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.
Bubblegum
(풍선껌 / Pungseonggeom)
MyDramaList rating: 6.5/10
Hello everyone! It’s time for a new review and this time I’m sharing my thoughts on an older drama (2015) that has been on my list for a very long time. I don’t even remember what I was watching when I first clocked it, just that it was a long time ago, lol. I vaguely recall a friend telling me that it was a very emotional drama, so I mentally prepared myself and went into it without any knowledge except that it had a childhood friends to lovers trope. In the end, I’m sad to say it didn’t grab me as much as I would’ve liked and it very typically overdramatized some things that I didn’t really see the point of. Nonetheless, I appreciate the wholesomeness that it tried to convey and there were also a lot of nice and warm moments in it, so I’m excited to share my views on it. Let’s go!
Bubblegum is a tvN K-Drama that consists of sixteen episodes of around an hour each, the classic K-Drama format and duration. I watched it in full on KissKH. The story is about two childhood friends, Park Ri Hwan (played by Lee Dong Wook) and Kim Haeng Ah (played by Jung Ryeo Won), and follows them as they embark on a romantic relationship.
Ri Hwan lost his father around the time he was born. He was raised by his single mother Park Sun Yeong (played by Bae Jong Ok), a successful doctor specializing in neurology. The medical gene must have run in the family, because Ri Hwan works in the same field: he runs an Eastern medicine clinic with his best friend/hyung Kwon Ji Hoon (played by Lee Seung Joon).
Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah basically grew up together as brother and sister: his mother and her father found solace in each other after both losing their spouse and created a kind of blended family together. They even planned to get married, but before this could happen, tragedy struck again and took Haeng Ah’s father Kim Joon Hyuk (Park Chul Min), leaving Sun Yeong heartbroken for the second time in her life. His death also resulted in a very tense relationship between Sun Yeong and Haeng Ah.
Haeng Ah, having lost her mother as a child and her dad as a teenager, has since always felt like a burden to Ri Hwan’s family. She’s gone back and forth between staying with them and other remaining family members, and the only thing that could really comfort her during this time was listening to the radio. This led her to pursue a career in the radio industry herself and she’s currently working as a producer for a late night radio show hosted by celebrity DJ Oh Se Yeong (Kim Jeong Nan).
The story starts with Haeng Ah going through a rough breakup with her sunbae, famous radio host Kang Seok Joon (played by Lee Jong Hyuk), and Ri Hwan being set up on a blind date with Hong Yi Seul (played by Park Hee Bon), the youngest daughter of a large conglomerate called Taeyang Group, who works as a dentist.
Despite everything, the childhood friends’ shared past inevitably pushes them together and they cautiously start dating. However, just as they begin navigating this new level of their already long-standing friendship, Ri Hwan’s mother is unexpectedly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and the two find themselves at a crossroads in considering the pros and cons of their newly established relationship.
Before I start, I just want to remark that I had some trouble getting through this show. While I appreciate what the writers were going for and the last couple of episodes were incredibly wholesome, the majority of it felt like a very typical martyr-drama to me, which is to say that the main leads spend a lot of time blaming themselves and putting themselves through misery when they literally don’t have to. I’m not a big fan of shows that create drama for the sake of drama, especially when in the end it doesn’t even contribute that much to the plot. I think this series left a lot to be desired in terms of structure and pacing, and I’m sad to say this also resulted in me not feeling much for any of the depicted couples. All in all, I spent the majority of this show frowning and not being able to relate to the frequent dramatic outbursts of emotion, which was a shame.
I just wanted to give a heads-up that this will be a predominantly critical review, although of course I’ll point out the things I liked about it as well. Seeing the majority of the comments, I feel like I might be expressing an unpopular opinion here, but hey, if that’s not the point of reviews, what is?
One of the main issues I encountered while writing this review was that I somehow wasn’t able to write separate character analyses for Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah – they always ended up merging together. In addition to my previous critical remark, I honestly didn’t really feel like there was much to say about them individually, since they were written to be such an intrinsically linked pair. Part of me finds this a pity, because I always like it when main characters are their own person first before they get into a relationship, but it seemed like, despite their respective work environments, these two were destined to be two peas in a pod from the start. As such, I’d like to give a combined analysis of the main characters and their relationship, but I can’t do that without first addressing their shared history, which is provided in the lengthy chronological flashback that is episode eleven.
Ri Hwan’s mother and Haeng Ah’s father knew each other from way back, when Joon Hyuk was Sun Yeong’s sunbae in either high school or college (I’m guessing high school since we know Sun Yeong went to med school and Joon Hyuk didn’t). Sun Yeong is even revealed to be the one who introduced Joon Hyuk to his wife, Haeng Ah’s mother.
We never actually see Ri Hwan’s dad, we only learn that he died around the time of Ri Hwan’s birth, and since this was such a hard blow for Sun Yeong, she was offered to stay with Joon Hyuk’s family. A couple of years later, Joon Hyuk’s wife sadly passed away due to a heart disease and the two remaining single parents found solace in each other – solace that would eventually lead to the realization of what I assumed to be long-slumbering feelings.
While Sun Yeong and Joon Hyuk managed this new blended family (without yet being married, to be clear), Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah grew up pretty much as brother and sister, in the same environment. They went on adventures together as kids and deepened their bond as teenagers, especially after Joon Hyuk passed away.
It was nice to see the bond between Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah develop throughout their childhood. We see them play and bicker as kids – wonderfully portrayed by Hong Eun Taek (Ri Hwan) and Han Seo Jin (Haeng Ah) – and grow even closer as teenagers – amazingly portrayed by Yoon Chan Yeong (Ri Hwan) and Kang Eun Ah (Haeng Ah). I loved how natural their friendship was in high school. They didn’t even seem to have romantic feelings for each other at that point yet, but they were always teasing each other with and getting in the way of each other’s crushes. On the other hand, whenever something serious would happen, they were immediately at each other’s side, worrying about the other’s wellbeing and giving each other comfort. They grew up being constantly aware of each other and considering each other’s situation, and this brought them close from a very early age on.
As adults, Haeng Ah seemed to have the tendency to neglect her own health when feeling down, which always caused Ri Hwan to worry about her. This is also the case when we are first introduced to the pair: Ri Hwan is constantly making sure Haeng Ah is fine, that she’s eating and taking care of herself properly, while Haeng Ah prefers to mind her own business and urges him to do the same.
To be completely honest, I was a bit confused about their dynamic at first. Since the whole flashback of their past isn’t provided to us from the start, I thought it was quite a bold choice to start the viewer off right before the change in their dynamic took place. Their romantic relationship is built up in the first five episodes, while we don’t even know anything concrete about their shared history yet. We are just given the information that they’re childhood friends, but their whole dynamic already changes before we can even get used to the fact that they’ve apparently known each other for a very long time. This lack of visual context also made it hard for me to immediately understand and condone Ri Hwan’s behavior towards Haeng Ah’s ex-boyfriend. When he started getting himself involved in their breakup and even went to Seok Joon’s house on his own accord to pick up Haeng Ah’s stuff when she hadn’t even asked for it, it kind of threw me off and even made me feel like he was crossing a line. Despite knowing that they were childhood friends, the way Ri Hwan already started acting like a possessive boyfriend towards Haeng Ah from the start was kind of weird to me. This feeling was strengthened all the more when he even went so far as to set off the fire alarm at the radio station to stop Haeng Ah and Seok Joon from having a private conversation, that was pretty wild and definitely not how a platonic brother figure would act.
Although I understand that the writers wouldn’t have wanted to give away all the details about their past together from the start, I do feel like it would’ve enabled me to get more immersed in their relationship if they’d started the show by depicting at least some of their shared memories as kids/teenagers. There’s plenty of dramas that start out featuring the main leads as kids or teens before they move on to the present day in episode two or three. I really think I would’ve preferred that for this drama as well, even if it was just to establish the depth of their bond more clearly from the start.
Having said that, even after getting all the necessary historical context from episode eleven, I still had trouble pinpointing what the dynamic between Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah was, exactly. Of course things between them would have changed as they got older and developed more mature feelings, but when putting the flashbacks from how they acted as teenagers next to their adult friendship, it still didn’t really seem to add up. There was literally ONE flashback from when they were adults where I was like: ‘See, why couldn’t they just have been like this the entire time?’ That was the only scene where I felt their dynamic lined up with how they’d treated each other as kids. It was just a fond shared memory of them bantering and laughing without any romantic tension. If we couldn’t have an establishing flashback of their history from the start, they could’ve at least added in some mannerisms or inside jokes from their childhood or something, create more visual links that clarified that they were still the same people, just older. I don’t know why, but I just didn’t feel like the older versions lined up with the younger ones. Anyways, maybe it was just me, but I wasn’t able to gauge the main characters that well and this especially went for Haeng Ah, who in my opinion had the tendency to switch personalities depending on her environment and whom she was with.
When Haeng Ah was first introduced, I honestly thought there would be something to her that would make her an emotionally complicated character. She initially actually reminded me of the female lead from The Big Boss, who got mentally stuck after losing her parents and just wanted to stay a kid forever. This would at least explain why Ri Hwan was so protective of her. In the first episode there was even a scene where the Secret Garden fam gathered around Haeng Ah to talk to her and she ‘transformed back’ into a kid. In hindsight, I guess this was just a reference to the fact that she basically grew up at the restaurant and that these people had always been there for her, but I found it kind of out of the blue to put that in the first episode without any context. I thought that maybe she was the type of female lead whose carelessness and bubbliness was meant to cover up some deep-rooted trauma within.
However, just when I thought I’d created an accurate image of her, she went to work at the radio station, where she was the most calm and collected professional producer ever. I mean, I get that you act differently among friends and colleagues, but there was a VERY strong contrast between how she presented herself in daily life and how she acted at work (where she was also surrounded by people she acted informally with, by the way). I just never really managed to pinpoint Haeng Ah’s exact personality. I know some people tend to change their behavior depending on whom they’re with – I probably do the same – but in this case it actually made it hard for me to get a clear perspective on the type of person Haeng Ah was.
This also went for when she started dating Ri Hwan. To me, it felt like Ri Hwan fell for her first and then when he expressed that, Haeng Ah had to get used to the whole notion of seeing him in a different light WHILE she was still going through her breakup. I found it hard to gauge whether she actually liked Ri Hwan’s new way of showing affection towards her, because initially it felt like she was cringing a lot whenever he said or texted something corny. Then again, it didn’t take her long to go: ‘Okay, I think I like you too now’, so I guess I must’ve interpreted that wrongly.
All in all, it seemed like Haeng Ah started out as this quirky, bubbly, charmingly eccentric woman, but then she lost all of her spark for the majority of the series until finally getting it back in the last three episodes. It’s a pity how some female leads – I always refer to the ones from Radio Romance and Clean With Passion For Now – start out with such a unique personality and then just lose all of it throughout the series. I would’ve liked to see much more eccentricity from Haeng Ah, as I usually love how Jung Ryeo Won pulls off these kinds of characters.
It was very typical to see how Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah kind of switched places, how Ri Hwan as the initiator of their relationship suddenly decided to pull back and how Haeng Ah stepped forward in her attempts to make him come back to her. In that sense as well, I found the development in their relationship quite peculiar and hard to follow.
Speaking of this buildup, their development can be summarized as such: Ri Hwan gets to the point of confessing his feelings for Haeng Ah in the first five episodes, after which we get another five episodes in which they start dating and eventually break up due to the tensions caused by Sun Yeong’s dementia. Episode eleven gives us the entire flashback of their shared past (yes, after the dramatic situation has already played out) and Ri Hwan spends episodes twelve and thirteen ghosting and avoiding Haeng Ah until he finally decides he doesn’t have to. The last three episodes, fourteen to sixteen, are filled with nothing but wholesome- and togetherness and making beautiful memories as the whole gang of characters starts taking care of Sun Yeong as one big happy family. As much as I loved the last couple of episodes, they still didn’t make up for the fact that the whole dramatic breakup in-between was barely necessary and they could’ve just been happy from the start. I get that they wanted to be considerate of Sun Yeong’s opposition, all the more when she started losing her memory, but I really, REALLY didn’t see the point of them having to end things the way Ri Hwan did.
Let me talk about Sun Yeong in a bit more detail, since she actually ended up becoming a much bigger character than I originally anticipated. If there’s one thing that flashback episode did well, it was that it made me feel for Sun Yeong more than anyone. Before episode eleven, when we’d only gotten fragmented pieces of information about her and Joon Hyuk’s past, I actually got the idea that her reason for opposing Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah dating was much deeper than just ‘finding it hard to get used to’. There was even a moment where I started suspecting that Ri Hwan was Joon Hyuk’s son or something, that the two would turn out to be actually related and that that was the reason Ri Hwan’s dad was never revealed. While this wasn’t the case, the flashback episode gave a lot more insight into Sun Yeong’s past that made her resistance to the idea a lot more understandable.
Honestly, this poor woman. The death of her husband, Ri Hwan’s father, put her into a depression right around the time she gave birth to her son and even made her attempt suicide. Just when she finally got better and even started envisioning a future with Joon Hyuk, the second love of her life, he was taken from her as well. This put her right back to where she was the first time, only now there was no one who could pick her up again. Her struggle with accepting Joon Hyuk’s death only became more painful by the fact that she had to face Haeng Ah every day, and her decision to send her away was merely a result of her conflicting feelings. As much as she cared for Haeng Ah, she just couldn’t look at her the same as she was a daily reminder of the second love and future she’d lost. The fact that she was already depressed enough to attempt suicide multiple times and then ended up with Alzheimer’s was heartbreaking. I couldn’t even blame her for being hesitant to accept the relationship between the two, because she had meant to marry Joon Hyuk and raise them as brother and sister. I guess that’s also when she started emphasizing the importance of Ri Hwan marrying into a well-off family, also because she thought his shared past with Haeng Ah would keep binding him to this sad history as well.
I can’t even imagine how hard it must’ve been for Ri Hwan to find out about his mother’s suicide attempts; hearing how she tried it when he’d just been born must have made him think she didn’t love him enough to stay alive for him. It makes sense that this made him care about his mother even more, putting her needs even before his own, and that’s also what led him to decide to disappear from Haeng Ah’s life. Sun Yeong’s dementia episodes were causing Haeng Ah a lot of pain and exhaustion – although I do feel that Haeng Ah put herself through a lot of unnecessary harm as well, for example by forcing herself to enter the hospital (which she had a trauma-induced phobia of) to follow up on one of Sun Yeong’s hallucinated errands – and he felt that it was better to free her from her ties to him, instead of the other way around.
Although there is something to say for this logic, I still really disliked the way Ri Hwan dealt with this situation, especially when their romantic relationship had JUST taken off. He even confronted his mother before, saying that he would keep dating Haeng Ah even if she opposed to it, so it came completely out of the blue for me when he suddenly decided overnight that he needed to erase himself from the narrative altogether.
The way they built this up was honestly very frustrating, mainly because there was no buildup. Ri Hwan just decided overnight to cut ties with Haeng Ah, without even consulting her about his decision first. She was involved in the dilemma, she was part of the relationship, and yet he just decided on this rash decision all by himself: not very partner-like. Having said that, I didn’t find either of them very partner-like in the first place: they were both suffering yet only ever told each other: ‘It’s nothing, I’m fine’, to the point where it actually made me mad. Honestly, if I could come up with a sub-title for this series, it would be: ‘Tell me you’re not okay without telling me you’re not okay’. The fact that they had to be put in a room together and told there was no reason for their breakup by that doctor, of all people, was crazy. I mean, I was thankful that he spoke my mind, but the fact that they had to have this pointed out to them by someone who was literally not involved in their personal lives whatsoever was wild to me.
Anyways, to get back to my point, what annoyed me the most was not just that Ri Hwan decided to break up with Haeng Ah overnight without consulting her, but also that it wasn’t clarified what he was thinking AT ALL before this happened. He was literally shown sitting at a bench at their old schoolyard one evening, and then the next day he was suddenly shown leaving Secret Garden with a poker face as Uncle Gangster literally threw a chair around the shop in response to whatever he’d just told him. He just went around telling people vague dramatic things like: “It’s better this way” and I was sitting there like: “WHAT IS?! WHAT is better this way? Give me some context here!!” Honestly, it felt like Ri Hwan suddenly just started filming a movie by himself. He completely disappeared in his own idea of what had to be done. When he finally told Haeng Ah, even she was like “wtf are you talking about?” Honestly, he suddenly got so freaking dramatic for no reason. If I didn’t already hate the trope of pushing someone away in order to ‘protect’ them, what made it worse was that Ri Hwan literally became a sack of misery in the direct aftermath. While it was definitely less bad than the male lead in Oh! Master, who literally started treating his girlfriend like trash overnight, it became increasingly hard to watch Ri Hwan. Everything about him just became heavy and passive: he trudged around with a long face all day and even started talking in a slow and monotone voice. It became physically exhausting to watch. This is what I mean when I say this was a martyr-drama: he actively put himself through the pain of a breakup whilst knowing it would make him miserable, and then he didn’t even try to pretend like he was fine. Even Haeng Ah didn’t take it this hard, she remained her original bubbly self because she knew he didn’t mean it. As soon as she spotted Ri Hwan on the street, she confronted him to tell him how she’d been doing and that she was waiting for him and even then, he just turned around and didn’t say a word. Like, what was up with that? I loved that Haeng Ah didn’t take his act seriously, because come on, it was so exaggerated. I even started calling Ri Hwan ‘drama queen’ at some point because he continued this avoidant thing when literally everyone knew he was forcing himself and told him he didn’t have to do it. It just became so pointless that I couldn’t even feel relief when he finally came back to Haeng Ah. All I could think was: ‘Why was this necessary?’ It’s a real pity, because it was clear that the writers intended this to be a very impactful moment, them finally getting back together despite Sun Yeong’s Alzheimer’s and finally working things out together. But because they made the reason for their breakup so ambiguous, it just didn’t hit me the way it was supposed to. Apparently, apart from not wanting Haeng Ah to be bothered by his mother’s erratic behavior anymore, Ri Hwan had also taken into consideration that he might possess the same dementia gene, as Early Onset Familial Alzheimer’s is hereditary. Honestly, to me the reason wasn’t even that important. The way Ri Hwan came to this decision all by himself and then made this whole pathetic show of ‘look how miserable I am without Haeng Ah’ just ticked me off. I didn’t even care about their make-up make-out scene after that, it did as little for me as the one from Oh! Master because it didn’t change the fact that the whole breakup was just unnecessary. Even when looking at the plot, I really don’t see a reason why it had to happen, or why they dragged it out until episode freaking thirteen and then went like: ‘Oh look, actually we can just figure things out together and tell each other when we’re not feeling okay.’ Like… I’m definitely not an expert on relationships, but shouldn’t that have been the first thing that came to mind?
Sorry, I don’t mean to rant too much, but that’s just how strongly it annoyed me. I rest my case: the breakup was unnecessary and it took away half a series’ worth of wholesome scenes in which two childhood friends figured out how to be a couple. Even if their consideration for each other and/or Sun Yeong made them debate whether or not to date openly, there could’ve been another solution, one they could’ve thought of TOGETHER. Honestly, I think this is the first K-Drama I’ve seen where a main couple was like: ‘You know, there are some people who don’t like us dating, so maybe we shouldn’t do it.’ Seriously. And then in the fourteenth episode they just turned everything back to how it was and made them the most lovey-dovey couple and I was just like… Why couldn’t it have been like this from the start? I know that K-Dramas like to create unnecessary breakups, whether it’s for plot reasons or not, but this reasoning really didn’t cut it for me. It made things very frustrating and it nearly almost ruined Lee Dong Wook for me, although still not as much as Oh! Master ruined Lee Min Gi for me. I really hope that times have changed and this trope will cease to exist eventually.
I know that this has taken a large part of the review already and there’s still a bunch of supporting characters to discuss, but I really just wanted to get Ri Hwan, Haeng Ah and Sun Yeong out of the way before moving on to the less heavy and emotional stuff.
When discussing the supporting cast, we first need to look at the Secret Garden fam. Secret Garden was Joon Hyuk’s restaurant, which became a happy and lively place where Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah played and Sun Yeong would come over a lot. At present, it’s run by a couple collectively called Uncle Gangster and Aunt Princess, who have seemingly also been in Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah’s lives for a long time, looking at the way they act around them. The couple has one daughter, although she doesn’t seem to be their biological child, who helps out at the restaurant.
As his nickname suggests, Uncle Gangster, formally known as Chef Noh (played by Lee Moon Soo) used to be a gangster. One night, he came to the restaurant where Joon Hyuk patched him up. Owing a lot to him, Uncle Gangster got clean and started helping out at Secret Garden. After Joon Hyuk passed, he was the one who came to tell Sun Yeong that he would feed Haeng Ah from now on. Although a man of little words and occasionally temperamental behavior, he has become a loyal and good uncle figure in Haeng Ah’s life.
Aunt Princess/Gong Joo (played by Seo Jung Yeon, my queen), officially called Shim Cheon Hee, used to stay at Sun Yeong’s place as a kid. It’s revealed at some point that her father used to be abusive and she basically ‘hid away’ at Sun Yeong’s place. Before this background detail was revealed, I gathered she’d worked at Sun Yeong’s household before and followed her after she left home. This is how she ended up at Secret Garden and met Uncle Gangster on the night he got patched up. She even changed her name to Gong Joo aka Princess because that’s what he started calling her. I didn’t understand the joke about her old name, Shim Cheon Hee, that wasn’t translated in the subtitles. I guess it must have been an old-fashioned name or something. Anyways, she’s been Sun Yeong’s trusted friend for a long time, and until the end Sun Yeong always remembers her (albeit as Cheon Hee). Aunt Princess is a very warm person, she cares equally about everyone in her extended family and she openly empathizes with everyone’s situations. She makes it her business to stick to Sun Yeong’s side during her Alzheimer’s episodes and always tries to make everyone feel at home.
The Nohs’ daughter is Noh Dong Hwa (played by Go Bo Gyeol – long time since I’ve seen her, by the way). While it’s mentioned several times that she’s not their biological daughter, her origin is only revealed (very casually, may I add) in the final episode. There, Haeng Ah reminds Sun Yeong that Dong Hwa one day showed up at the restaurant with no one to turn to, having lost both her parents, and as such the Nohs took her in, first as a restaurant help and then as their adopted daughter.
Dong Hwa is a typical teenager, even just judging from her immature crush on Ri Hwan. There were times when she seemed a little shallow to me, because she was always just talking about how pretty she was, but then again she was just a kid and it didn’t have to be taken that seriously. I was a bit worried when she suddenly took an interest in Ji Hoon, because that age gap was not it. I’m glad they didn’t pursue that further. I guess it was just typical of Dong Hwa to switch crushes very easily at her age.
What I liked most about Dong Hwa was her growth. Although she still seemed quite immature at times, once she started partaking in the care for Sun Yeong, she really stepped up her game. The way she freaked out and started crying when she lost sight of Sun Yeong that one time in the last episode just proved how responsible she’d become. She’d started taking things more seriously, started sincerely caring for people more, and that development really suited her. In the end she actually became quite funny to me, the way she kept snapping at Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah to stop flirting and get on with the work, lol. I ended up quite liking her character.
Let’s move on to the supporting characters that arose from Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah’s respective workplaces.
First of all, Kwon Ji Hoon. I’m not entirely sure where Ri Hwan and Ji Hoon met, although it was probably med school, but they are now amiably sharing a house and running an Eastern medicine clinic together named ‘Hoon & Hwan’. Ji Hoon was quite a different character than Ri Hwan, he seemed much less put-together and much more inclined to make a fool of himself. At the start of the story, he’s just gotten dumped by his girlfriend and basically comes home drunk every night. As pathetic as that might have seemed, I admired the way he decided to win her back and the fact that he actually managed to do it only proved that he was a stand-up guy. Although he didn’t originally seem like the type of guy that talked about his feelings a lot, I appreciated that he urged Ri Hwan to keep him in the loop of his developments with Haeng Ah and his mom. He made an active effort to show Ri Hwan that he wanted to be involved in his life and help him through the rough patches. Despite the fact that they were living their own lives and going through their own troubles, these two would always end up on the couch together to support each other, and that was really nice to see.
Ji Hoon’s ex-girlfriend, Noh Tae Hee (played by Kim Ri Na) just so happens to be Haeng Ah’s best friend and colleague at the radio station. Unlike Haeng Ah, Tae Hee is quite stoic and serious, and often scolds Haeng Ah for not entrusting her with more of her problems. I actually really liked the friendship dynamic of these girls: Tae Hee was the black cat to Haeng Ah’s golden retriever. I loved how Tae Hee described the moment she decided to be best friends with Haeng Ah, and that it had to do with the latter’s tendency to remain kind and compassionate even when she herself was going through a worse time than the other.
Tae Hee has a little storyline through the series herself. Apart from the fact that she’s just broken up with Ji Hoon – allegedly because he cheated on her, which ultimately turns out not to be the case – she also develops a crush on Manager Cho Dong Il (Park Won Sang) at the radio station. When he rejects her, her attention gradually reverts back to Ji Hoon, whose genuine efforts to win her back ultimately bear fruits. I liked that she and Ji Hoon managed to make up again in the end, they were one pairing that I was actually a bit curious about because we never actually see them as a couple; we meet them after they’ve already broken up and are on bad terms with each other. Seeing Tae Hee slowly warm up to Ji Hoon again was kind of sweet.
Cho Dong Il was kind of a random side character, in my opinion. His introduction was so vague I didn’t actually catch his name until several episodes in. At first I thought he was the Maeng Woo Bin everyone kept mentioning, but apparently he was one of the managers at the radio station Haeng Ah worked at, who also stayed at the company dorm because he was on bad terms with his family. When it was revealed that Tae Hee had a crush on him, I was honestly a little taken aback because type-wise they really didn’t seem to suit each other much (in my opinion). It was kind of funny how shocked and confused Dong Il was when he received Tae Hee’s confession, lol. He just couldn’t understand it. I’m kind of glad they made him reject her instead of creating a new random relationship out of nothing. Anyways, Dong Il was good friends with Kang Seok Joon and occasionally also ended up having a drink with Ji Hoon – the moment they found out their respective ties to Tae Hee was pretty amusing. He kind of popped up here and there, now and then, whether it was at a bar or when substituting for Haeng Ah during a recording session. He was cool, I guess. I still didn’t really see how he fit into the plot, but hey, at least he wasn’t unnecessarily annoying.
Moving on to the final members of Haeng Ah’s radio team, there was the DJ she worked for, Oh Se Yeong. I liked that they made a pun on her name when they ended each episode by saying: “oseyo~” as a way of saying: ‘Catch us next time!’.
Oh Se Yeong was a character. Whilst presenting herself as an elegant radio hostess through her beautiful voice, she was actually the type of woman who covered up her insecurities with a huge diva complex. At first she struck me as quite shallow and I really hoped she’d lower her walls a bit throughout the story. Although she did do that, especially when she started ‘secretly’ dating her younger co-worker Joon Soo, I still had some conflicting feelings about her. There were some inconsistencies in her behavior as well: one moment she sincerely expressed her fear for letting him get dragged through the mud on her behalf, and the next she acted like a spoiled child and made a fuss when he as much as greeted a female shop employee. The way she went from hiding how much she really cared to treating him like some sort of younger plaything kind of rubbed me the wrong way. It was clear as day that she was sincerely into him, and everything he told her made her really happy, but she just couldn’t stop holding that diva act over everyone’s heads and that got a bit annoying at times. I actually couldn’t when someone on the radio asked her to congratulate her with her wedding and she just went: ‘Commercial break.’, that was savage, lol. Also, it wasn’t clear to me from the start that she was an actress as well. I don’t know if I just missed that or if they really just added that at some point, lol. Ever since they revealed that, she did suddenly get a lot more to do on screen, so maybe it was invented to have her visit more different locations and encounter more situations that made her debate her relationship with Joon Soo.
I did appreciate that she started looking out for others more towards the end, for example how she immediately jumped into action at the message that Sun Yeong had gone missing. While I was initially a bit iffy about her relationship with Joon Soo, I did end up seeing the cuteness in them, although that mostly came from his side.
Yae Joon Soo (played by Ahn Woo Yeon) was the maknae writer on Oh Se Yeong’s program, and he ultimately starts dating her, despite her allegedly being much older than him. I really liked Joon Soo, especially in the way he expressed his feelings for Se Yeong. I loved how mature he was, and I was completely on his side when Se Yeong started laughing at the idea of him meeting her mother. The way his face dropped when she didn’t even take him seriously, bro. That was actually rude of her. She was trying to brush it off as some sort of dating game with a younger guy and he was clearly upset by that. I appreciated how he responded to her childish jealousy as: “It’s cute that you’re jealous, but I really don’t like how you’re behaving right now.” Honestly, I really liked Joon Soo, he was really mature for his age and never lost his professionalism. He actually made my heart skip a beat when he talked to Se Yeong in that restaurant that one time when they got drunk. His eyes just changed all of a sudden, heck, I would’ve gotten butterflies as well!
Not gonna lie, I didn’t believe for a second that there was only four years of age difference between them. The entire time they made a whole thing about the age gap – I even remember her saying people sent her gifts on her birthday thinking she was ‘only’ 34 – and then it’s finally revealed she was only 32 and he was 28?! Nah. Nah, there’s no way she was actually younger than me. There’s a TWENTY YEAR age gap between the actors in real life and they definitely didn’t make it look like it was less than that in the series.’
Lastly I just want to make a final mention of Doctor Go Sang Gyu (Park Seong Geun), Sun Yeong’s med school sunbae and hospital colleague. I really appreciated him for always looking out for Sun Yeong, and how he urged her to get those dementia tests as soon as he picked up on her increasing slip-ups. I also liked that, despite Sun Yeong’s whole plan to keep her Alzheimer’s from Ri Hwan, Doctor Go just straight up called him in to inform him about it, knowing that Sun Yeong had no one else and he just needed to know. I still find it interesting that he had to be the person to call in the main leads and sat them down for a heart to heart about fixing their relationship, that was kind of random. But at least he spoke what was on my mind, so I couldn’t help but be grateful for that. He was a nice supporting character to both the leads – as he also apparently treated Haeng Ah for her hospital phobia – and Sun Yeong. I liked him.
For the final part of my character analysis, I will talk in a bit more detail about the second leads. I don’t usually leave these for last, but I just felt like I needed to create a breather after that first critical part before moving on to some more elaborate parts.
I’ve already mentioned before that I had a hard time getting into the relationship between Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah, or rather that I didn’t get into it at all, and one more reason for this was the knowledge that Haeng Ah and Seok Joon broke up because of a misunderstanding.
As stoic and cold as Seok Joon came off, he actually really adored Haeng Ah. Again, just like with Ji Hoon and Tae Hee, we meet him when he and Haeng Ah have just broken up, so we don’t actually see any footage of them being a couple, except for maybe two very short flashbacks. Although Haeng Ah initially only reveals that Seok Joon made her feel lonely and always prioritized work over her, she failed to mention that she never actually communicated how she felt to him, either. She made him feel like she was okay with their relationship being like that. Of course, he could’ve read between the lines and still made an effort to come to her more but, as this series keeps repeating: if you don’t tell them what’s going on, how can they know? By the way: when Ri Hwan first appeared on his doorstep to get Haeng Ah’s stuff back, Seok Joon didn’t even seem to know who he was. Didn’t Haeng Ah ever mention her best friend/childhood brother whom she grew up with? Because that would suggest even more that she didn’t really share much of her life or past with her boyfriend. Curious, curious.
Anyways, their breakup really just felt like a miscommunication to me, one that could easily be resolved by having a proper heart-to-heart. I was actually kind of taken with Seok Joon and I might have even shipped Haeng Ah with him more than with Ri Hwan, purely because I found her and Seok Joon such an unusual yet intriguing couple. I love polar opposites, and I thought his quiet stoic versus her bubbliness made for a very exciting dynamic. I mean, that flashback of him kissing her in the elevator? Hello?? So yeah, I guess that’s why it was additionally hard for me to just accept that she left Seok Joon behind and went over to the comfort of her childhood friend.
I liked Seok Joon. I liked that, once Haeng Ah finally told him the reason she broke up with him, he immediately showed that he wanted to try again and even started putting in more active effort. Even when she rejected him, he didn’t push himself onto her, he just graciously offered to stay in touch for a meal every once in a while.
I have to admit I kind of missed the story of him suddenly transferring to a news channel, and what exactly he ended up doing there, also when Dong Il followed him to the new branch. But I’m glad he made amends with Haeng Ah and Ri Hwan and just continued his life comfortably. He was definitely an interesting second male lead.
And then, last but not least, I finally get to talk about Yi Seul. As mentioned in my introduction, Yi Seul was the youngest daughter of Taeyang Group. From the second we meet her, she’s introduced as quite an unfortunate woman. Her fiancé just broke up with her as they were about to get married, and her mother (Park Joon Geum, hadn’t seen her in ages!) keeps nagging at her and picking apart her appearance whenever she gets the chance. The first person to make Yi Seul’s heart skip a beat in ages is Ri Hwan, on their blind date. However, this is only shortly before Ri Hwan confesses his feelings to Haeng Ah and Yi Seul is again left in the dark and to her own devices, having to deal with yet another unrequited crush.
I get that many people would describe Yi Seul as miserable, since she’s rarely happy throughout the show (I’ve never seen Park Hee Bon in such a pessimistic role, either), but I actually felt for her a lot. Maybe it’s because I know how it feels to never be chosen by the one you like. I just felt so bad for her. Despite her wealthy background she really didn’t have much going for her, she didn’t have friends, her mother constantly went for her neck in pointing out every single thing that was wrong with her while trying to set her up on one blind date after the other. The only person she could talk to was her older brother, Hong Jeong Woo (Kim Sa Gwon), who at least stood up for her against their mother and the men that rejected her. I really related to Yi Seul during her unrequited crush on Ri Hwan, and I honestly kind of judged the latter for not being more considerate of her. Like, of course he didn’t have to date her, but he really just disregarded her feelings for him while he was definitely aware that their first meeting had been a blind date. He knew that she was getting expectations and he couldn’t even clearly tell her from the get-go that he already loved someone else. Honestly, that actually ticked me off a bit. Yi Seul had to find out for herself that he had feelings for Haeng Ah and when she confronted him with it, he just sat there like ‘sorry for not being more clear’. Damn straight, you weren’t clear. Come on, man.
I can’t deny that I also found Haeng Ah pretty shameless at first as well. She knew Yi Seul was Ri Hwan’s blind date and that she liked him. Even though Haeng Ah didn’t know that Yi Seul saw them kiss that one time, it was still pretty bold of her to just come to her dental clinic with macarons, acting all chummy whilst knowing that she kissed the guy that Yi Seul was interested in (and still allegedly dating, even). Even if Haeng Ah didn’t acknowledge that kiss as being something serious – which was probably the case – it was wild of her to just visit Yi Seul like that and act all friendly with her. It was kind of inconsistent of the couple to act like they couldn’t date because other people wouldn’t like it, but then still treated someone like Yi Seul with so little acknowledgement. Either flaunt around your relationship without caring who’s watching or at least try to be considerate of other people’s feelings. Pick one!
But yeah, I felt for Yi Seul and I probably felt the most relief when she ended up on a final blind date with a guy who actually seemed to understand her. They seemed to have a cute chemistry going on, as well. I also liked seeing her slowly come to terms with her own mother after witnessing what happened to Sun Yeong. Although I definitely didn’t care much for her mom, it was very nice of Yi Seul to wish that her mother would always stay the same rather than forget who she was and lose that eccentric personality of hers.
Now that I’ve finally gone over all the characters I wanted to discuss, I’d like to go over a couple of points that I found a bit inconsistent or jumped out to me in some way.
Besides the peculiar buildup that I already mentioned, I also noticed that there sometimes was a random change in cinematography that didn’t really seem to serve a purpose. Honestly, it felt like they randomly tried out a new way of filming every once in a while. For example, one episode started through the eyes of Ri Hwan, with the characters directly addressing the camera as they spoke to him, almost like breaking the fourth wall. In another episode they suddenly implemented the split screen tactic, like the one from the opening sequence of Crash Landing On You. While it did have a cool effect, it was really just for one scene and then never came back. It just felt a bit random.
One other peculiar example of this was the sequence where Sun Yeong completely succumbed to her Alzheimer´s, ending with her even forgetting Ri Hwan. For some reason, they suddenly put a day and time counter in the left bottom corner. I assume this was to indicate the passing days that she was bedridden, but was that really necessary? The way the images transitioned and the real-time scenes were interspersed with Sun Yeong’s memories made it clear enough to me that time was passing. For the flashbacks it was natural to put the year, but in this case I really didn’t see the point of suddenly adding both the exact date and time as a caption like that. They also didn’t do that for any of the other scenes, so this also felt a bit random.
What also occasionally irked me was the pacing of certain scenes. First of all, this show had the tendency to repeat the final scene from the last episode at the beginning of the next episode. I don’t mean that they picked up at the last sentence of the previous episode, no, they actually repeated a full two-minute scene for no particular reason. I actually found myself going: ‘yeah, we’ve already seen this’ several times while watching. Even when they were just meant to refer back to one specific thing, like the wish that Ri Hwan still owed Haeng Ah or the way that the bracelet found its way back to Sun Yeong, they didn’t just repeat one sentence from the flashback to indicate the reference, no, they repeated the entire scene, and this really dragged out the pacing at times. With the bracelet, I already got the point they were making with the first flashback, but still they repeated the whole story of how it went from Ri Hwan to Joon Hyuk to Haeng Ah and ultimately back to Sun Yeong and played out every single scene in full again, which really wasn’t necessary. For the one about the wish, they really could’ve just referred back to a single line from their previous conversation where he mentioned he would save up the wish for another time, there was no need for the entire scene to be replayed.
Apart from these dragged out repetitions, there were also a couple of scenes and situations that I felt were really just inserted for more unnecessary drama and extension of the side characters’ screentime. For example, that scene when Yi Seul and Ri Hwan were at a restaurant and her ex-fiancé suddenly ‘happened’ to come across them. It was so typical; yet another situation to humiliate Yi Seul in front of Ri Hwan that ended in her brother turning up to kick the guy’s ass. But really, it didn’t make much sense to me that this guy made an appearance at all, all the more because he was just there as another tool to insult Yi Seul, even though he was the one who cheated on her with a younger woman. It didn’t add anything to the story, it was just typical.
I also couldn’t help feel a bit annoyed by Yi Seul’s brother continuously showing up at Ri Hwan’s place to talk about his sister. It was just pointless. Both Ri Hwan and Yi Seul had already made it clear that there was nothing between them. I get that the brother was being sympathetic towards Yi Seul and he just wanted to do for her what he could, but he went so far as to actually offer Ri Hwan a plane ticket to get as far away from Yi Seul as he could. Bro, please just mind your own business.
Apart from that I just have to say I also found Yi Seul’s mom very typical. Despite the fact that her behavior was explained and she did occasionally let slip that she actually cared about her daughter, I still don’t condone the relentless offenses she threw at her. The fact that the insults were very shallow and all over the place also made them kind of typical. It really felt like the writers meant to set up Yi Seul as a miserable character by surrounding her with people that just threw empty insults at her. Not the greatest writing.
Another scene that I thought was unnecessarily dragged out was when Yi Seul’s mother showed up at Hoon & Hwan to have a word with Ri Hwan about why he rejected her daughter. She mistakes Ji Hoon for him, since he’s in his office, and starts ranting at him. Now this would’ve made for an entertaining misunderstanding scene… if only Ji Hoon hadn’t been wearing his name tag. Without his tag, it would’ve been a common comical scene in which he’d had to find an opening to tell her that he wasn’t the person she was looking for. But for the viewers, at least for me, the joke was already off the second I saw the name tag. It just didn’t work that she did this whole rant and then finally ended up seeing his name tag, because we as the viewer already got the joke two minutes earlier. Whenever they tried to pull off something like this, there was always something present in the scene that just wasn’t realistic and basically debunked the whole situation.
Another qualm I had with this show was the fact that it gave so much necessary insight at such a late moment in time. As much as I loved the flashback episode for how much context and historical background it gave, from the main leads to Sun Yeong’s past and even where Uncle Gangster and Aunt Princess came from, I still can’t get over the fact that they waited until freaking episode eleven to reveal all of that. By then, I’d already had ten whole episodes to form my opinions on all the characters and the situation, and that flashback really didn’t do much in terms of my views on Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah’s present-day relationship. I’ll keep saying it, but I really would’ve liked to get at least the leads’ shared past of growing up together provided to me from the start so I could’ve gotten immersed in their relationship more. Giving us their entire past connection AFTER all the drama already went down and Ri Hwan already chose to remove himself from Haeng Ah’s side was just too little too late. ‘Mosterd na de maaltijd’, as we say in Dutch.
And this wasn’t the only thing that was revealed late. They did a good job of explaining where Aunt Princess came from in the flashback episode, so why couldn’t they have added her additional backstory there and then as well? And why did they only very casually mention in passing how Dong Hwa ended up at Secret Garden in the very last episode? Why couldn’t that have been mentioned earlier? Even if everyone in the community already knew about it, it’s important to clarify things to the viewers as well!
Honestly, at some points it actually felt like the writers forgot that there would be people watching without any prior knowledge of the characters’ stories or something. They just didn’t give context where it was due and just let characters talk over something THEY knew about without sharing it with the audience. Maybe that was intended, but it definitely didn’t help in keeping me up to date with everything that was going on.
Same went for the freaking title drop, by the way. They literally put the explanation for the title in the very final line of the show. I believe the show ended with Ri Hwan narrating something along the lines of ‘cherishing the small moments of happiness like popping bubblegum’. Or something. DramaWiki summarizes the story as being ‘about people with deficiencies, becoming a little happier just by being with one another’. I honestly expected the bubblegum to be like a recurring thing in the story, like the candy machine at Secret Garden. There was only scene where Haeng Ah was chewing bubblegum, which resulted in a kiss – I cared more about what happened to the gum than the kiss itself, but it was funny how right afterwards Ri Hwan suddenly started blowing a bubble with the gum as it had ended up in his mouth, lol. So yeah, although as I mentioned I get what they were going for, I still find myself a little disappointed by the very last-minute reference to the title. It just felt kind of rushed in, like: oh, we still need to clarify the title, think of something wholesome.
Another thing that kept bugging me was freaking Maeng Woo Bin. I mentioned earlier that I initially thought this was Cho Dong Il, but it turns out Maeng Woo Bin was just a former high school classmate of the leads that they apparently kept in touch with, but who never showed his face as an adult. We only (finally!) get to see him in the flashback episode – this actually made me go: ‘Omg MAENG WOO BIN IS REVEALED!’ – but I found it very confusing that they kept mentioning him as if he was still a close friend they kept in touch with when he was only ever mentioned by name. That was kind of weird.
By the way, I can’t deny that the opening sequence (which for me only started playing from episode four or something) kind of gives a misleading image of the show. It shows the four main leads, Ri Hwan, Haeng Ah, Seok Joon and Yi Seul, in a very soothing and relaxing state. For one, Yi Seul never smiles that widely in the entire series as she does in the intro. It gives off a very carefree and almost healing vibe, which in my experience stood in contrast with the emotional heaviness of the actual story.
To end my review on a positive note, I do want to emphasize that my frustrations mostly lay with the establishment of the main characters and their whole unnecessary breakup arc. Other than that, it’s really not that bad. As I said, I appreciate the message of togetherness that the writers went for, and it was nice that everyone gradually learned to lean on others and share their troubles more. As much as it tired me out hearing everyone say ‘I’m okay’ and seeing everyone cry non-stop towards the middle of the show, it was very relieving to see how they all learned from their experiences and ended up relying on each other more. It was even mentioned in Ri Hwan’s internal monologue at some point, that he and Haeng Ah just had to take steps together in order to both become better. And the final three episodes truly were very wholesome. It was nice to see everyone come together around Sun Yeong when she was found and the police officer actually said: ‘How nice that you have such a big family.’ I feel like that was the main point, for the characters who felt the loneliest to realize how many people they had gathered around them that cared about them.
I also want to mention that this show helped me discover a couple of really nice new songs. Thanks to Haeng Ah’s radio program, I picked up on for example ‘Stardust’ by W & Whale and ‘Someone A’ by yoonsang, very nice songs. I might actually check out more of W & Whale’s stuff, I really like their style. I always like to see radio shows depicted in Korean dramas since they go about it in such a different way than where I’m from. I could totally imagine how soothing and comforting it must have been for young Haeng Ah to listen to that in her lonely moments.
It was definitely fun to see another older drama again after so long that even still had classic details like removing the battery from a phone when they didn’t want to pick up – I hadn’t seen that one in ages, so that was a nice throwback. On the other hand this show really reminded me of how K-Dramas have developed for the better, both in structure, story and character building. I’m glad we can look back on dramas from the past and cringe a little, it does add something to the experience.
Well then, it’s time for the cast comments! It was nice seeing a lot of familiar faces in this, even some that I hadn’t seen in a long time.
First of all, Lee Dong Wook. Of course, we know him from a lot of shows, such as Wild Romance (I’m actually really tempted to watch this again at some point, but I’m scared I’ll cringe too much at it, lol), Goblin (which only aired one year after this!), Touch Your Heart and Search: WWW (cameos count as well 💁🏻♀️). I still have a couple of his dramas on my watchlist. I hate to say it, but this is probably my least favorite role of him so far. It’s not that his acting was bad or anything, but once he started trudging around with that constant miserable look on his face it got pretty tiring to look at him. It didn’t nearly get as bad as with Lee Min Ho in The Heirs, fortunately, but I definitely had to stop myself from rolling my eyes during that whole dramatic act after he broke up with Haeng Ah. On the other hand, when he portrayed Ri Hwan’s bright and cheerful side, he was actually more bubbly and playful than I’d seen him in anything before, so that was a nice change. I guess I just didn’t really like him in this particular role, but that doesn’t mean that he did a bad job – it’s important to keep that in mind. Anyways, I appreciated seeing him in an older drama (I can’t believe Goblin came out ten years ago 😱). I’m still curious to see him in the other shows I still have on my list!
I’ve only seen Jung Ryeo Won before in Wok of Love, where she played a similar character to Haeng Ah. Jung Ryeo Won just has this addictive smile and natural quirkiness to her, so I guess this automatically seeps into every role she plays. Still, it was nice to see her tap into more emotional depth for Haeng Ah. There’s at least one more recent drama with her that is on my list, so I’m really curious to see how she’s grown and developed her skills. I just realized the only dramas I’ve seen her in so far are from 2015 and 2018, but I can see on MDL that she’s still very actively participating in dramas, so that’s nice. I just really like Jung Ryeo Won’s energy, she has this natural charm that automatically makes you smile along with her. I was wondering what kind of energy and chemistry she would bring to this show and I just want to stress that, although I personally didn’t feel the romance, that doesn’t mean that she and Lee Dong Wook had no chemistry. I’ve actually seen a lot of comments going absolutely crazy over their chemistry, so I guess I’m just one of the few people who didn’t pick up on that because I was too focused on the way things were structured and built up between them. Anyways, it was nice seeing her in this and I’m looking forward to seeing her in more.
This is actually the first ever drama I’ve seen of Bae Jong Ok, although there are a couple of her shows on my watchlist. I think she did a really good job at portraying the ups and downs of Sun Yeong. She kind of became a VIP character, which was surprisingly touching. The contrast between her lucid behavior as a strict mother and the way she started acting almost like a child during her Alzheimer’s episodes was very impactful – she pulled off the different extremes very well. As I said, in the end she was the character that I ended up feeling the most compassion for. At least her storyline was established well enough to make me genuinely feel for her. It must have been very challenging to portray a character that went through such an abrupt change from one episode to the next, but she did a really good job. I liked her chemistry with Park Chul Min as well, however briefly it was depicted. I loved her smile, it made her look really sweet. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more of her!
Apparently, Lee Jong Hyuk played a couple of guest roles in several shows I’ve watched, like The Master’s Sun, Descendants of the Sun, He is Psychometric and Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung, but I don’t exactly remember him from those. I thought he was a very interesting casting choice for the second male lead in this show. He has a very distinct look that probably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it actually contributed to his charm. As I mentioned in my review, I actually quite liked the pairing of Seok Joon and Haeng Ah and I would’ve liked to see more of their couple dynamic. Also, can I get a recording of this guy’s voice because DAMN he sounds good. I’m a sucker for deep voices, so let’s just say I’m glad they let him be a radio host for this show, lol. Anyways, I thought he portrayed Seok Joon as a very calm and collected, stoic yet compassionate man. Although he did reprimand Ri Hwan a couple of times, he remained stern in his sympathies towards Haeng Ah without ever getting too intrusive. I liked his performance and I’m curious to see more of him.
I believe I already briefly mentioned this, but this was definitely the most depressing role I’ve ever seen Park Hee Bon play, lol. I’ve seen her in a bunch of shows before, like The Master’s Sun, High School King of Life, Fated to Love You, The Producers, Goblin, Bride of the Water God, Just Between Lovers and Wife I Know and the movie Like for Likes. As far as I remember, she’s always played cheerful and bright roles, so this was definitely a side I hadn’t seen of her before. As I said, I personally related to Yi Seul a lot and therefore couldn’t bring myself to get annoyed with her pessimistic attitude. I think Park Hee Bon did a great job at relativizing Yi Seul’s character without making her too pitiful. It was nice seeing some spark return to her when she was bickering with that final guy in the last episode. She really just needed to regain her confidence a little bit and that subtle growth was nice to see. Gosh, it was such a throwback seeing Park Hee Bon, and in a lead role at that. I really hope I’ll get to see more of her to come.
I’ve seen Kim Jung Nan before in Who Are You: School 2015, Fantastic and Crash Landing On You; I feel like I remember her most clearly from the last one. Despite the fact that Oh Se Yeong was a very typical diva-character, I do feel like she pulled off the role very well. It was clear that she took herself very seriously and I appreciated the moments where she let her mask crack and her real sincerity come out, even if for a second. I loved her acting in the scene where she told Joon Soo that she didn’t care about her own name being dragged through the mud, as she was a celebrity and had to live with being gossiped about, but she was really afraid of him or her mother being bothered by people that wanted to slander her. It was nice that she was revealed to have a warm side to her, but she still chose to be very bitter about things. Anyways, she performed the role very convincingly, so well done to her.
I was wondering where I remembered Ahn Woo Yeon from, but he was the persistent idol guy from Age of Youth Season 2. I remember the group being called ‘Asgard’ and he was Heimdal, lol. He also appeared in Circle, although it’s been too long ago for me to remember that. I might actually rewatch that some time since it was quite short but very interesting. Anyways, apparently his role in Bubblegum was only his second ever drama role! He did a very natural job and I thought he presented Joon Soo as a very mature guy. He definitely was more mature than Oh Se Yeong when it came to their relationship, that was nice to see. I think he did a great job!
Kim Ri Na was another new face to me. I kept thinking I knew her from something, but the only other thing I’ve seen her in is Healer, and I don’t remember her from that, so that doesn’t count, lol. I really liked how she made Tae Hee contrast with Haeng Ah so much, yet still made her the best friend the female lead could’ve wished for. I still have mixed feelings about the fact that all the main leads had to be told by their friends that they could confide in them more, but Tae Hee definitely was that type of friend to Haeng Ah. I loved how she actually got mad at her for not sharing more life updates with her. I liked her character and I think Kim Ri Na did a nice job. Because she was pokerfaced most of the time, the moments where her true emotions shone through jumped out to me even more. It was nice seeing her gradually open herself up to Ji Hoon again more towards the end, showing a suppressed smile here and there. It was cool to get to know her through this show!
I’m very sorry if this sounds rude, but I was kind of surprised to see Lee Seung Joon as the male lead’s best friend here because I’d already written him off as a typical ahjussi actor in my head. 😆 It just goes to show that this drama was from eleven years ago, when he was still a bit younger, haha. I’ve seen him before in Hyde, Jekyll, Me, Madam Antoine, Descendants of the Sun, Goblin, The Package, Thirty But Seventeen, He is Psychometric, Hotel del Luna and most recently in The Tale of Nok Du. It was funny seeing him as such a walking mess of a best friend in this show, it was definitely a side of him I hadn’t seen before. I really like Lee Seung Joon, he just has something very sympathetic to him. I liked how he supported Lee Dong Wook and the friendly chemistry they had together. Looking forward to the next thing he appears in!
I’m never not mentioning Seo Jung Yeon when she appears in something because she is one of my favorite middle-aged Korean actresses. I’ve seen her before in Valid Love, She Was Pretty, Descendants of the Sun, Moonlight Drawn By Clouds, Bride of the Water God, Something in the Rain, Come and Hug Me, Melting Me Softly, The King: Eternal Monarch, Run On, Nevertheless,, Dali and the Cocky Prince, Our Beloved Summer, Forecasting Love and Weather and My Demon. I just love how this woman can switch between crazy hysterical, stoic and pokerfaced, and warm and loving characters. Aunt Princess definitely fell under the last category. No matter how mundane the character (which is rarely the case), Seo Jung Yeon always pours her everything into it and always manages to catch my eye with the level of devotion and love she puts into every single performance. I can’t help but love her. This comment is just to fangirl about her. Seo Jung Yeon is queen.
It’s been quite a while since I last saw Go Bo Gyeol in anything! I feel like the last time might have been when I watched Arthal Chronicles back in 2022. Other than that I’ve seen her in The Producers, Cinderella and the Four Knights, Goblin and Go Back Couple, and there’s a couple more of her stuff still on my list. She’s such a doll, Go Bo Gyeol (it only rhymes if you say it out loud). Even though it was very last minute, it was nice to at least get the clarity about how Dong Hwa ended up at Secret Garden and became a part of the fam. I think Go Bo Gyeol did a good job at very subtly showing Dong Hwa’s growth throughout the series. She really went from a kid to a grown-up with a stronger sense of responsibility, and that was nice to see. It was fun to come across her in this, I can’t wait to encounter her somewhere again.
Speaking of long-time-no-sees, it was really special seeing Park Joon Geum again! She goes way back to Secret Garden, Rooftop Prince, The Heirs, Mask and Descendants of the Sun, so it’s definitely been at least ten years since I last saw her in a drama! By the way, is it just me or does this woman literally get cast in the exact same role every single time? I honestly can’t think of a drama where she didn’t play a nasty (step)mother with an awful sense of fashion, lol. I really wonder if she ever got to play a friendly role, that would make a nice difference. Still, it was kind of iconic seeing her in a role like this again.
Also, I did not expect to see my favorite granny Kim Yeong Ok before this show was over! She was delightful in her guest appearance of Oh Se Yeong’s mother. Gosh, she’s such a treasure. I’ve loved her ever since my very first K-Drama Coffee Prince, and then in Boys Before Flowers, Birth of a Beauty, Shopping King Louie, Manhole, Go Go Waikiki, The Great Seducer, The Light in Your Eyes, Her Private Life, Love Alarm, The King: Eternal Monarch and Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha. May she make many more appearances to come!
Lastly, I just want to give a major shoutout to the wonderfully talented child/teen actors that portrayed the younger versions of Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah.
Hong Eun Taek previously appeared in The Master’s Sun and Han Seo Jin in EXO Next Door, Goblin, Just Between Lovers and Move to Heaven. Yoon Chan Yeong appeared in Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim, Bride of the Water God, The King Loves and Thirty But Seventeen and I know Kang Eun Ah from Search:WWW. They all dazzled in the long flashback episode and I really enjoyed the charms they each gave to the younger versions of the main leads. I may have actually enjoyed their performances more than the adult actors, lol. I keep getting blown away by the talent of Korean child actors, I can’t wait to see how far they’ll make it. Well done!
On a side note, I just looked it up since I realized the cast consisted of a lot of actors who appeared in the same dramas, but apparently the producer of this show also worked on Goblin, which might have something to do with the numerous Goblin actors (including Yoo In Na!) making an appearance in this. Or maybe it could be completely unrelated, who knows. It just struck me as interesting that I got to write a lot of the same drama titles for several actors, lol.
And with that, I have reached the end of this review. This one took me a bit longer to finish since I got a bit mixed up with how I wanted to structure my criticisms. I think I’ve mentioned everything I wanted to properly now, so I’ll upload it like this. I might still edit it when I think of something I may have forgotten to mention. For now, I’ll leave it at this.
All in all, I wasn’t too impressed with this show. The structure was a bit weird to me and I feel like they could’ve done a better job at introducing the characters in a way that immediately made the viewer feel for them, instead of revealing their backstories in the last half of the series when all the dramatic developments had already come to pass. The plot was also a bit vague to me. In hindsight it feels like they wanted to combine the childhood friends to lovers trope with Sun Yeong’s deteriorating dementia, but I still think the way they made the latter factor an ‘obstacle’ to their relationship was kind of a weak premise, especially since they contextualised Sun Yeong’s side of the story so well. I know a lot of people love this drama and are able to appreciate it for its emotional weight, so I guess that was just wasted on me a little bit. Having said that, I can’t deny that it was refreshing to watch another older K-Drama after a while of only modern stuff. It can be kind of nice to go back to the basics sometimes, even if it’s just to confirm that it was good to get rid of certain outdated tropes, lol. Still, I’m glad I finally got to watch this for myself.
Thank you for reading all this way if you did. I will now continue on the journey of a series that I started last year and that just released its third season – I guess it’s not too hard to figure out what that’ll be.
Until then, bye-bee! x
