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.