My first Korean drama

by The Flamingo

My first big discovery during this coronavirus lockdown is Korean cinema. I really can’t express how big of a revelation this was. I am a big fan of Japanese culture and I tended to concentrate on that: manga, anime, literature, tv shows and films. This Korean dramatic series was on my list of Netflix recommendations based on my tastes. The plot summary was the one that triggered my curiosity: a rich South-Korean woman lands in the DMZ between the two Korean states by accident and then finds herself unwillingly and unknowingly crossing the border to the forbidden North. The series is called “Crash landing on you”, but although the title sounds like something out of a bad Mexican telenovela or out of a romance book with “bodice rippers”, don’t be fooled. The story is well written and solid.

What impressed me the most in this 16 episodes series:

1. The perfect entanglement between drama, comedy, romance, breath taking action and suspense with just enough sprinkles of telenovela on top not to make it too cheesy. 
2. The realistic image of communism in North Korea and the political and military conflict between the two Koreas.
3. All actors played fantastic roles, each and every one of them had brilliant, diverse and believable characters to portray. 

1. Romance? Drama? Telenovela? Comedy? 

This series is considered an ironic drama, but also a Korean type of telenovela, made by Netflix. Half of the story is based in North Korea and the other half in the South, with interludes in between with scenes from the “neutral” and beautiful Switzerland. The female main character is lost in enemy territory and a North-Korean captain tries to hide her and help her cross the border back to her country. 

At first, the drama consists of the terrible context of North and South Korea. The same people torn apart and forced to live in different political systems, one part luckier than the other. Then other layers of personal drama are added by main characters, trauma related to the past and to their present reality. Also the secondary characters have their share of the story and are adding to the richness of it. 

The script is also very cleverly written, it’s very sarcastic, full of black humor, also full of good-natured comedy, which makes the whole reality bearable. It’s full of dramatic situations which turn out hilarious. Also the action scenes are really well made, the suspense also killing at times. Although it has some situations which can be considered a bit absurd, the balance stays believable and makes the show even more enjoyable. I call these the telenovela accents, which take the show out of the drama category and makes it more romantic. 

     2. The communism in North Korea 

Coming from an ex-communist country, I know all about the extreme left ideology, dictatorship and their the repercussions. So I was really amazed when I saw how well and realistic the part about North Korea was made. From the extreme poverty, the lack of knowledge of the outside world to all the relationships between people based on doing and collecting favours, corruption at all the state levels, abuses and executions. In North Korea the communism is worse than in other countries just because of the extreme military involvement. I found out after I watched the series how this realism was achieved. We know very few things about what is exactly happening there. The series had a North Korean cinematographer consultant, who ran away from his home country to South Korea. 

      3. The actors and their characters

The two leading actors Hyun Bin and Son Ye-jin surprised me with their depth. Hyun Bin plays a North Korean captain, very stern and stoic, who is tormented by family problems and a very nasty superior who is out to get him. He hates his family legacy in the military field and craves another life. Son Ye-jin is a very rich entrepreneur, also a heiress to one of the wealthiest families in South Korea. Although she seems spoiled and cold on the outside, depression is eating at her from the inside. Her sense of humor is intoxicating and she has a very personal and specific way she turns situations around to her advantage. Of course, the series is also romantic, so (spoiler alert!) the two of them fall in love. Their drama comes from the fact that neither of them can and wants to leave their home country behind in order to live together. 

The secondary characters are many, more than I have seen in regular series I watched until now. There’s a number of comical characters, also some very dramatical ones, even more than the main leads. And there’s some in between, with lots of layers, who are on the gray border of right and wrong, pendulating between hilarious and tragic. 

What surprised me the most is that, at the end of the 16 episodes, I cared about the characters a lot more than I cared for the characters in the 8 seasons and 73 episodes long Game of Thrones. I really don’t know how to explain this fact, other than maybe the Koreans have a better formula at developing characters or just the fact that communism was involved was enough for me to be empathetic. 

That fact of the matter is that I loved “Crash landing on you”. It was a breath of fresh air, very far from the American and European television, but also from the disturbing and sometimes bizarre Japanese cinema. Enjoy this different perspective! 

Featured photo used as official poster for the series.