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.

Once Upon a Small Town
(어쩌다 전원일기 / Eojjeoda Jeonwonilgi / Unexpected Country Diary)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

Hello hello! Yes, it’s only been a week since my last review but I hadn’t expected this show to be so short and binge-able, so here we are 🙂 Plus I’m enjoying my summer holiday and it just leaves me with so much time for watching dramas – I’m definitely not complaining. I really wanted to fit this summer drama within this season, because like several other healing summer dramas from the past few years, it just makes you want to go out, visit the countryside, surround yourself with green and fresh air. I felt really refreshed watching it. To be honest, this was the kind of show I’d expected my previous watch Summer Strike to be. A simple love story that takes place in the countryside, no additional unnecessary drama, just farm animals and peach farms and nature. I really liked it. I may have even liked it more than I expected, so this will definitely be a positive review. It was healing even in its simplicity, and it just made me feel very peaceful and light.

Once Upon a Small Town is a 12-episode Netflix/KakaoTV web K-Drama with episodes lasting around 35-40 minutes, making it very binge-able. The story is about Han Ji Yool (played by Choo Young Woo), a veterinarian from Seoul, who has to take over his grandfather’s animal hospital in the countryside village Heedong for a couple of months while his grandparents are on a cruise. As he’s lured to Heedong quite abruptly and he first thinks something bad has happened to his grandfather, Ji Yool is initially a bit annoyed at this sudden request. In the beginning he can’t wait to pass the time and get back to his clinic in Seoul, which in the meantime he leaves in the hands of his colleague and friend Choi Yoon Hyung (played by Na Chul). The first person Ji Yool meets in Heedong is a young female police officer named Ahn Ja Young (played by Park Soo Young/Joy), who spots him outside his grandfather’s house and takes him in on suspicion of being a burglar or trespasser. However, when she learns his name, she immediately softens on him and it becomes clear that she knows him, although Ji Yool doesn’t seem to recognize her at all. On the contrary, he is quite annoyed with her, as she keeps popping up wherever he goes. While he’s in charge of the animal hospital, he has to deal with farm animals like cows, pigs and goats, which he is not familiar with and despite his initial aversion, he does start taking an interest in learning about these larger animals. When he finds out that he and Ja Young indeed met before as kids and he learns that she too is an orphan, he opens up to her more and they eventually fall for each other. On Ja Young’s side, there’s her childhood friend Lee Sang Hyun (played by Baek Sung Chul), who’s had a crush on her for a long time and isn’t pleased with her newfound interest in Ji Yool. Sang Hyun runs a peach farm and a small free-of-charge café in the middle of a field. As Ji Yool and Ja Young fall for each other, all that stands in their way are the nosy villagers of the Heedong community, and they have find a way how to keep their relationship going once Ji Yool has to inevitably return to Seoul.

As I mentioned in my introduction, the story is incredibly simple. It focusses mainly on the relationship between Ji Yool and Ja Young and the only obstacles come in the form of nosy locals, Sang Hyun and Ji Yool’s ex-girlfriend, but otherwise there’s no major drama in this series. I just want to mention it because I’ve experienced it as such a refreshing watch after Summer Strike, in which there is drama around every single street corner. This show just proves to me that it is possible to make a short story work without adding all kinds of unnecessary antics and drama and petty people. I genuinely enjoyed watching it.

As the series is quite short, the main cast of characters is also small, which makes it very easy to follow throughout. Let me talk a bit about the main characters. First of all, Han Ji Yool. Ji Yool is a young, handsome veterinarian, a typical city guy who initially doesn’t look forward to being stuck in the countryside for longer than necessary. From the start it seems like he has a certain dislike towards Heedong, and we find out later that when he was a kid, his parents passed away in a car accident when they were visiting his grandfather one time. Still, he decides to stay because of his loyalty towards his grandfather and as he ultimately comes to face his past through Ja Young, he starts appreciating the town more and more. In this respect, you could say that Heedong definitely heals Ji Yool from his past trauma in a very subtle and natural way, maybe even more than he himself realizes. Just by being outside, working with animals and meeting local people, Ji Yool becomes more and more attached to the village and its daily life. We don’t actually get to know that much about Ji Yool as the person he’s been in Seoul all this time. We only briefly see a flashback from when he was a kid in Heedong, but after he went back to Seoul, it’s not shown how he grew up or anything like that. Also, when his ex-girlfriend suddenly pops up and starts going on about how happy their relationship was before they broke up, we just have to take her word for it because again, Ji Yool’s life before he’s called to Heedong in the first episode isn’t revealed to us. We can gather that he hasn’t exactly been struggling, he’s always been content living in Seoul, but he does have his guard up. When he first gets to Heedong he dislikes Ja Young for constantly treading his boundaries. He aims to do his job and fill in for his grandfather without getting attached to the villagers in any way before he can go back to his own, familiar space in the city. Where this guarded behavior comes from isn’t really revealed, except for the fact that he closed himself off to relationships after breaking up with his ex, but I guess it goes to show that he didn’t even realize how much he needed the countryside air before he found himself living there.

On the other hand, Ja Young isn’t just a local police officer, she’s also the village errand girl. She receives calls from people all over the village and the neighboring village to help out with things, and she gladly does so. She feels validated by being needed and thanked after helping people out, but it also means that she’s become a bit bad at saying ‘no’ when it comes to errands getting in the way of her own plans – we mainly see this happen when she and Ji Yool start dating in secret. Otherwise, she’s always out and about cycling through the village from one house or farm to the next. What was interesting to me was that from the moment she recognized Ji Yool, she just kept staring at him and trying to get close to him. I liked how despite her confidence, she still decided to let him remember their shared past on his own without forcing him. She kept helping him out with any inconveniences he had settling in, and despite his initial disdain she still managed to get him to open up to her without being too direct or pushy. She created a familiar environment for him within his stay at the village and that’s why it felt like things developed between them very naturally.
We find out that, after the car accident of Ji Yool and his parents, they were found by Ja Young and a tractor driver – I initially assumed it was her father but I’m not sure since she’s later revealed to be an orphan – and the tractor driver rescued Ji Yool from the car. Ji Yool lost his ability to speak for a while due to shock, but Ja Young reached out to him and they played together and this helped Ji Yool recover significantly before he had to go back to Seoul. Just before he left, he gave Ja Young his puppy and a notebook in which he’d written his name and the promise that he’d come back to be her secret friend again. It’s kind of sad to see how he forgot about the whole thing if you see how Ja Young always kept the notebook and immediately recognized his name. It takes Ji Yool at least half the series to finally remember he’s met Ja Young before and once he does his feelings for her rapidly develop into something way more than just freshly-recollected childhood friend sentiments.

Going into a little more detail regarding Ji Yool and Ja Young’s relationship dynamic while it’s still building up to the actual confession, I was definitely on Ja Young’s side through it all. I mean, Ji Yool does make some obvious advances, he keeps coming after her and starts confronting her when they are alone, but on the other hand he never really comes clear about his specific feelings to her, or about wanting to date her, for example. Even when his ex-girlfriend appears, he never spells it out to anyone and I could understand how mixed his signals come across to Ja Young. One moment he makes her engage in tension-filled conversation, he keepslooking for her, he keeps trying to be alone with her, but then when his ex shows up, he doesn’t even actively push her away. He literally tells Ja Young that he’s just going to let his ex do her thing until she gives up by herself. I mean, I personally didn’t think that was the way to go. Seeing his ex’s personality and the fact that he already admitted how persistent she could be, that was just a bit weird to me. Even I could tell that his ex wasn’t just going to ‘give up by herself’ and he never even directly tells her, ‘Go away, you missed your chance, I’m in love with someone else now’ either. He even lets it get so far as giving his ex an opening to kiss him in front of Ja Young. While he keeps making excuses to Ja Young saying, ‘she’s not my girlfriend, there’s nothing going on between us’, he initially doesn’t even think to add the information that she is, in fact, his ex, someone with whom he has been in a very happy relationship before. I thought he should’ve been straightforward about that at least, because even if it means nothing anymore, an ex is still different from a random stranger. I found that Ji Yool could’ve definitely set clearer boundaries, both with his ex and Ja Young. On the other hand, I found myself siding with Ja Young because I really liked how she tried to deal with the situation. She never becomes pathetic, she just resigns to quietly removing herself from the situation because she doesn’t want to get caught up in any drama. She even tells Ji Yool to just deal/stay with his ex and leave her alone. Throughout the show, I really liked how maturely Ja Young deals with stuff, she isn’t just a naive small town girl, she is aware of most of what’s going on, even if she doesn’t always verbally acknowledge everything. She always considers everyone’s feelings. Even when it comes to Sang Hyun’s feelings for her, she feels bad about keeping him waiting for her answer while trying to maintain their current friendship as if nothing has happened. I liked how she’s always trying to mind her own business without expecting too much and just tried to live her own life as happily as she could. If that meant she had to push down her own feelings, she just takes care of that on her own. I was kind of scared that she’d go to Sang Hyun anyway after her and Ji Yool’s conversation about what defined being in love with someone – knowing someone for a long time and feeling comfortable around them, or feeling nervous and fluttery. I just liked how she manages to avoid any unnecessary drama by simply following her true feelings, and despite some occasional wavering she is very honest to herself and others throughout the story.
Despite the initial ambiguity from Ji Yool’s side, and the fact that it seems like he only starts falling for Ja Young after learning that they’ve met before and she’s also an orphan, I really liked the overall development of their relationship. Even before they confess, there is so much chemistry just within the looks they give each other. I literally got giddy by the way Ji Yool looks at her and the way he corners her sometimes🫣. It’s so clear that they are totally down for each other, but they need some time to get the mutual message across. They ultimately only get together in the second-to-last episode, so we only have two episodes to enjoy them as a lovey-dovey couple, but those two episodes gave me more than enough endorphins. I honestly think that if they’d filled half or more of the show with this lovey-dovey stuff, it may have become a bit too much (like in Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha) but this was just the right amount of giddiness for me and I loved it. The way they keep thinking they’re bothering each other too much by constantly wanting to call and text, and end up missing each other because they both simulatenously come up with the idea to visit each other in Heedong/Seoul, the way they hug each other when they finally meet, the little peck kisses, the smiles… It made me happy.

Sang Hyun is the only character who gets a bit petty at times but I still don’t dislike him. I really liked his friendship dynamic with Ja Young and how, even after she rejects him romantically, he still acts like a brother to her. Even if they can’t become lovers, they’ll always run into each other in the village, and they both don’t want to become awkward with each other. It can’t always be easy to face someone after a rejection, especially if you keep running into each other, but I liked how mature Sang Hyun is in that. He is still very petty towards Ji Yool, though. He starts treating him like a rival the moment Ji Yool arrives in Heedong, and he even confesses his feelings to Ja Young while Ji Yool is standing right next to them. I didn’t believe that Ja Young was completely oblivious to his feelings for her, but she always kind of laughs it off when he makes a jealous remark or treats Ji Yool like a rival. From the look on her face it seemed to me that Ja Young knew very well what was happening, that they were rivalling over her, but she never calls either of them out on it. Throughout the entire series, Sang Hyun seems to be Ja Young’s only close friend, she’s never seen with other (girl) friends, he seems to be the only peer she has in the village. It’s mentioned that they went to school together, but I guess then her other classmates all either moved to the city or other villages? It’s not clarified specifically, but anyways, I also kind of liked that their circumstances didn’t make it the default option for her to start dating Sang Hyun simply because he was the only obvious option as her only male peer in the area. Even if the both of them decide to stay in Heedong forever, she is just enjoying her time in the present without thinking about who she’ll end up with. Sang Hyun definitely imagined a future with Ja Young, but I found him unexpectedly mature when he (reluctantly) accepts that she’s fallen for Ji Yool.

I kind of liked the rivalry between Ji Yool and Sang Hyun. The stabs and sneers they deal each other and the looks of ‘I see what you’re trying to do, bro’ are really clear and on point, just like the small triumphant gestures and subtle expressions when Ja Young picks either of their sides. Despite getting a bit petty sometimes, the overall lightness of the show ensures that it never becomes so bad that it really made me go ‘yooooo…👀’. I was always able to relativize their behavior in a light and funny way, like I did with the two male leads in Flipped. It was funny because I feel like they would’ve gotten along just fine if it weren’t for their shared feelings for Ja Young, and this is kind of confirmed in the final episode, when it’s mentioned that they’d been playing video games together behind Ja Young’s back.

Let me talk a bit about Ji Yool’s ex-girlfriend, Choi Min. Min (played by Ha Yool Ri) appears for a couple of episodes in the middle of the show, when the romantic tension between Ji Yool and Ja Young is already at full throttle. She manages to track Ji Yool down because his colleague Yoon Hyung ‘accidentally’ mentions where Ji Yool is currently working in one of the promotional videos he uploads online about the veterinary hospital. It is revealed that Ji Yool and Min went to veterinarian school together and that they had a really happy relationship until Min decided to study abroad in the US and she didn’t want to give the long-distance thing a chance. Now that she’s back, she regrets breaking up with Ji Yool and decides she wants to get back together. Completely on her own terms, as Ji Yool is already over her and has no intention of getting back together whatsoever. Persistent and confident as she is, Min is settled to stay at Ja Young’s house for as long as she’s there (not awkward at all) and she even asks Ja Young to support her in trying to win Ji Yool back. In my (and Ja Young’s) defense, Ja Young never actually says ‘yes’ to this, she just smiles awkwardly, so in my opinion Min couldn’t fully hold it against her that she became an obstacle to this plan in the end. Despite being used as a pretty obvious plot tool in trying to create tension between Ji Yool and Ja Young, Min never actually stands a chance. Ji Yool has no feelings for her anymore, she’s on a one-sided quest. Her ex moved on and she just needs to accept that, but it doesn’t come across until Ji Yool spells it out to her that she only wants him back out of regret and not because she still loves him. And then Min leaves within a day or so, so that was pretty quick, lol. No, but seriously, I actually didn’t dislike Min. I thought she was a very solid character, she had a goal and went for it, but she also didn’t become overly petty or bitter towards Ja Young or make a big fuss when Ji Yool rejected her. She was well aware of what was going on between the two, and I guess she just needed at least one of them to tell her the truth so she could let it go. And then she let it go very easily. I was kind of scared that she’d become this nasty woman who’d be like, ‘You promised to support me, Ja Young!’, and while she did mention that, I couldn’t help but appreciate her upfrontness. She made her goals and thoughts very clear and left no room for ambiguity, which couldn’t be said for Ji Yool, for example. He just kept letting her do her thing without actively drawing the line until she actually kissed him in front of Ja Young. Then he felt like he needed to make things clear to both of them. I wasn’t even mad at Ja Young for taking a distance from him at that point because despite knowing where his heart lay, even I thought he was giving major mixed signals. I would’ve been confused as heck too if I were Ja Young.

I would like to talk a bit about Heedong Village and its main inhabitants that appear in the story. First of all, Lee Young Sook (played by Park Ye Ni). She is the only other person working at the Heedong veterinary hospital, so she becomes Ji Yool’s new colleague. She has a very thick accent and always appears to be cheerful. She’s usually the person calling Ji Yool to alert him of jobs, sending him to visit people’s houses and farms to help out with their animals there. When Yoon Hyung comes to Heedong to visit Ji Yool one time, there’s an instant connection between him and Young Sook, and in the final episode they are busted in the back seat of a car together. I thought it was funny that they would end up together, I think it was definitely something to move Ji Yool and Ja Young towards accepting their own relationship and announcing it to the rest of the village as well.

Then there’s the police team that Ja Young is a part of. It kind of reminded me of the tiny local police team from He is Psychometric in that they rarely had to deal with real crime, but were mostly just helping people out with physical labor and occasionally dealing with drunk bar customers. Ja Young’s team further consisted of Officer Hwang Man Sung (played by Jung Seok Yong) and Officer Yoon Geun Mo (played by Noh Jae Won). I really liked their team dynamic, they are clearly very close and you can tell they care about each other a lot. They never argue, they always thank and compliment each other for their work at the end of the day, and I liked how Officer Hwang, the elder, is way quicker than Officer Yoon to deduct when Ja Young is trying to get out of something. They feel like a really fun team to work with, there are no complications or tensions between them whatsoever and you can telle they’ve all known each other for a long time. It’s kind of funny that a young lady like Ja Young is working in a team with two middle-aged guys, but nothing feels off and everyone is just really nice.

Like almost every retreat-to-the-country-or-seaside-village-drama I’ve seen so far, this series also has the typical ahjumma trio. Jang Se Ryun, Oh Yeon Hong and Mo Kyung Ok (respectively played by Baek Ji Won, Park Ji Ah and Yoo Yeon) are the three nosy middle-aged ladies that Ji Yool and Ja Young are especially careful of when they start dating. These three ladies definitely know how to kick up a fuss, and this mainly comes out in their rivalry with the neigboring Majeong Village and its inhabitants, represented mostly by Park Mal Geum (played by Kim Young Sun). As the Heedong Women’s Association leader, Jang Se Ryun is the fiercest of the three, she always looks for ways to undermine Majeong Village. I’m not entirely sure what the exact beef between the villages is, but it’s a funny ongoing feud in the background of the main story. Ja Young is often expected to keep the ladies out of each other’s hair, as exhausting as that is to her. She ocassionally helps out Mal Geum or other people in Majeong, much to the disdain of the ahjumma trio. One example of their feud is shown when the committee of a National Singing Contest has to decide whether to host the event in Heedong or in Majeong and a large fight breaks out between the representatives of both villages. Honestly, although I didn’t exactly dislike Mal Geum, I did want her to shut up about Ja Young being an orphan. I mean, she keeps going back to that, that she always feels sorry for her because she has no parents and how that affects her and I was just like, lady?! Mind your own business? That’s a little too much for me because it just feels like she’s always been judging Ja Young purely based on that. Ja Young is always just standing there, smiling awkwardly, trying to calm her down while she’s being looked down on like that. That kind of pissed me off. Other than that, none of the ladies are bad people, per se. They are just born and raised with specific morals and ideas that may seem a bit old-fashioned at times. One example of that is that they have some sort of prejudice against Seoul men. When Yeon Hong busts Yoon Hyung and Young Sook in that car in the final episode, she really seems to reprimand Young Sook for falling for a guy from Seoul, rather than for a more local guy. It’s revealed not much later that everyone already knew about Ji Yool and Ja Young from the start, and that they’ve been pretending not to know, but in their ‘pretense’, they kept putting Ja Young and Sang Hyun together, saying how good they look together as if they didn’t even consider Ji Yool. I guess in hindsight this was just a prank, but they definitely had prejudices that were bothersome to the extent that Ja Young initially feels inclined to keep her relationship with Ji Yool a secret.

And now it’s time for Kim Seon Dong! Seon Dong (played by Jung Shi Yool) is a little boy who lives with his grandmother. Ja Young often takes him to school on her bike in the morning. He appears frequently throughout the show, and also gets his own little arc when he’s dealing with his romantic feelings for his classmate Hee Won (played by Lee So Yoon). When the two kids are ‘dating’, they also keep it a secret out of fear of the village’s nosiness, and this initially makes Ja Young and Ji Yool decide to do the same. Seon Dong is a really sweet boy, and he’s also way quicker to see through some things than one would expect. He knows about the feelings between Ji Yool and Ja Young, and he even blurts out to Min one time that he doesn’t think Ji Yool is still in love with her because he’s ‘seen the way he looks at Ja Young’. Sometimes a little too honest for his own good, Seon Dong was one of my favorite regulars in Heedong. He was just such a good, sweet and smart kid, and I just keep feeling that I always want him to stay that way.

Besides the village regulars, there are a couple of guest locals that I want to mention, people that Ji Yool meets during his outdoor work in Heedong that make a special impression. For example, the old man with the bull. I just wanted to mention him because even though it was such a short feature, I loved to see a depiction of such a pure bond between a farmer and his animal. The bull is not doing well and the old man asks Ji Yool to perform euthanasia on it. This doesn’t only motivate Ji Yool to learn more about his profession because he doesn’t have any experience performing euthanasia on a large farm animal, but we can also see that it emotionally guts him seeing the bond between the man and his animal. The same goes for Mal Geum’s mother and her little dog. The way she talks about the doggy, how it’s always been with her and she sees it as her child, is so heartwarming. I think the show does a really good job showing this aspect of the bond between people and their animals, especially in a farming context, as farming animals are usually deployed as tools to assist with physical labor. I thought it was really nice to see such a pure depiction of animal love and appreciation, to see how in a village like this some people spend a lifetime with their animals, and it never gets easy to say goodbye.
In connection to this I have to add that I find it kind of funny that with Summer Strike, there was a disclaimer at the beginning of every episode stating that ‘no animals were harmed in the filming of the series’, even though the only animal depicted in the entire show was one single dog. I thought it would’ve been more fitting for Once Upon a Small Town to use this disclaimer, as there were a lot of different animals that the actors had to actively engage with in every episode. They had to help a cow give birth and vaccinate a bunch of pigs, so I would’ve expected that they’d put that disclaimer here as well. They made so much use of animals here, honestly, the animals were like paid actors, lol.

I just want to make a short final remark about the title of the series, as again, the English title differs quite a lot from the Korean title. The Korean title translates to something along the lines of Unexpected/Accidental/Sudden Country Diary. I suppose this could refer to the diary/notebook that young Ji Yool left Ja Young when they were kids, but it could also refer to the everyday life in Heedong that we get to witness in the show. I saw that the series is based on a web novel with the same name, so it makes sense that they just kept the same title. As for the English title, I kind of like it. It’s like a fairytale, and the series in itself is mainly a love story, so maybe it was chosen because it held some kind of romantic connotation to it? I always like to think about how a an English title is chosen, especially when it differs a lot from the original Korean title.

I think I’ve actually already mentioned everyone and everything I wanted to talk about in regards to this drama! I foresaw that it was going to be a short review since the story is really simple, but I’m still surprised how fast I went through it. Let’s move on to the cast comments!

I’ve never seen Choo Young Woo in anything before, but I have to admit he is VERY good-looking. Up until now he’s been involved in six dramas, so he’s still starting out as well, it seems. It seems that the main cast of this drama are all pretty much beginning actors with an average of about five dramas to their name, and that kind of adds to the refreshing feeling of it.
One thing I really liked about Choi Young Woo’s performance was his expressions. From the start I thought he was really good in giving subtle yet very strong facial expressions, even if he was just dead-panning someone. He made me laugh out loud with his expressions a number of times, it showed me that he really knew how to act with his face, even in the subtlest of ways. I also liked how he portrayed the gradual development of Ji Yool’s character in that he went from guarded, boundary-loving veterinarian to a more open-minded, nature-appreciating person. His character definitely had some major character development, maybe even the most out of all the characters in the show, and I think he did very well in portraying that in a natural way. The way Ji Yool’s feelings for Ja Young started growing was very gradual and natural in my opinion as well.

Boy oh boy am I glad that I gave this drama a chance because I really liked Joy’s performance here. In my last review of her performance, in The One and Only, I was mostly negative about her acting because I felt that her performance lacked a solid ‘connection’ with her fellow actors. None of that here. I was honestly surprised at how well she connected with her fellow cast members, I could really feel progress in her performed compassion and cooperation with the rest of the cast. It was also nice to see her out of her natural habit, in a farming village, struggling to hold pigs in her arms and running around looking for lost puppies. She really showed a different side to her performance, she gave something I hadn’t seen from her before. What she showed in this drama restored my hope in her acting, and that’s not something I say lightly. Her eyes still tend to everywhere at times, but it didn’t bother me as much here as it did in other, less successful projects. I really liked how she performed her character. It was nice how she embraced the awkward giggles and giddiness and how she didn’t turn into a apathetic female lead character. Even by herself, she didn’t need a man to protect her, she was confident and strong and bright and just a very likeable character. Out of all the dramas I’ve seen of her so far, her performances of this and The Great Seducer are definitely at the top. Good job, Joy! I really hope she can keep this level up for whatever’s next to come for her.

Something about Baek Sung Chul’s reminds me of Lee Know from Stray Kids, lol. He’s only done four dramas so far, yet it seems I’ve seen him in a bunch of stuff before. He definitely didn’t seem like a rookie actor to me in the way he performed, so I guess that’s a good sign! As I said, I really liked the relationship between Sang Hyun and Ja Young. Their friendship was #goals, all the more because of the way they could just revert back to being best friends even after some feelings/tensions had popped up between them. I really loved how Sang Hyun just announced that he’d always be there for Ja Young, even if they couldn’t be lovers. He’d always look out for her and care for her, and he took care of the unreciprocated feelings by himself. I liked how mature he was in accepting Ja Young’s rejection, but how he still went😒 at Ji Yool, lol. I would’ve liked to see them become closer friends, to be honest. Anyways, keeping my eye out for Baek Sung Chul because he definitely shows a lot of promise! Overall, I really liked the chemistry between the three main actors, it seemed like they had no problem acting close and they had a nice and natural dynamic going on.

I had to check mutliple times if Jang Se Ryun was actually Baek Ji Won, because even after knowing it was her, I still didn’t recognize her. What in the world happened to this woman? Not only did she undergo a physical transformation in terms of hairstyle and clothing, but her entire way of talking and moving around seemed to be different from what I’ve seen of her before. I am absolutely gobsmacked. In my mind I kept going back and forth between Jang Se Ryun and the CEO from Extraordinary Attorney Woo, because part of me still can’t believe it’s the same person, lol. This actress is definitely going to grow on me. I watched her performance in this show as if I’d never seen anything with her before, and I really liked the energy that she gave, her expressions and the way she just went for Mal Geum’s hair in those heated village discussions. She really let loose and I appreciated how she maintained her obnoxious character without going too far and becoming too much. Some actors have the tendency of going over the top in portraying a hysterical characters trying to make it funny, but Jang Se Ryun took herself completely seriously, and that’s why her hysterics worked even better. I was very impressed with her in this show, she definitely showed a side that I didn’t see before, and honestly I’m still having difficulties accepting that she’s the person I’ve seen before in Extraordinary Attorney Woo and Encounter.

I was really happy to see Park Ji Ah here, all the more because she still doesn’t have a DramaWiki page but at least this means she’s still landing roles. I know her as one of the diving ladies from Our Blues, and it was nice to see a less crabby character from her. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but I feel like she really fits the countryside vibe. She just looks and feels like a nosy gossiping neighborhood lady, haha. I like seeing side characters from shows I like appear in new shows, it’s just nice to see they’re not being forgotten and are receiving more chances at regular appearances. I hope she’ll get even more chances, it would actually be nice to see her in a city-set drama for a change, I bet that would give her a completely different vibe.

Yoo Yeon has appeared in a couple of things I’ve seen, like Touch Your Heart and Extraordinary Attorney Woo, but I don’t actually remember her from there (sorry🙈). Kyung Ok was the most chill and quiet one of the three ahjumma, but I think also she may have been the type that spoke the least but understood the most. I don’t remember her personally coming out very fiercely in the discussions with Majeong, but she was still undoubtedly a part of the unit of three. The actress has done a bunch of hit dramas, I can see, like SKY Castle, Penthouse and Vincenzo, all of which I haven’t watched, but it definitely gives me an impression. With that in mind I think it’s nice that she also pulls off a minor farmer lady’s role like this, it’s nice that she gets enough opportunity to show off her different sides.

Na Chul has such a familiar looking face, and he also reminds me a bit of Kyu Hyun from Super Junior. Apparently, he was also in Touch Your Heart, but I also don’t remember him from there. Honestly, it’s a good thing I’m writing reviews because you see how quick my memory fades of stuff I’ve seen😅. I thought he brought a very pleasant energy to the story, especially in contrast to Ji Yool’s dryness. Their dynamic was very funny. You could tell how he was a good friend to Ji Yool even though the latter was often annoyed by the former’s happy-peppy energy. I liked the time when they’d just found out about the relationship between Yoon Hyung and Young Sook, and Ji Yool was initially eyeing him kind of sceptically, but you could see his gaze soften as he watched Yoon Hyung talk about how serious he was about Young Sook. I think Ji Yool needed an energy like that around him, otherwise he would’ve probably grown to be even more guarded during his time in Seoul. His character was a nice addition to the story, almost like the FL’s best friend in Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, even though he didn’t actually move to Heedong himself.

I felt like I definitely knew Ha Yool Ri from something, but I haven’t seen her in anything before! Her face looks SO familiar, though! Most of the dramas she’s done are still on my watchlist, so I know for a fact I’m going to see her again and I’m looking forward to it. I liked how refreshingly mature her character was, even though she was introduced as the love rival/ex-girlfriend who was going to sabotage the main leads from getting together. I liked that Min actually ended on genuinely friendly terms with Ja Young, she wasn’t a bitch at all, she just needed to realize that her reason for wanting to get back with Ji Yool wasn’t as genuine as she was imagining it to be. I liked how sincerely she listened to Ji Yool’s story about how he’d struggled for so long after she broke up with him and how he now finally found himself able to love again. After being confronted with that truth she accepted it really easily and even became able to sincerely root for him and Ja Young. She even gave Ja Young the opportunity to confess that she actually liked Ji Yool as well. I couldn’t dislike her, I think she was a very honest and just character. I hope I’ll get to watch her other dramas soon!

I haven’t seen Park Ye Ni in anything else either, but she’s in a couple of my watchlist items so I’m definitely going to see her again. I liked that despite being a fairly minor character in this show, she still got her own character with her own life and personality. I actually expected her to appear more frequently while she was working with Ji Yool at the clinic, but I think the scenes that she did appear in gave a lot of information about her character. It was a nice addition to make her and Yoon Hyung a couple, and I liked that the revelation of their relationship kind of inspired Ji Yool and Ja Young as well. She has a really contagious smile and she made a very distinct first impression with that strong accent of hers. By the way, was it just me or was she the only one with an accent that strong? I don’t know what kind of accent it was, but it stood apart from the other villagers, if I remember correctly. Anyways, maybe I would’ve liked to see some more working scenes with her and Ji Yool instead of just scenes where she was drinking instant coffee and conveying jobs to him, but I still liked her character.

Jung Shi Yool is growing to be one of my favorite child actors. He’s appeared in so many dramas already, it’s crazy that he doesn’t have his own page on DramaWiki yet. I’ve seen him in Her Private Life, The King: Eternal Monarch, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and he was also in Summer Strike, which I finished only a week ago. He also had a guest role in What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim? and Thirty But Seventeen. He’s such a cute little guy and he seems to mature with every new series I see him in. He really shone as Seon Dong, and his little arc with Hee Won was really cute. I really wonder what he’s going to be up to in the future, I’m definitely keeping an eye out for him as he shows a lot of promise!

Lastly, I just want to mention Jung Seok Yong as I can’t not mention him. He’s always such a welcome and familiar face and it was nice to see him here as well. I liked that despite his goofy face he can give off such a wise energy, and it almost felt as if he was like a father figure to Ja Young, without getting too nosy obviously. He has a whole list of dramas to his name, but let me just summarize what I’ve seen him in so far, as I like to do: I Miss You, Moonlight Drawn by Clouds, Tunnel, Lookout, Room No. 9, He is Psychometric, Arthdal Chronicles, Move to Heaven and Extraordinary Attorney Woo. I don’t think this guy is going to stop appearing in shows, so I’m probably going to see much more roles from him in the future.

We’ve already reached the end of this review! I feel like it’s been a really short one, but that’s okay because it conveys the feeling that I had while watching itin its shortness. It’s a simple, short, sweet love story about the countryside and it’s definitely going on my list of most healing dramas I’ve watched so far. Maybe it wasn’t even meant as a healing drama, but it definitely had an effect similar to Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha and I wish that Summer Strike would’ve been more like this. It was so great that there was no unnecessary drama, just a love story and the healing was incorporated in the daily work of both lead characters. The veterinarian aspect was interesting, I haven’t seen much representation of that profession in K-Drama before. I liked seeing so many animals, I liked seeing the bond between people and their animals, and I liked how mature everyone was when it came to dealing with both their own and other people’s feelings. I really enjoyed watching this show, it was short, light and uncomplicated and the chemistry between the two leads was very satisfying. I would definitely recommend this as a cute, light and healing summer watch.

Next up on my list is another short drama, Japanese this time, and then I’m going back to a couple of 2019/20/21 K-Drama that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while and I figure now is the right time. I hope this short review was worthwhile nonetheless and I’ll be back soon!

Bye-bee! xx