost scammed out of the money she wishes to donate. Luckily the case is resolved issue before any real harm could be done, but this is definitely a turning point for the relationship between the Nam Sook and Hye Jin. There have been tensions between them ever since Hye Jin moved to Gongjin, since she finds Nam Sook way to obnoxious, all the more than she starts spreading rumors of better dental deals to take customers away from her. After this incident, both women learn to treat each other a bit more respectfully, and acknowledge that they are the way they are and in that way they learn to deal with each other better.

Finally, the three Gongjin Grandmothers, and especially Kim Gam Ri. They are an entertaining trio in the village, always bickering but clearly full of respect and affection for one another. Gam Ri is one of the most respected grandmothers in the village, she is just so genuinely kind and pure, she always makes food enough for everyone. She has been looking after Doo Shik ever since his grandfather passed away and she’s like actual family to him. The bond between them is really beautiful. Of course we love her even more when we discover that she actually saved Doo Shik’s life. When the whole fiasco in Seoul went down and he’d just lost Jung Woo, Doo Shik was about to jump off a bridge when he received a message from Gam Ri saying that she wanted to visit him and that he needed to eat well and that they were all waiting for him to come visit Gongjin Village again. Even after Doo Shik secluded himself again afer that exposure from the film crew member, she came to bring him food every single day.
Gam Ri is a bit suspicious of Hye Jin when she first arrives at Gongjin, she sees her as a negligent city lady who can’t appreciate the daily work and life at the village, but as time passes she becomes the person who supports Doo Shik and Hye Jin’s relationship the most. She was so happy to see him smile so much when he was with her, it was really all she’d hoped for. I can only imagine how she would have reacted to the news of them getting married, she would’ve been so blissed out, I’m sure.
I believe Mat Yi and Sook Ja also both had children in the city, but we don’t get a lot of background story from them. The scenes in which the three of them are taking a walk together, especially the scene where Doo Shik takes their picture in the flower field, are really nice because they have a really fun group dynamic as well. Gam Ri is the oldest, Mat Yi the second and Sook Ja the ‘youngest’, and you can also see that in the color of their hair (from lightest to darkest) and the way they dress, even though they’re still all about the floral patterns.
Of course I didn’t want to acknowledge it, but I kind of saw it coming that Gam Ri would pass away in the end. Not in any bad way, she passes peacefully in her sleep while Mat Yi and Sook Ja are staying with her, after having a good laugh about their endeavours together. But of course this comes as a big shock for the whole village, since she was so well-respected. After her passing, Doo Shik and Hye Jin discover a letter she put in one of the food baskets she’d left at Doo Shik’s door when she last brought him food. In that letter, again, her pure wish for him to be happy comes through and I really think that this is the last piece of closure that Doo Shik needed to leave everything behind him. The last kind voice telling him that he is a good person, that he did nothing wrong, that they all care about him and wish the best for him, that he deserves to be happy. That was really heartwarming. It really felt as if she was watching over him from above with that kind smile on her face. Despite the sadness of her passing, I do think that it was a good time for her to go and that she also felt that. The last thing she did was make sure Doo Shik was happy and left behind in good hands, and that was all she wished for him.

Lastly, and I’ve been saving this bit for a reason, but I REALLY need to talk about Mi Seon and Eun Chul. They were my FAVORITE couple of the whole series, even more so than the main leads, to be honest.
Mi Seon was definitely my favorite character, let’s start with that. She may have also started out as a bit of a shallow city woman who cared most about appearances when it came to men she dated, but she really grew as a person and had a lot of character development. She chooses to follow Hye Jin to Gongjin after she finds her boyfriend cheat on her and feels like she has nothing left in Seoul. As she also worked as a dental assistant before, she automatically helps Hye Jin set up her new business. She meets Eun Chul on one of her first days there, and is immediately taken with his looks. However, Eun Chul in turn is quite conservative and slow in picking up signals. For him it takes time to really get to know someone before he would gather the courage to ask her out. He is initially very flustered by Mi Seon’s direct approach and the way she straightforwardly tells him her intentions. He initially rejects her, not because he doesn’t like her but just because she’s going too fast for him, and Mi Seon interprets that as an official rejection. However, her feelings by then have already gone beyond just visual attraction and it takes some time but eventually Eun Chul is able to convey to her that he is indeed interested in her as well, and that he’s even willing to “skip some steps”. They were just so adorable. This is a dynamic that I’m weak for, the straightforward woman and the dense guy. That scene at the chicken rotisserie stand, when even the vendor started talking to his chickens about how dense this guy was, THREW me. Eun Chul is such a cinnamon roll, and I really liked how Mi Seon grew in her way of thinking about romantic relationships as well. They both opened up to new possibilities, and it was nice to see them both mature in that aspect.
The third big mystery of Gongjin, the unknown winner of a lottery ticket from Yoon Kyung’s supermarket, turns out to be Eun Chul and at the end it’s revealed that he has a LOT of money saved up. He never became lazy after he got rich, he still decided to work as a police officer and makes regular donations. It is suggested that he and Mi Seon plan to get married soon after Hye Jin and Doo Shik (I believe they already planned their wedding before the other couple did but they cut in line). Anyways, they also plan on getting married and Eun Chul will build Mi Seon a house on top of one of Gongjin’s beautiful hills. How romantic is this guy, seriously. I was only slightly disappointed in their one and only kiss though, I would’ve liked to see Eun Chul loosen up a bit as he became more and more unable to contain his feelings for Mi Seon. But they were still adorable and I enjoyed all their scenes together.

Okay, so now it’s finally time for cast comments! 😀 I might not discuss every single person I mentioned above, but there are some actors that I just really want to mention.

I remember seeing Shin Min Ah for the first time in My Girlfriend is a Gumiho in 2010, it was one of the first K-Dramas I ever watched and she was SO adorable there. She just had this cute, cheeky charm about her and I’ve been following her in dramas ever since. I’ve seen her in Oh My Venus and Tomorrow With You, which are also really good. And now she’s also in Our Blues, WITH Kim Woo Bin and I’m super excited to watch that soon as well. I like that she’s an actress who just has a more mature feel to her, like she really is more woman than girl. Maybe that’s why her acting like a lovey-dovey teenager just felt a bit off to me, I just didn’t think it matched her image. But I don’t want to imply that I didn’t like her performance in this drama, it was really interesting to see her paired up with Kim Sun Ho and as I mentioned before I really LIVED for their slowburn. I’m very curious to see what else she’ll do in the future!

I’ve only really noticed Kim Sun Ho in Start-Up (although I also saw him in 100 Day Husband), but he must have just captured my heart there because I was really excited to watch this new drama of his. And he really stole my heart as Doo Shik. Honestly, on several occasions he had a Ji Chang Wook effect on me which has never happened with another actor before. I think it was a really interesting choice to cast him as the hillbilly handyman since he has such delicate features, but somehow it made him all the more manly and attractive? Like, it definitely showed a new side of him which I liked. It was also nice to see him smile so much, I love his goofy smile. I can definitely see why people were excited about him and Shin Min Ah in a drama together, even calling them the ‘dimple couple’, haha. Dimples make everything better. Anyways, I really loved his character and how he portrayed him, layers and all. I think he did a good job in portraying someone who hid a lot of pain behind a seemingly carefree smile, and thinking about it makes it even sadder to know that this counts for so many people around the world. I just wish everyone would have such a good support system as Doo Shik did. Gongjin, the village and its people, literally saved his life.

I kept wondering where I knew Lee Sang Yi from, his face looked so familiar to me! And then I discovered it’s probably because of The Third Charm, which is the most recent thing I saw with him. He was also in Manhole and Andante, apparently! I really liked him in this series, he was such a cool and respectable guy. I liked Seung Hyun’s bromance with Doo Shik, and also how respectful and kind he was to Hye Jin. And he just never lost his quirkiness, either. He was the embodiment of a mature second male lead, and he dealt with being friendzoned in a very respectable way, no hurt pride or fragile masculinity or anything. It was nice to see such a refreshing, open-minded, non-judgmental male character, more of this please! He just made me want to be friends with him. And I also liked that he made the decision by himself to go after his writer colleague, not just because he wanted to keep working with her but because he just decided that he wanted to keep spending time with her in general. It was nice to see him get over Hye Jin’s rejection and move on all by himself.

Gong Min Jung looked so familiar to me, she has such a unique face, and I guess it’s because I’ve seen her in Wife I Know and Temperature of Love, but I can’t recall her characters from those series, to be honest. Guess it’s a good thing I decided to write reviews, so I can remind myself, huh? 😉 But yeah, as I said, Mi Seon was my favorite character in this series. She was such a loyal friend to Hye Jin but she also dealt with her own issues and never stopped being quirky in her own way. I loved her chemistry with Eun Chul, those two really found each other where they least expected it. Moving to Gongjin might have been a whim decision for her as much as it was for Hye Jin, but it did seem like she was able to adapt to the countryside life much easier than her friend, she never seemed to have a problem with joining the villagers in their gossip sessions and always relayed whatever she heard back to Hye Jin, who remained more on the outside. I loved the friendship between the two women, the fact that Mi Seon didn’t blink twice at deciding to stay with Hye Jin, how they would comfort each other when they were down, and how they both supported each other’s relationships. I really want to see more of this woman’s acting now!

KIM YOUNG OK. I have mentioned it many times before, but this was another drama in which she showed that she really is the Grandmother of K-Dramas. Aged 84 and still going strong, uri halmeoni. I’ve seen her in so many dramas by now, including The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince, Boys Over Flowers, Shopping King Louie, and most recently The King: Eternal Monarch. As soon as I saw her in this I knew she was going to steal my heart again, and she did. I think it might have been the first time I’ve seen her as a countryside granny, though, but it suited her very well, she looked very comfortable in those clothes!
Kim Young Ok is one of those actresses that I will always be happy to see in a drama, she’s just always such an immense comfort person. I can only imagine what it must be like for those younger actors to get the chance to work with her, she’s such a veteran. There wasn’t anything not to love about Gam Ri, she was the ultimate granny to the whole village, a true Gongjin-er. I loved how she would always offer to make food for people she didn’t even know that well yet, and even though she did refrain from allowing Seung Hyun and his crew to use her house for the filming in the beginning, when she did finally allow it she received the best treatment as the VIP of Gongjin from them as a result. The way she eventually passed really seemed as if she’d accepted it, she had seen everything play out as she’d wished for, and most of all she’d seen Doo Shik in a happy relationship with Hye Jin and that filled her with the most happiness of all. I will never have a bad thing to say about her performance ever, I love this woman.

Jo Han Chul never ceases to entertain me, to be honest. I love how he always plays a kind of comical character, but there’s a always room for him to show what a good actor he really is. I’ve seen him in High Schooler King of Life, Healer, Producer, Tomorrow With You, 100 Day Husband and Romance is a Bonus Book and I will definitely watch more dramas with him in the future. Here as well, even though introduced as a bit of a comic relief character, in the scenes that were about his love for his late wife and his daughter, he really came through with his serious and sensitive acting and it was really nice to see his versatility. I liked him as this character, the countryside musician part suited him very much!

I kept wondering how I recognized Kim Min Seo, because I couldn’t think of any drama that I knew her from, but I realized afterwards that I don’t actually know her from any K-Drama. She’s the girl from the ODG YouTube channel! I’ve seen several YouTube videos of her, amongst the one where she had to pretend like she didn’t know who IU was while she was actually a super big fan of hers and she even burst out into tears after she was allowed to stop pretending. I’d never actually seen her act in anything before, so that’s what caused the confusion. Anyways, it was so cool finally seeing her in a drama! I hope it will give her many more opportunities to show her skills as a child actor, because she’s really good! I liked her the part where she got to meet her bias from DOS, that was such a defining moment for her. Looking forward to seeing her appear in more things!

Speaking of regular comic relief actors that get to show their serious acting skills, In Gyo Jin. So far, I believe I’ve mostly seen him portray unsympathetic characters, in Sassy Go Go and Jugglers, and even though he also appeared to be a bit of a pervert in this series, he really made a switch for the better. I was really impressed by his serious acting when Yeong Gook realized how he messed up his marriage and how he came back to make amends with Hwa Jung. I always like it when I get to see new sides of actors that I know, so that was nice!

Lee Bong Ryun is growing on me with every new drama I see of her. I’ve seen her in Tomorrow With You, While You Were Sleeping, Melting Me Softly, Run On and she’s also in a couple of series that are still on my to watch list. She’s such a steady actress, and she always gives such a fun touch to all of her characters. I liked to see her portray Hwa Jung, since she was coping with some very complicated feelings as well. She was very good at pretending to be alright, to keep a straight face and just keep up the lie that she divorced her husband because she got sick of him. But on the other hand, in the scenes with her son Yi Joon, she would be the most fun mom and she doted on him so much, it was really adorable. Lee Bong Ryun is slowly but surely also becoming one of those actresses that I just get excited over as soon as I see her in appear in something, she’s such a unique presence and I think she has a lot to offer.

If we thought that Cha Chung Hwa really suited the look of a middle-aged countryside lady, that’s because she was one of the North Korean village ladies in Crash Landing on You as well! No wonder it looked so natural on her, haha. I’ve also seen her in Shopping King Louie and Hotel Del Luna before, apparently. It was nice to see her get a bit of back story in this drama, I don’t think I’ve actually seen her play a character before with a lot of background story. The switch from the scene where she was in the hospital bed with her daughter to the one where she remained behind on the empty bed by herself with the little magic wand really made me go soft. It went from so endearing to so heartbreaking. As I mentioned, I think her character conveyed a very important message, one you may not have expected from one of the more ‘obnoxious’ villagers. I guess you should just never judge a book by its cover!

And then, as promised, a big shoutout to Ki Eun Yoo & Go Do Yeon who played Yi Joon and Bo Ra. In many ways, their dynamic together knocked a couple of the adult actors out of the park! I’ve only seen Go Do Yeon before in Gyeryong Fairytale and It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, but she definitely jumped out to me more in this series (probably because of the blonde hair, haha). I guess I will be seeing more of them in future dramas and series that are still on my to watch list, but they really made this drama for me. Seriously, friendship + future relationship goals! Even though the characters are fictious, I just want them to be together forever T^T They were really amazing.

Lastly, I wanted to comment on that I liked that Oh Ui Shik had a guest appearance as Jung Woo, Doo Shik’s college senior. He’s always such a nice and friendly face in K-Dramas and it was nice that he came to see Doo Shik one last time in spirit to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. It may have added a fictious element to the story, but I think it’s what Doo Shik really needed to hear, and he was the person he needed to hear it from. I really liked to see him!

Okay, so I have finally reached the end of my review! I hope it wasn’t too long and tedious, but there was just so much to say about all of the characters. Overall, I really enjoyed it, especially in the beginning. It was really healing to watch and I loved the beautiful seaside sceneries. I also really liked the soundtrack. Once again I will have to look up several of the songs, because they were just so nice on the ears. The story in itself was also refreshing, I honestly didn’t expect anything dark and serious to happen when I started. I definitely did not expect there to be a part about mental health issues, but in the end it only emphasized the healing message of the series. It just proves again that mental health issues are serious, they can weigh a person down in more ways than one. In this case, it made a young, healthy and innocent guy to believe that he wasn’t worthy of happiness and love. Be careful with what you tell people in the heat of the moment, because it might be just the heat of the moment for you, but they might carry it with them for the rest of their lives. It isn’t always necessary to blame someone for something that’s happened, although I understand the need to have a scapegoat. It’s so important to stay relative in these kinds of situations, and not just blindly point at other people. You never know, they might be suffering from it just as much as you are, or even more. So yeah, that was a message that I definitely did not see coming when I started this drama and I’m just glad it was smoothed out.
All in all, it was a really satisyfing drama all the more because it dealt with everyone’s issues. Literally every single person’s story and lingering resentments were dealt with and everyone got their own kind of closure, from the main characters to literally every minor character including Gam Ri’s son in the final episode. The guy only appeared for one episode and still got his regrets resolved after talking with Doo Shik. Gongjin Village really seems like the place to be if you need to heal, in whatever way. This is most definitely a healing drama, if I haven’t emphasized that enough yet, haha. Even people that thought they’d already dealt with all their stuff ended up still having something to wrap up.
In terms of other kinds of closure, I liked how all three Gongjin mysteries were solved, as well. They really did live up to answering all the questions they posed in the beginning. Honestly, they mention these 3 big mysteries in one of the first episodes, but I didn’t even really think about them anymore. I honestly wouldn’t even have minded if I didn’t find out why Hwa Jung and Yeong Gook got divorced, if the mysteries remained mysteries or if even one was solved. But when it became clear that they were really going to work out every single story, I was all there for it.
As much as I initially thought the story would be about Hye Jin, in hindsight I think it was actually more about Doo Shik’s healing than hers, even though everyone had stuff to work through and heal from, in one way or another. I also liked how Hye Jin grew as a person and let go of some prior prejudices and resentments, mostly towards her stepmother. She didn’t seem to be that close to her father before, and it’s not like she suddenly became super close with him, but their bond definitely became a bit better. I haven’t really talked about Hye Jin’s father and stepmother, but they were also important figures in her story. I really liked how, in the scene when they came to visit her and she had Doo Shik pretend to be her boyfriend, the father really gradually let his guard down after his initial dislike for Doo Shik, and afterwards was even disappointed to find out he wasn’t actually her boyfriend, haha. It was good of Doo Shik to come clean to him, though. And I liked how Hye Jin in turn also opened up more to her stepmother, she seemed really happy for Hye Jin to call her ‘mom’ in the end.
Some scars run deeper than others and some aren’t as much scars as they are mindsets or habits that need to be put into perspective. In a more general sense, you could say this series is about life. About how it can teach you harsh lessons, but also show you how to heal and move on. That it’s sometimes necessary to change your environment and find new inspiration and a new perspective.

Thank you so much for reading through another review, I still strive to make them as accessible as possible. I will now be moving on to my third item on the list of more recent released that I can’t wait for, and after that I will move on with my list for a while again. I hope everyone stays healthy and safe and enjoys their summer as much as possible. I for one now really crave the scenery of a seaside village, haha.

Until soon! Bye-bee! ^^