KDrama to Miss: Crash Course in Romance (2023)

Crash Course in Romance (2023)

Grade: C+

16 episodes, 70 min each

Viewing Platform: Netflix

Nam Haeng-seon is a Korean side-dish shop owner, raising her sister's daughter, Nam Hae-e, as her own. It's the teen girl's junior year in high school, with intense competition and pressure to do well on the national college placement exam. Hae-e's friend encourages her to study harder, and she gets into a prestigious private after-school program. Haeng-seon wasn't much of an academic herself (she retired as a handball athlete when her sister abandoned Hae-e), but she decides to support her niece as best she can – even if it means dealing with a curmudgeonly “star” teacher at the Pride academy. Choi Chi-yeol is in fact a very talented math teacher, with millions of dollars to his name for his efforts – but he doesn't enjoy what he has. He is so stressed out he can hardly eat, having lost a student to suicide several years ago, due to the extremely competitive academic environment. What happens when he encounters Haeng-seon's home cooking? Will the intensified attacks on those around Chi-yeol finally lead to tragedy, or revelation?

*The romance between Chi-yeol and Haeng-seon is cute, but it is only a tiny part of the drama. They're not physically a great match, either (he is more handsome than she is pretty). The whole drama was too reality-based for my liking, even with a serial killer plot line sprinkled in it. The bad guy “offing” himself felt super convenient, and Chi-yeol doesn't appear to give a second THOUGHT to the betrayal or death! With all the misery Chi-yeol felt at losing one of his students, which is heavily played up with his eating disorder, his under-reaction is bizarre. At times it feels like the show is a condemnation of the competitive culture in Korea – but Chi-yeol does nothing to change the system. Then the ending is much softer than I was expecting, considering the violent buildup with the villain and the rather despicable antagonist side characters. Wouldn't watch again.*

KDrama to Miss: Crash Landing on You (2019)

 

Crash Landing on You (2019)

Grade: C+

16 Episodes, 1.25 hrs each

Viewing Platform: Netflix

Yoon Se-ri runs a successful cosmetics and fashion company, but one day during a test-flight of some new athletic wear, her simple paragliding outing turns into a stormy nightmare: she is blown right across the North Korean border into enemy territory! Luckily the army captain who finds her at the border outpost wants to cause as little trouble as possible for his small troop of loyal soldiers, and Ri Jeong Hyeok does everything he can to return Se-ri before anyone else finds out. 

However, Ri Jeong Hyeok is also investigating his brother's mysterious death – an accident which appears to be part of larger corruption among North Korea's top military leaders – and who better to expose Se-ri than Cho Cheol Gang, the man with leverage against almost every top official in North Korea? What happens when Cho Cheol Gang evades capture for his crimes and flees south, threatening Se-ri's life? Will Ri Jeong Hyeok allow himself to love after losing his brother so tragically?

*This story felt a bit long and slow in places. All the “bad guys” aside from Cho Cheol Gang end up not actually being bad. There is also an actual – spoiler alert – death of a secondary character, the 2nd male lead, which I don't recall seeing in a drama before! So the 2nd female lead doesn't get a happy romance story line; instead she gets the “it's cool to be single” ending, which feels quite American/Western, unfortunately, or just plain tragic at the very least. 

I have heard that the portrayal of North Korea is based on actual reports from defectors, so it's supposed to be quite accurate in that regard. There are some cute, humorous moments seeing people experience technology & plentiful stores for the first time – very similar to other kdramas where people from the past end up in modern times. 

Overall, this doesn't have the happiest of endings – he can't leave North Korea long term, and she certainly can't live there, so they settle for only seeing each other for 2 weeks of the year, living together in a neutral country (Switzerland, where they originally met). Wouldn't watch again.