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.

You Are My Spring
(너는 나의 봄 / Neoneun Naeui Bom)
MyDramaList rating: 7.5/10

Hello everyone! I didn’t expect to be able to squeeze in one more review before going on holiday, but I went through this show faster than I anticipated and I didn’t want to leave the final episode until after I came back. I have to say, I feel like I’m on a lucky streak after being let down previously, because this was again a very wholesome and healing watch, that even occasionally brought a tear to my eye. Although there were a couple of things that I would’ve liked to be wrapped up a bit more conclusively, this depicted one of the most healthy, healing relationships in a K-Drama I’ve seen so far. Besides that, it’s also been a while since I watched a series that, in my opinion, went about tackling heavy themes such as trauma and mental illness the right way. It really took me by surprise and for a wild ride. I’m very glad I got to watch it and I’m excited to share my views on it. Let’s go!

You Are My Spring is a tvN K-Drama that consists of sixteen episodes of about an hour and ten minutes each, the classic format. I watched it with English subtitles on Netflix. It zooms in on three different people who’ve each had a very traumatic childhood and are still dealing with the impact of those experiences as adults.
Kang Da Jeong (played by Seo Hyun Jin) is a hotel concierge at the Grand Hyatt in Seoul. While she’s made it far career-wise and lives comfortably on the rooftop of a building her friends’ family owns, she still deals with instability when it comes to her love life. As a child (played by Ok Ye Rin), she grew up in a violent household where her mother was constantly beaten up by her dad in an attempt to defend Da Jeong and her younger brother. Even after they escaped and grew up, Da Jeong has somehow only ever attracted trashy guys who ended up hurting her even more. As an adult, she still keeps in touch with her younger brother Kang Tae Jeong (played by Kang Hoon) and frequently visits her mother Moon Mi Ran (played by Oh Hyun Kyung) in Gangneung, where she runs a pizza place (the good old Pizza Alvolo).
Joo Yeong Do (played by Kim Dong Wook) is a psychiatrist who starts his own little clinic on the third floor of the 99 Building, right under Da Jeong’s place. He grew up with a sickly older brother who passed away at a young age, after which his mother completely neglected him in her grief. While he studied to be a doctor, he made the switch to psychiatry after losing a patient and regretting not reaching out to her to make sure she was doing okay. He is still plagued by the deaths of his brother and this patient, and even went through a fake marriage with a suicidal woman just to cover up the fact that he was treating her. Despite his own sad past, he’s an incredibly kind doctor who genuinely cares about helping every person he meets.
Ian Chase (played by Yoon Park) is a doctor who grew up in the United States. He was also born into an abusive household, with parents who couldn’t even be bothered to give him and his twin brother different names – they were both called Choi Jeong Min. He was given away by his own mother to some sort of orphanage to be sold off for adoption. After his twin suddenly unalives himself, Ian comes back to Korea to stay at the Grand Hyatt, where he keeps getting confronted with his loss, and starts becoming more and more mentally unstable.
The series basically follows these three people, and is divided into two separate storylines that occasionally intertwine. The main storyline follows the budding relationship between Da Jeong and Yeong Do as they keep crossing paths as fellow residents and slowly but surely start opening up to each other, and the other storyline follows Ian Chase’s involvement with an ongoing murder investigation of several victims, including an officer that was part of the investigation team himself.

I’d like to say right off the bat that the plot that focussed on the relationship between Da Jeong and Yeong Do was my absolute favorite part of the show. While I enjoyed the series as a whole, their relationship was just so touching. This is my definition of a healthy relationship. The way they healed each other, from their inner child to opening up to each other as romantic partners, was incredibly endearing and it actually made me tear up on several occasions.
Apart from this, I thought there were a lot of things that the story left unanswered/unexplained/to be desired. It felt like they focussed so much on the relationship between the main leads that it ended up losing sight of what they had planned for the other (supporting) characters, because a lot of their stories felt kind of unfinished in the end. In terms of the Ian Chase storyline, I’m honestly still not sure about several aspects of it. I feel like they could’ve made things much clearer much earlier on, instead of leaving the full explanation for the final episode and then still not giving the whole picture, for example through an extensive flashback. I feel like they also could’ve done way more with the majority of their supporting characters that started out really interesting, but then kind of lost their purpose along the way. There were a lot of interesting ideas and starting points, but not all of them got a satisfying conclusion, and I thought that was a shame.

In terms of first impressions, I have to admit the start of the series threw me off a bit. I’d just come off the pink fluffy cloud that was my last watch, and while the intro sequence looked very soft and wholesome, it was immediately followed by depictions of domestic violence, so I went from “oh, this looks cozy” to “okay I guess not” real fast. Nevertheless, I think the intro was quite fitting in the end, because the story took a much more healing-focussed turn than the first couple of scenes would suggest. In my experience, among the many shows that deal with heavy themes such as (childhood) trauma, (mental) illness and therapy, only a few know how to tackle this ‘the proper way’. For example, people who’ve read my previous reviews will know that I think The One and Only completely missed the mark, while Just Between Lovers and Our Blues  took a much more wholesome approach. In this regard, You Are My Spring really took the crown for me. I loved the way the main leads gradually came together and healed each other, and I also loved how all the supporting characters ended up recovering from their own issues in their own way. It’s been a while since this kind of wholesomeness brought a tear to my eye.
Besides that, I had another aligning of the signs that made me feel like I watched this show at the right time in my life. I’d just finished a book about a boy who developed schizophrenia due to the guilt he felt after his brother died (“The Shock of the Fall” by Nathan Filer, strongly recommended), which really came to mind when Yeong Do talked about how when you lose someone, you start seeing them in everything. I also recently came across this quote: “Some people are mean and bitter because they had a rough childhood. Some people are kind and caring for the same reason. Your choice.” Besides having personally known someone who let their nasty past experiences define their entire personality and the way they treated others, I couldn’t help but feel like this quote was also really fitting for Da Jeong.

Speaking of our leading lady, let’s talk a bit about Da Jeong. As I mentioned, she grew up in an abusive household until she was seven years old. Then, her mother took her and her little brother Tae Jeong (as a child played by Seo Woo Jin) and fled the house, away from her drunkass husband. Da Jeong grew up in Gangneung, where she befriended the local market aunties and made new friends for life. Later, she moved to Seoul with these friends and worked her way up to becoming a concierge at a respectable hotel.
From the summary of this show and the way adult Da Jeong was introduced, I was kind of worried that she would’ve grown up as a very pessimistic person, so it was a delight to see how much she’d actually made of herself. The transition from that miserable childhood to showing her as an accomplished young woman was already very wholesome in itself. I thought it was very realistic how they showed that, while she grew up to be a decent person, she still struggled with her childhood trauma, and her past misery still came seeping through in certain ways, like her love life. You often hear about children growing up in abusive households that later somehow also keep attracting bad people even though they’re aware of it. At the start of the story, there’s one guy who keeps ‘stalking’ Da Jeong, although he’s not exactly unpleasant and genuinely seems to want to form an attachment with her, but she keeps holding him off because she’s so aware of the situation and knows it always ends bad. It takes her a long time to allow herself to open up to new promising connections, and she just doesn’t want to take the risk of getting attached to an unhealthy person again, after having gone through that so many times.
And then something terrible happens: just when she’s planning to give the guy a chance and goes on a date with him, he unalives himself that same night, after leaving her a clue that he knew her from before. This causes her to become an important person in the murder investigation, which also links her to Yeong Do in an unexpected way.
Honestly, I really loved Da Jeong. She was such a wonderful person. I loved how strong she became, but still allowed herself to show her emotions and not hide them away when things became too hard on her. Even though she occasionally let herself sink away in her own misfortune, she never let herself drown completely and she kept trying to open herself up to the possibility of better things. Apart from that, she was a genuinely kind person. She never let her own bad past influence the way she treated others, and she was always immediately available when her friends needed a listening ear. Once she started opening up to Yeong Do, it was amazing to see how vibrant and quirky she really was. You may not think so because of her earlier bad relationships, but she actually had a really good eye for people and their intentions, and managed to surround herself with great people. I loved her dynamics with both her family members and her friends, it just proved how important it is to have a healthy social safety net to fall back on.

Let’s talk about the people that served as Da Jeong’s safety net for a bit, starting with momma Moon Mi Ran.
Seriously, can we all agree on what a badass her mom was? She was trapped in an abusive marriage with someone who once was the love of her life, and she actually found a way to get herself and her two young children out of that. You always hears about women who can’t bring themselves to leave, no matter how badly they’re treated, so this was an incredibly brave move. On top of that, she managed to raise her two kids by herself, and made sure they turned out to be decent people. She never downplayed what had happened to her, but she became overbearing or emotional about it. She took it like the boss she was and raised her kids the same way, whilst teaching them that it was okay to not be okay. She may have acted a bit aloof and stoic at times, but her love for her children was unmistakable. I loved how, when Da Jeong told her she was officially seeing Yeong Do, she even seemed reluctant to let her go. I feared she’d make a bigger deal about it, since that fortune teller had warned about what Yeong Do carried with him and all, but then she just asked him to live to the fullest and make her daughter happy. She was such a cool character and such a strong mom. I loved the almost telepathic connection she had with Da Jeong and how she kept calling her her “winning lottery ticket” because she grew up so well and beautiful. I actually cried when she showed up at Da Jeong’s house after the ‘break-up’, like she just knew her daughter needed her. The way Da Jeong burst into tears at the sight of her on her doorstep 😭😭😭. What I also found cool of her was that she never evaded the topic of her ex-husband. When she went to that temple and left that note for him to remind him of the promise that he’d never come after them, I was holding my heart because that was so brave of her, as well. Even after what he put her through, she never denied his existence and she never denied that she had once loved him. She was the strongest baddie ever. I really loved her character. I was so glad that Da Jeong had her to fall back on, and how she visited her so regularly in Gangneung to just spend time with her and help out at the pizza place. Mi Ran always remained a place Da Jeong, and her friends for that matter, could come home to.

While it’s never extensively discussed how Da Jeong grew up in Gangneung – I only gleaned it from the mention that she was ‘fed’ by the local market aunties – I think it’s safe to say that she was raised there and then moved to Seoul with the Park twins to live at their father’s building there. Speaking of the Park twins, let’s dive into them a bit.
The Park twins, Park Eun Ha (played by Kim Ye Won) and Park Cheol Do (played by Han Min) are fraternal twins and Da Jeong’s childhood friends. We don’t learn a lot about their past or extended family, but later on in the show their dad (Kim Dong Gyeon) visits and it turns out they also didn’t have the best relationship. What it comes down to is that their dad is very conservative and has always favored Cheol Do more than Eun Ha, while she’s the one who works twice as hard and doesn’t goof around as much as her brother. On the other hand, we also find out that Cheol Do frequently got hit by his dad when he was younger as well, so it’s clear that they had their own familial issues.
In any case, the Park twins run a café called ‘Selecto Coffee’ on the first floor of the 99 Building, while Da Jeong lives on the fourth/rooftop floor. They have one quirky part-timer called Moon Ah Ri (played by Yoon Sang Jeong), but otherwise they run the business together.
I liked Eun Ha and Cheol Do. They had a typical bickering sibling dynamic, in which Cheol Do was always made out to be the slacker and Eun Ha the rational one. While Eun Ha definitely got more screentime than Cheol Do – she even got a personal side arc when it was revealed she’d secretly been dating Da Jeong’s brother – I still feel like we could’ve gotten a bit more depth about both of them. Apart from being Da Jeong’s friends and consistently being on her side, they didn’t get as much coverage as individual characters as I would’ve liked to see.
I mean, look at Cheol Do: they established him as such an eccentric figure with his bushy hair and outrageous fashion style (honestly, everything he came on screen I was like: omg what’s he wearing NOW”😂), and then basically didn’t do anything with his character. There was ONE scene in which he asked Da Jeong to come down and listen to him rant about all his insecurities, but that was just meant as kind of a tedious delay when she really wanted to see Yeong Do, so I couldn’t even take it seriously. I really wish they would’ve given him a bit more to work with. Even when their father showed up and started arguing with Eun Ha, he didn’t even stand up for his sister and later just urged her to let it go because their dad was never going to change, anyway. He just became really subdued, which also didn’t seem to fit with his eccentric exterior. I don’t know, for a supporting character I wish he could’ve contributed a bit more, like if he had been given a more extravagant personality.
As I said, Eun Ha got a bit more in that sense. We learn that she had previously been in a ten-year relationship, which ended because she couldn’t handle his failed business attempts anymore and felt too anxious to shape a future with him. As a result, all his friends turned against her and painted her as the bitch who didn’t see his worth, completely pulling it out of proportion and context. At some point, Eun Ha goes on a blind date, which turns out to be one of these friends, who again completely bashes her. When her ex turns up to see how she’s doing after hearing what happened, looking all accomplished, Eun Ha turns to Da Jeong’s brother Tae Jeong for comfort, and this encounter leads to them secretly dating in the background. I did like that they at least showed how Da Jeong and Eun Ha grew up together by establishing Eun Ha’s relations with both her brother and her mother, as well. It was really endearing to see Eun Ha take a trip to Gangneung and lean her head on Mi Ran’s shoulder while the latter tried to convince her that she would find love again. I liked that we got to see at least that bit of proof that they really were childhood friends, and how comfortable Eun Ha was with Da Jeong’s family.
Speaking of Eun Ha as a person, I really appreciated her. She was such a loyal friend to Da Jeong, and I loved how she just straightout told her that Yeong Do was hospitalized when everyone else tried to keep it from her. She just went: “what the hell do y’all mean, she deserves to know” and just told her. I also really loved the scene where she called Da Jeong after that disastrous blind date and Da Jeong just abandoned her work to hear her out. Even though they weren’t constantly all emotional with each other, you could tell they’d been and helped each other through enough shit to trust each other completely, and that was really nice. I liked how real and rational Eun Ha was, and it was good to see that she also harbored inner insecurities, it just made her feel like a more fleshed out person.

While they definitely weren’t one-dimensional characters, there are still a few things that I would’ve liked to have established a bit more about the Park twins.
First of all, it was never 100% clear to me who owned the 99 Building, and where the twins actually lived. I distinctly remember Da Jeong once talking with Yeong Do about how he ‘owned her house’, which made me wonder if he’d bought the building when he started his new clinic there, but then the twins’ dad suddenly showed up being all: “This is my building”, and it made me even more confused. He also made it sound like Mi Ran had been his tenant before, so that wasn’t quite clear to me.
Apart from that, as I said, where did the twins live? They only had the café in the 99 Building, but they didn’t actually live there, right? They never talked about their houses, or whether they lived together or not. I can’t help but feel this was kind of neglective writing, especially when looking at how they suddenly started giving Eun Ha more things to do towards the end. Honestly, the reveal that she’d suddenly started dating Tae Jeong and had ‘always’ had a difficult relationship with her dad felt kind of rushed to me. Sure, they did show a flashback about how she went to Tae Jeong after that encounter with her ex, but even then they didn’t reveal a single thing about her involvement with him until the second-t0-last episode. Even when she ‘hinted at it’ by putting her finger down during the truth game when they all went camping didn’t really make sense, because there was nothing that included the viewers in her secret. Those were some things that I would’ve liked to have been established a bit better and earlier on in the series. At least let the viewers in on the secret dating so we can understand the inside references. Now it was just a very last minute: ‘oh, so that’s why she did that’, and it kind of took the wind out of the whole reveal.

Speaking of Tae Jeong (played by Kang Hoon), he didn’t get as much coverage as Da Jeong, but I still really liked his character. Looking at how young he was when his mom took him and his sister away, and the fact that Da Jeong had always tried to keep him away from it as much as possible, you might think that he wouldn’t have many active memories about his dad. As such, that one scene where they went to Gangneung together and sat in the car and shared that moment was SO powerful to me. The way Da Jeong started crying when Tae Jeong told her their dad had come to see them at school and he’d immediately ran to her because he’d been afraid he’d go after her, and she realized that her little brother did actually remember more than enough, was so heartwrenching. Because they were never even remotely emotional with each other, seeing them share in this experience in that moment was so touching. I loved that we at least got to see one moment where they talked about what they’d been through together.
Apart from that, Tae Jeong also wasn’t fleshed out as much as an adult, he just worked at a bar in Seoul, which is where Eun Ha came to see him after she met up with her ex. It was nice to see them interact, because it supported the fact that they’d also grown up together, but apart from that they kept their relationship very civil. As in, they only ‘talked’ about having been intimate, but we don’t actually even see them kiss, for example.

I feel like this is typical, by the way. How a series focusses everything on the main leads’ relationship and doesn’t shy back from their growing intimacy – that first kiss between Da Jeong and Yeong Do was absolute fire – but then somehow shrink back from it when it comes to the supporting characters, even though they’re also couples. It was kind of funny to me to see how awkward and shy Eun Ha and Tae Jeong acted about being spotted together in public, let alone whilst being intimate, while the kissing scenes between the main leads weren’t censored at all. I guess we all just have to channel our inner Ah Ri and fantasize about what they’d get up to, lol.

Speaking of Ah Ri, I already mentioned that she was the part-timer at Selecto Coffee, but I also want to give her a shoutout because she was such a fun character. She was the type who looked really cute and innocent and then opened her mouth to give the most undecorated harsh truths you ever heard, lol. It did feel like she lacked some sort of emotional capacity to feel things very deeply, and she kind of lived in her own little bubble. Still, it was sweet to see her warm up to Da Jeong by calling her ‘eonni’. I actually laughed out loud when she bought that drink for her and made everyone go: “omg that’s so unexpectedly thoughtful of you” and then deadpan going: “you broke up with Yeong Do, right? I have another guy I can introduce you to”, lol. She was so quirky. I also loved the way she just started imaging Da Jeong and Yeong Do getting freaky whilst ‘getting supplies from the store room’, even when they kept yelling at her to get her mind out of the gutter, haha. She cracked me up, honestly.

One more character that contributed to Da Jeong’s safety net was her bilingual hotel colleague Heo Yoo Kyung (played by Park Ye Ni). While Yoo Kyung never got involved in any of the trauma or murder investigation stuff, she was a very trustworthy constant. I liked how they set her apart by making use of her tendency to switch to English mid-sentence or say Korean words wrong. This allowed for some nice and light banter between them, and it was clear how much Da Jeong liked her. I also appreciated how much she worried for Da Jeong when she thought she was seeing Ian Chase, because she legit got the creeps from him. She was a nice additional support, and I’m glad Da Jeong had at least someone at work who stood by her whenever something happened at the hotel.

Let’s move on to Yeong Do and his circle. As mentioned, Yeong Do grew up in a neglectful household. I have to admit I don’t remember all the details exactly, but I seem to remember that he had the tendency to hurt himself, and that’s why his dad at some point temporarily left him at the same orphanage as where Ian was dumped, although he did come to pick him up after some time. Soaking in his mother’s grief, it’s no surprise that he grew up to be a painfully empathic person, and the fact that he used his own experiences as a motivator to become a psychiatrist and make sense of how other people’s pasts had influenced them just made sense, in every way. I’m not sure if it had anything to do with his brother’s illness, but Yeong Do is revealed to be a heart patient – he received a heart from a donor, which is why he didn’t drink, smoke or partake in exhaustive exercises such as running. He had taken a new chance at life, determined to live as long and fully as he could. As it happens, the heart in question came from the police officer that was killed in one of the investigated murders. His name was Lee Jeong Beom (Tak Woo Seok), and this is how Yeong Do got in contact with his police team, which I’ll talk about a bit more later. As a result, he started helping the police out when they needed a psychiatric evaluation, and became close acquaintances of him.
I thought it was really interesting to portray Yeong Do as both a doctor and a patient himself. He was saving people’s lives and minds, but at the same time he also had a doctor who told him to take it easy and not take on too much. Fair enough, because he was doing a lot of things, from running his own clinic to helping out the police, appearing on a radio show and even teaching some guest courses to psychiatry students.
Seriously, my heart ached for this guy. He was kind to a fault, and it seemed like he tended to even give up things of his own to make other people feel at ease. Although in hindsight I don’t think what he did for his ex-wife was wrong, it did show that he was willing to go that far to help someone, not even caring about what being a divorcee would do to his social reputation in the future. As such, it was so heartwarming to see him completely go for Da Jeong, not even hiding his interests. While he respectfully kept his distance at all times, he never failed to fluster her by telling everyone they met that she was the person he liked. Seeing him gush about his girlfriend to every single random person on the street cracked me up, especially the one at the gas station. “Do you have a membership card?” “No. But I DO have a girlfriend! 😃”, that was so cute.
The only minor qualm I had with him was when he ‘broke up’ with Da Jeong. Honestly, I’m not too mad about the situation because they resolved it in one single episode (thank god), but I did feel like he was being very cowardly there. He didn’t even say anything when Da Jeong clearly pretended to be mad at him. He was the one who was afraid of hurting her in the future if his health should deteriorate, yet he basically made her break up with him, and then still mentioned to everyone else how much he missed her and actually wanted to be with her forever. Same as in Love Me, Love My Voice, there was no one standing in the way of their relationship, they were free to bond and grow close from start to finish, so the fact that he caused this little bump was a bit frustrating, but also very understandable. It was kind of ironic even, because he’d been so inviting towards Da Jeong to open up to him and openly fussed about it when she didn’t keep him up to date about things that happened to her, like when she got hurt, but then he wouldn’t do the same for her. It seemed like he still had the tendency to retreat back into himself occasionally, maybe even fuelled by his occupational habit to observe objectively instead of plunging himself into his own feelings. There was one interesting parallel that stood out to me in this, when they’d just parted ways after ‘breaking up’ and they were both crying. In this moment, both Da Jeong’s and Yeong Do’s parents reached out to them. Mi Ran appeared at Da Jeong’s house to comfort her, and Yeong Do’s father called him. However, while Da Jeong immediately fell into her mother’s arms crying, accepting her comfort, Yeong Do chose not to answer his dad’s call – he didn’t even seem to notice his phone was ringing. I just found that such an interesting parallel, because it showed that Da Jeong was able to accept help at this point, while Yeong Do still chose to remain alone and in the dark. I thought that was a really clever distinction to make, all the more because it ended up being a temporary setback in which Yeong Do just needed a nudge over the edge to allow Da Jeong to heal him in return. Anyways, I’m just happy that it didn’t take long to resolve and Da Jeong just went to him like: “Listen, I don’t have any regrets, so you shouldn’t either, let’s just do this” and then he continued to be all rainbows and unicorns, lol.

Solely speaking from a character perspective, I adored both Da Jeong and Yeong Do. They were both such innately good-natured people, and they both turned the misery of their childhood into a kindness that just didn’t allow the darkness to consume them completely. I loved them. I lived for their scenes together. It was so touching to see how they kept making time to see each other, even if it was for just five minutes, because that would be their ‘five-minute eternity’. That philosophy was so nice as well: instead of promising to stay together forever and ultimately becoming pressured by promises they might not be able to keep, they just lived in the moment, one ‘forever’ at a time, whether it lasted two hours or two minutes. They allowed each other to be silly and childish again, even as adults. Honestly, the scene where they were just walking together and they each started interacting with the other’s child version made me cry so bad – they were literally healing each other’s inner child. 😭😭😭 As I said, I couldn’t even get mad about their temporary ‘break-up’ because it was just a temporary setback in which Yeong Do had to allow Da Jeong to heal him, after he’d healed her. The way they showed him as an adult hugging his mom at his brother’s funeral, with her apologizing to him… These scenes made me tear up so much because of their wholesomeness and the healthy closure. I loved how they framed these inner healings, all the more because they happened so naturally and without pressure. Da Jeong wasn’t even Yeong Do’s patient, he just asked her to open up to him at her own pace because he personally cared about her and wanted to help her be the vibrant person he’d already seen she was.

Besides his relationship with Da Jeong, Yeong Do also had a good safety net of his own, with both friends and acquaintances. Just as how I wrote that the Park twins didn’t feel as fleshed out in terms of backgrounds, I also didn’t fully get how or where Yeong Do met his friends, but they’re relevant recurring supporting characters, nonetheless.
Seo Ha Neul (played by Ji Seung Hyun) is a veterinarian who at some point moves his clinic into the second floor of the 99 Building, making him one of the residents. Despite his appearance, he is a very emotional man who isn’t afraid to cry, and he gets very attached to his animal patients. Seeing as he also has a doctor-like occupation, I wondered if he and Yeong Do maybe knew each other from their studies and they each chose a different path within the medicinal field. It definitely felt to me as if Yeong Do and Ha Neul were pretty close friends. Ha Neul may have been a little overbearing sometimes, but he clearly cared a lot about Yeong Do and had also been at his side when he was waiting for a heart donor.
Another recurring friend, although Yeong Do kept denying to be that close with him, is Cheon Seung Won (played by Kim Seo Kyung). Seung Won works at a TV station and is typically always bugging his friends to feature in new shows he’s trying to pitch. He’s definitely the kind of friend that everyone highkey finds annoying, but they still tolerate him because they know he means well and is innately a good person. Honestly, while I could appreciate Seung Won for who he was, there were a few times when I really wished he’d be more considerate. He’d just barge into Yeong Do’s house, even when he was having quality time with Da Jeong. Even after seeing a woman’s shoes at the entrance, he would keep knocking and asking if Yeong Do was home. It seemed like he had no social awareness, which occasionally got a bit tiring. Ha Neul, on the other hand, was a bit too socially aware, even though he often joined Seung Won in being nosy and barging into Yeong Do’s house. I’d like to think they instinctively knew he could use the company and that’s why they refused to leave, but sometimes it did come across as a little intrusive.

All in all, I think Yeong Do surrounded himself with really good people, both socially and professionally. His assistant at the clinic, Oh Mi Kyung (played by Baek Hyun Joo) was later revealed to be a former patient of him. I liked seeing the flashback of how Yeong Do saved her by reaching out to her when she couldn’t face him at an appointment. While he could’ve let it go when she walked out because he was just a substituting resident, due to his past experience he still reached out to check in how she was doing, and that ended up saving her life. The transformation this woman went through, from grief-stricken widow who couldn’t stop hearing the phone ring after missing her husband’s last call to her, to the eccentric and bubbly assistant she became was really striking. From how she was introduced, I expected her to just be a funny side character, so I loved getting a bit of insight into her past, especially since it also contributed to Yeong Do’s character and background.

As I mentioned, Yeong Do had come in contact with the police team that Lee Jeong Beom belonged to before he was killed and his heart was donated to Yeong Do. These officers played a big part in Ian Chase’s storyline, as they were actively investigating the murders he was somehow linked to. The team was led by Detective Go Jin Bok (played by Lee Hae Yeong), and further consisted of officers Choi Seung Joon (Kim Ri Woo) and rookie Park Ho (Yoon Ji On).
I liked getting a bit more personal insight into Detective Go’s character, like how broken he was by losing Jeong Beom and how he warmed up to Yeong Do. I thought it was so interesting to link characters together through a heart transplant, and how that instigated such an unexpected bond between them. I also really liked the other officers, especially Park Ho. My gosh, what a cutie. By the way, I immediately called that he would get in trouble as soon as Detective Go ordered him to track Ian Chase on his own. Nothing good has ever come from sending a rookie to trail someone without any backup. I still get flashbacks to Dying Eye, when that officer’s assistant was sent out to keep an eye on that murderer by himself and ended up getting killed (surprise, surprise). It also made me think of how the officers in Abyss kept recklessly going after that serial killer unarmed without backup, whilst knowing fully well what this guy was capable of – make it make sense. In any case, of course he got stabbed 😭. I was immensely relieved that they could save him, but seriously, don’t send your rookies out to trail suspicious people without any weapon or back-up! Come on!
Anyways, the police people were all really nice characters, and I loved seeing their comradery towards finding Jeong Beom’s killer grow. Even though they weren’t as fleshed out, same as the other supporting characters I mentioned, they were still nice additions to Yeong Do’s circle.

When talking about someone who ended up linking Yeong Do’s and Da Jeong’s circles, we can’t skip out on Ahn Ga Yeong.
Ga Yeong (played by Nam Gyu Ri) is a famous actress who also happens to be Yeong Do’s ex-wife – the suicidal woman I mentioned before. She’s not much of a love rival, though; as it’s later revealed that there were no romantic feelings between them at all, and their marriage really was just a cover up to explain to the public why they were spending so much time together. In reality, Yeong Do was only treating her for depression, and they divorced as soon as she got better. As it happens, at present she’s actually secretly dating a ten-year younger idol stagenamed Patrick (Park Sang Nam) whilst dealing with the anxieties of a scandal breaking out about them.
If I had to describe Ga Yeong, I would say she was a mixture of Veronica Park and Cheon Song Yi, lol. I was very surprised to see how much her personality contrasted from her appearance. She looked all young and cutesy, but when she opened her mouth it was like hearing an old diva talk, lol. I honestly expected her to be much more arrogant, but I liked how quickly she came around once being exposed to Da Jeong’s hospitality. One short stay at her house and she basically became Da Jeong’s ‘bestie’ who fully supported her relationship with Yeong Do. She even became friends with Eun Ha as well, dotingly nicknaming her ‘Galaxy Park’, (apparently ‘eunha’ means ‘galaxy’ in Korean). It was fun to see them go out camping together and have a mature talk about Da Jeong’s break-up and everything. Even though they didn’t know Ga Yeong as well yet, they just knew they were among good people and that said a lot.
Besides showing her eccentric side, it was also good to see Ga Yeong at her lowest, because that added so much to her personality. It was touching to see how surprised she was whenever someone suddenly pierced through and genuinely asked her if she was happy and not hurting anymore. I liked getting to see glimpses of the real her behind her dolled up exterior, and it was fun to see how she even opened up to Mi Ran in the end. I loved how she reacted to the news that Mi Ran was Da Jeong’s mother, how she went: “You’re her mom?! Not her sister?! Did you have her when you were seven?!”😂😂
In hindsight, it felt like she was the embodiment of how lonely fame could be, and she needed sincere company more than anything. I’m glad that she, in contrast to Seung Won, at least knew when not to impose on Da Jeong and Yeong Do, or at least was fully aware of the fact that they wanted to spend time together and kind of poked fun of them for that. I appreciated her as a character, and I thought her romance story with Patrick was also really cute.
Same as with Eun Ha, I did feel like they ended up neglecting her ending with Patrick a bit in the end. Like, they showed them when they were secretly spending time together, and the hug they shared when she was finally able to face him after he told her he loved her was incredibly sweet, but they never showed them kiss, for example. I do feel like her character served her purpose, but her ending could’ve been wrapped up a bit more conclusively, in my opinion.

Speaking of the friend group as a whole, it definitely didn’t feel as tight as the one in for example Love Me, Love My Voice. It really just consisted of people from different circles, and there was a very clear gap between the girls (Eun Ha and Ga Yeong) and the boys (Cheol Do, Ha Neul and Seung Won). When they went camping together for example, it really felt like Ha Neul and Seung Won imposed on the girls’ trip, which is why it didn’t feel as ‘fun’. Of course they did end up getting along in the end, but I feel like they could’ve built up the group a bit more wholesomely.

One more character I felt was done a little dirty was Han Jin Ho (played by Hwang Seung Eon). She was Ga Yeong’s friend who owned a fitness gym where they often sparred together. Jin Ho got a little bit of coverage when Seung Won asked her to be on a dating show he was pitching (no idea how he knew her) and it came out that she’d had a crush on Ha Neul after seeing him stand up to some guys at Yeong Do’s and Ga Yeong’s wedding. However, this ship never sailed, because Ha Neul developed a crush on Eun Ha and ended up rejecting Jin Ho on the beforementioned dating show. After that, Jin Ho basically just disappeared from view.
I really wonder what the intended purpose of her character was. To be honest, I thought she was an interesting person, and I fully expected her to get some development in which she’d soften up, but they pretty much left her undissected. I don’t even know what she knew Ga Yeong from, or how she became so boyish and defensive towards people calling her ‘pretty’. If anything, I would’ve liked Yeong Do to analyze her personality at some point, lol. Anyways, they kind of left her in the dust and that was a pity.

Now that I’ve covered all the main and recurring characters from the first storyline, it’s time to dive into Ian Chase/Choi Jeong Min. As I mentioned before, although the suspenseful aspect kept me curious throughout, I have several remaining qualms with it because they left a lot to be explained, including some characters that seemed very interesting but then were pretty much left unexplored, which was a bummer.

Ian Chase is revealed to be an identical twin with the man who ‘stalked’ Da Jeong in the beginning. As children (played by Lee Joo Won) they grew up in an abusive and neglectful household with a father who was constantly drunk and a mother who couldn’t even be bothered to separate them by name. One night, she even drugged one of them and sent him to an orphanage with the intent of shipping him off for adoption abroad. Imagine being around ten years old and waking up in a completely unfamiliar environment, surrounded by people telling you that your mom sold you off and you didn’t even have a name anymore. Apart from that, the people running this orphanage didn’t treat the abandoned kids in their care well at all – they ran a very unsanitary business and habitually hit the children for even speaking up. Going through this, it’s no wonder that that messed the little boy up real bad, all the more when his twin ended up getting sent their as well, because their mom apparently decided she couldn’t take care of either of them. Unfortunately, the brothers’ happy reunion didn’t last long, and the older one was sent off to the States.

At this point, my thoughts were already all over the place, first and foremost because I simply could not tell the twins apart. It didn’t exactly help making them identical and giving them the same name – honestly, who came up with that idea?! – but other than that, there wasn’t a single indicative clue to show who was who. They could’ve at least given a tiny distinction, such as that one of them had a mole somewhere, or that they wore their hair a little bit differently. I will continue to distinguish between them by calling them ‘Ian’ and ‘Jeong Min’ in this review, but I just wanted to clarify that it personally took me a very long time to get a clear picture of who was who and who did what. Literally the only thing that set them apart was the revelation that it was Jeong Min who had patted Da Jeong on the head, and it was Ian who told her off for being a fool. That was the only clear distinction, which they made clear through repeated gestures from Jeong Min and Ian as adults. Seriously, every single time I thought I finally got it, one of them would say something that set me back to square one because I thought they were the other one. They could’ve made that way, way clearer. You gotta help us viewers out here, writers.

Moving on, Ian came back to Korea when he was eighteen (now played by Choi Min Yeong) to find his brother at their parents’ house, all bruised and beaten. From what I understand, Ian went in to find his mother unconscious and accidentally caused his dad to have a nasty fall on the head, after which he pretended to be Jeong Min when giving a statement to the police. He then took Jeong Min under his wing, convincing him that he was nothing without him and that he should live as his shadow. In the meantime, he planned to take revenge on the people that tormented him as a kid, and somehow tracked down a man called Hwang Jae Shik (played by Park Ki Deok), who ended up killing some people for him, including a woman from the orphanage.

Which brings me to ambiguity number two: how did this come to be? It seemed like Hwang Jae Shik had written a book about murder, and Ian sought him out because he seemed to have a certain understanding about how murderers thought and worked, or something. But why? Was it really just a revenge plan and did he search for someone who could crawl into the mindspace of a killer to do it for him? Also, apart from the woman from the orphanage – whom Ian understandably had a personal issue with – Hwang Jae Shik killed Lee Jeong Beom for delving into the murder case, and also another (relatively young) guy whose identity still eludes me. As in, he was identified by name, but I still don’t know how he was involved. Ian mentioned something about ‘luring someone there’, but what was the purpose for this kill? Maybe it just went over my head, but I really couldn’t find a pattern in the killings’ victims, and why Hwang Jae Shik went along with it. It would’ve made more sense if Ian had gone after the people from the orphanage, but why involve this guy and kill a bunch of relatively unrelated people?
Besides that, I also still have no idea what role Ma Jeong Ah (Seo Jae Hee) played in all this. She asked Ian to sabotage the surgery of her father, the chairman of some hospital, probably so she could take over from him, but who was she, and what did she have on Ian? At some point it seemed like she was also in on his involvement with Hwang Jae Shik, but this was also never explained. That whole plot eluded me completely, not gonna lie. The fact that they established this whole murder investigation with Detective Go’s team and then didn’t even explain what had happened and what Ian’s motive had been, was kind of disappointing.
In the end, everything was just wrapped up super smoothly when Ian told them where to find Hwang Jae Shik, but I don’t like that it was ‘concluded’ whilst I still didn’t fully grasp what had even happened. The only thing I understood was that Hwang Jae Shik developed a grudge on Ian (for making him do this?) and accidentally going after Jeong Min instead because he didn’t know they were twins. He started tailing Jeong Min and found out about his attachment to Da Jeong. He assaulted him at his house and threatened to kill Da Jeong. When Ian dismissed his brother’s cry for help after this, Jeong Min felt so trapped that he ended up unaliving himself, just to get away from everything. This development in turn messed up Ian, who was filled with guilt for his brother’s death and started becoming more and more mentally unstable, to the point of hallucinating and losing control over his sense. Ultimately, his storyline basically ends with him admitting the truth to the police and facing up to his own mental issues.

All in all there were many aspects to Ian’s story that remained very vague, fragmented and all over the place to me. Even with the flashbacks they showed and Ian’s complementary narration, it still didn’t fill all the gaps. It would’ve been nice to at least get a satisfying explanation for why he approached Hwang Jae Shik and how exactly he was involved in the killings, and how Ma Jeong Ah tied into it. Those are my biggest remaining questions. I wouldn’t say these plotholes ruined the show for me, but I definitely would’ve liked a more conclusive ending for that storyline. I can’t help but feel like they threw away some promising aspects that could’ve been very interesting had they been established more clearly.

As I already mentioned though, I still had a really good time watching this series, and the wholesomeness of Da Jeong’s and Yeong Do’s relationship more than made up for what it lacked. I just loved how the theme of healing applied not only to the main characters, but also to several supporting ones. We also see Ga Yeong and Eun Ha heal and we even see Park Ho get over his trauma from being stabbed – seriously, when he picked up that knife in the final episode and went: “I’m… okay”, I actually applauded for him, my poor baby 😭.
My absolute favorite sequence from the final episode was the ‘chain of kindness’ that happened while Yeong Do delivered his farewell speech on the radio show. It starts with Da Jeong giving a honey drink and a lollipop to a sleepy part-timer at the convenience store, relating to her night shift life. This part-timer then gives the honey drink to a drunk customer, along with his change that he left behind. This drunk customer then gives the change to a woman helping him pick up some stuff he dropped on the ground. At the same time, a car pulls up behind them with a couple inside, and the woman tells the man not to be too harsh on the drunk guy blocking his way. In the next scene we see the same drunk customer proceeding to climb up the ledge of a bridge, clearly preparing to jump off. He is observed by a young couple in a parked car nearby. Inspired by Yeong Do’s advice on the radio, the woman calls out to the drunk guy, making him climb back down. That whole sequence was basically the main message of this series: kindness is free. Whether it concerns a friend or a stranger, it doesn’t cost anything to be considerate and attentive and keep an eye out for each other. Some illnesses aren’t visible on the outside, but you can always be kind in case someone’s going through something. Even watching or calling out can save someone’s life. I thought that was a beautiful way to end the series.

Before I move on to my cast comments, I’d like to point out some elements that I generally appreciated about this series.
To start, I’ve mentioned in many a review that I am a stickler for consistency and reusing elements to serve a deeper purpose throughout the show. This series did an amazing job at that. Just within the leads’ relationship alone, there were so many recurring elements that served as tools to bring them together. The inside jokes, the water leak, the lollipops, the Dr. Hollow figure, etc. I loved how they incorporated shared experiences such as ‘doing crazy things in the spring snow’ and kept referring back to that. Heck, I even liked the consistency of the cringy couple that kept coming to the café and even appeared on the birthday video message to Yeong Do, lol.
One of these things that stood out to me the most from the start which I found incredibly clever, was the use of Yeong Do’s catchphrase “Oh, dear”. While it started out as a quirky catchphrase that added to his timid personality, the fact that Da Jeong picked it up from him and started using it as well was 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻. It was such a simple yet powerful way to show how close they were getting, and it even almost became a whole love language in itself. I love to see these kinds of details because they add so much texture to the relationship and makes it more personal because it’s something that exists only between the two of them. Gosh, I loved them so much.
The same went for Da Jeong’s habits to make up her own stories while pretending to read a book. This started all the way back when she was seven, making up stories to keep Tae Jeong entertained, and it ended up coming back when she had to lure out that little kid at the hotel, and when Yeong Do took a nap on her lap in the final episode. The fact that the lollipop and Da Jeong’s other habit of clearing away trash from flowers led to the realization they’d been each other’s first loves was also really clever. I loved that moment, where they didn’t even say it but just looked at each other in realization, absolute peak. The way they kept reusing specific characteristics and habits for plot purposes like that was amazing.

Another thing I thought was interesting, was that Yeong Do’s patients at the clinic were never shown in full. We only saw them from behind, or in close-ups of their hands or eyes. I couldn’t help but wonder if that had to do with the notion of patient anonymity. If so, I think that’s a very neat detail, and I appreciate them for even considering this aspect.

I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t make at least one comment about the cinematography. As a Netflix K-Drama, I wasn’t surprised to see the quality, but what I also liked was how they distinguished between the past and the present. I don’t know the official cinematographic terms for this, but I couldn’t help notice how narrow the screen became during the flashbacks, while all the present scenes were full-screen. It really helped differentiating between what was a flashback and what wasn’t.

In all honesty, it took me two days to finalize this review because it started out very all over the place. It didn’t help that I was kind of scatterbrained during the first day of writing, as I kept being interrupted by e-mails and other things (also, did I mention I’m going on holiday in a few days?). I’m glad I still had one more day to polish it and add some more things that came to mind. It’s not always an easy thing to write a satisfactory review, but I really wanted to establish my thoughts on all the aspects of this show as well as possible.

Let’s move on to the cast comments! In this regard, this series was a real surprise to me as well. I got to see actors that I hadn’t seen in a very long time, but also a lot of actors that I had never seen before, which is quite rare for a K-Drama.

Starting with the queen herself, Seo Hyun Jin. As soon as I saw she was in this, I knew I was in for a good time. She’s such a good actress. I’ve seen a couple of her dramas before, like Another Oh Hae Young, Dr. Romantic S1, Temperature of Love and The Beauty Inside. Thanks to You Are My Spring, I got to see a whole new quirky and wholesome side to her that I hadn’t seen before, and her emotional scenes genuinely made me tear up with her.  She just always delivers. I loved her chemistry with all of her co-stars. Honestly, she’s such an intelligent and versatile actress, and it was a pleasure to watch her shine in this, as well.

It took checking MDL for me to realize that Kim Dong Wook was one of the café employees from Coffee Prince, but I’ve never seen him in anything else! What a joy it was to see him in this. He kind of reminded me of Jung Kyung Ho in Crash Course in Romance; it doesn’t happen often that I get so enamored with the male lead character. Yeong Do was such a precious cinnamon roll. I loved the way he gradually allowed himself to be more silly and quirky around Da Jeong, doing his silly dance and dressing up as a ghost. Kim Dong Wook’s performance warmed my heart from start to finish. I’m glad I got to see him in this, and I’m looking forward to the handful of his shows that are still on my watchlist.

Yoon Park came as a surprise to me in this series. I’ve seen him before in Uncontrollably Fond, Age of Youth, Shy Boss, The Package, Radio Romance, Room No. 9, Itaewon Class, and most recently in Forecasting Love and Weather, but here he delivered a completely different performance, and I mean that in the best way possible. Not gonna lie, this show has definitely confirmed for me that I prefer to see him as a good guy – he plays the sociopath role just a little too well, lol! No but seriously, it was really cool to see him in the double role of Ian Chase/Choi Jeong Min, and he did an impressive job at tackling this more emotionally heavy role. I really like him as an actor and I definitely think his performance in this show outshone most of what I’ve seen of him so far, so kudos to him! I just wished his storyline(s) had been a little less fragmented and ambiguous, because that would’ve probably helped me to gauge his character(s) a bit better. Then again, that’s a writing issue, and nothing to do with his acting, which was great.

My mouth literally fell open when I realized Nam Gyu Ri played the female lead in 49 Days! It’s been ages since I saw that show, but I still remember her from that. I kept thinking what I knew her from, but my mind never went back that far (that show is from 2011 🙉). I think she was such an interesting casting choice for Ga Yeong. I really loved the energy and commitment she put into her performance. It must have been a blast for her to play this quirky role, especially with all the TV drama scenes in-between (loved the title’s reference to The King: Eternal Monarch, by the way! I hope The Princess: Eternal Princess gets its renewal, lol). I kind of wished we could’ve gotten more scenes between her and Patrick, to flesh out their relationship a bit more, but as I said, I think her character served her purpose just fine. The switch between her actress persona and Ga Yeong as a former mental patient was really cool to see as well. I liked what she did with the role and it was cool to see her again!

I can’t even tell you how long it’s been since I saw Kim Ye Won in something! She just drives me back to the classic K-Drama in which she was the bitchy roommate or mistress or something. I vaguely remember her as a stewardess in something, as well. Anyways, I’ve seen her in Secret Garden, Flower Boy Ramen Shop, Jealousy Incarnate, Tomorrow With You, Suspicious Partner and Revolutionary Love. These are all shows that I watched before I started writing reviews, in other words: I haven’t seen Kim Ye Won in anything since before 2018. That’s crazy. I was pleasantly surprised seeing her in this show, also because it was nice to see her be less of a bitchy character and getting a more emotional layer. It was really cool getting to see a new side to her acting I hadn’t seen before. I hope it won’t take as long to see her in something else!

I hadn’t seen Han Min in anything before, so it was nice getting to know him through this. As I mentioned, I found it a pity that they didn’t really do much with his character, especially when they introduced him as such a unique character with such a flamboyant fashion style. I feel like he could’ve been given more to work with, and that his personality kind of faded to the background once other side characters got their own little side arcs. Still, there was nothing wrong with his acting, and I hope I’ll get to see him in more shows so I can see how versatile and talented he really is.

Kang Hoon looks really familiar to me, but I can’t pinpoint exactly which roles I remember him from. I guess I must recognize him from his role in Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung, but the exact memory eludes me. Anyways, it was nice seeing him as Tae Jeong in this show. Even though he didn’t have as much screentime or action as the leads, he still contributed to the story and Da Jeong’s character a lot. As mentioned, I really loved the scene where they were sitting in the car together and shared an emotional moment together. I wish we could’ve seen more of those kinds of scenes from him. He never actually talked much about how it had been for him as a kid, and it would’ve been interesting to get more insight from him. Also, it would’ve been nice to get some more conclusive evidence of his relationship with Eun Ha, but that’s just my personal opinion. Other than that, I thought he did a great job and I know I’ll get to see him again, so I’m looking forward to that.

Oh Hyun Kyung really stole my heart in this show. I’ve only seen her before in Radio Romance, which I don’t really remember her from. Am I the only one who thought she looked super young, by the way? I just confirmed that she and Seo Hyun Jin are fifteen years apart, and I really couldn’t tell. I think she did a great job at portraying the different layers to Mi Ran. She was tough on the outside, but she never lost that grief of going through an abusive marriage, and I loved the way she warmed up to Yeong Do, as well. She portrayed such a strong woman and mother, even to Da Jeong’s friends. It was really cool getting to know her as an actress through this, I will definitely keep my eye out for more of her dramas!

Lee Hae Yeong is one of those ahjussi actors that I assumed I’d seen pop up here and there. He’s appeared in Duel, I’m Not a Robot and The King: Eternal Monarch, and I still have some more of his shows on my watchlist. I think he got a really cool role to play in this show. I’ve already voiced my qualms about how some storylines weren’t concluded as satisfyingly, but I thought Detective Go was a really good guy and Lee Hae Yeong portrayed him with heart and dignity. The way he portrayed his grief over Lee Jeong Beom was genuinely touching, and I loved how taken he was with Yeong Do, also because he now carried Jeong Beom’s heart. I really liked his performance.

As I only knew Park Ye Ni from her appearances in Missing: The Other Side and Once Upon a Small Town, it was an absolute delight to see her as Yoo Kyung in this show. I loved how she got to showcase her English skills (she went to two colleges in the States, including Harvard!) and a more funny side to her acting, without taking it too far. The way she said “What?!” kept cracking me up, lol. I loved her contribution to this series, as minor as it was. I always love getting to know actors better and seeing sides of them I never saw before, and she definitely stood out in this one, also in terms of presence and energy.

I’ve seen Ji Seung Hyun before in Descendants of the Sun and Search: WWW, from which I remember him most clearly. It was really funny seeing him as such an emotional guy in this, I still think it stands in contrast with his appearance, lol. I really wished they’d initiated a love story between him and Jin Ho, or even Eun Ha before it was revealed that she was dating Tae Jeong. There seemed to be room for some more character development, but unfortunately it didn’t lead anywhere. That isn’t to say that he didn’t perform well, I just think he could’ve been given a bit more to work with, same as a lot of the other supporting characters. Still, I loved the fact that he was a vet (his clinic looked absolutely adorable!) and that he was such a good friend to Yeong Do. It was cool seeing Ji Seung Hyun in this kind of role!

Kim Seo Kyung looked really familiar to me, but the only dramas that I’ve watched with him are Ruler: Master of the Mask and, most recently, Gyeongseong Creature, which he had a singular appearance in. As I mentioned in my review, I think Seung Won was an acquired taste, lol. He definitely wasn’t my favorite character, and I would’ve probably gotten a lot more annoyed with him, but at least he wasn’t a bad person, and everyone pretty much forgave him for being, well, him, lol. I think Kim Seo Kyung did a great job at portraying this goof, to the point of setting my teeth on edge, haha. I see on MDL that I’ll be seeing him again in some other dramas in the future, so I’ll be looking forward to that.

Gosh, how I wished they would’ve given Hwang Seung Eon more to work with in this show. I’ve seen her before in Madame Antoine, Jugglers, I’m Not a Robot and Touch Your Heart, but this was the first time I’ve seen her in such a boyish role and I’d really hoped she’d get some more coverage. Honestly, I feel like Han Jin Ho was a missed opportunity. Hwang Seung Eon poured so much into the role and made Jin Ho such an interesting person, and then she just kind of disappeared after being rejected, which also didn’t really suit her feisty personality. Still, it was nice to see her in this, and I hope to see more of her soon.

Last but not least, I want to give a massive shoutout to the phenomenal child actors in this series. Again, I was blown away by the amount of talent, even more when you look at the intensity of the scenes they had to play out. Ok Ye Rin, Seo Woo Jin, Jung Ji Hoon, Lee Joo Won… They all did so incredibly well. I was particularly impressed by Lee Joo Won, who played the Choi Jeong Mins. The look in his eyes when he was in that orphanage just cut right through my soul. I’m always baffled to see such young kids portray such heavy scenes, you wonder how they muster up the maturity to portray these emotions!

That’ll do it for this review. I’ll definitely remember it for how well it portrayed the theme of healing, heck, it healed ME while I was watching it. I’m so glad I’m getting to see more healthy, wholesome and unproblematic relationships in dramas as well. It just proves that you don’t need drama or love rivals to create a powerful love story. I’m happy I got to watch this when I did, and I can now go on holiday with a full heart. The acting and the cinematography were great, as well. My only qualm really lies in the fact that it felt like they tried to do a bit too much, and ended up having to abandon a lot of story and character developments at the end. It’s like they introduced a promising element and then ultimately dismissed it because they didn’t have time to elaborate on it anymore, so that was a pity. The main leads’ relationship is what saved this show for me, I really loved it.

My next watch will have to wait until I’m back from holiday, but I’m glad I at least got to finish this in the nick of time. I’m very curious to see what I’ll be watching next – please let it be another wholesome gem!

Thank you for reading until the end if you did, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.
For now, I’ll just leave this accurate depiction of how I felt while watching this drama.

Bye-bee! x