Original Air Date: June – August 2020
Plot: A selfless nurse at a psychiatric ward and an antisocial children’s book author come together to find themselves and heal their emotional wounds.
Watched Because: Kim Soo Hyun is one of my favorite Korean Actors. I was so excited to see his first drama coming out of military enlistment.
My Review:
This is a tough one for me to review. I started and stopped writing this so many times. This was the most anticipated drama of 2020 for me. As I mentioned, I loved Kim Soo Hyun after My Love from the Star. I went on to watch Dream High and Moon Embracing the Sun, which just solidified my fan-girling for him. I think my biggest problem with this drama was that I completely misunderstood the genre and went in with the wrong frame of mind. This was billed and advertised as a classic romantic kdrama. But that is wrong. This was a melodrama with a gothic fantasy spin and there happened to be a romance in it. This drama is completely different than what you have seen before. That is what makes it both amazing and cringey. And boy, did I cringe a lot.
The drama opens up with a gothic fairytale told in the Tim Burton style, think Nightmare before Christmas. When I was in college, I took an Intro to Fairytales English class. (I know right, who knew that class would come back to help me analyze a kdrama twenty years later?). In that class our professor had us read the original versions of the fairytales I grew up on: Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Little Mermaid, Snow White, etc… We quickly learned the that Hans Christian Anderson and The Grimm Brother’s, told extremely gruesome stories with murder, torture and cruelty. Like the modern-day fairytales, they all had the purpose to teach children a moral and life lesson. Major props to Disney for reading these and somehow managing to retell them in a complete harmless and fantastical way. So, as I watched this drama and cringed my way through the fairytales, it occurred to me that our heroine, Ko Moon Young (played by Seo Yea Ji) writes closer to the original 1800 version of fairytales than our Disney washed modern version. It helped me reframe it and understand this drama a little better. She is a very complex character. She can make me cringe and yet I believe that she has a good heart. Her morals she writes about are important, it’s just told in such a cringy way. This back and forth between cringing and understanding was almost a theme for me while watching this drama
Hands down, what I liked the best in this drama is Oh Jung Se’s portrayal of Moon Sang Tae, who is on the autism spectrum. He did such a fantastic job and really should win an actor of the year award. I am a high school counselor and have come across many students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This is the first time I’ve seen someone with ASD on a Korean drama. I’m starting to see it a little more on American TV (e.g. The Good Doctor), but it was really nice to see diversity on a Kdrama. They did a really good job of showing both the struggles on the person with ASD and their family but simultaneously showing how special and amazing someone with ASD can be. Sang Tae had all the hallmarks of ASD: Communication deficits, difficulty with social skills, difficulty reading emotions, very literal thinking, difficulty with change, sensory difficulties, stimming behaviors like rocking, fixation on one thing (for him it was dinosaurs) and perseverating. Sang Tae also was a beautiful illustrator, drawer and painter. And he loved his brother and wanted to contribute to the world. I’m so happy with how this drama portrayed him and people with ASD. I hope that all who watched this drama gained a little better understanding and acceptance to those on the autism spectrum.
Sang Tae’s older brother, Moon Gang Tae (played by Kim Soo Hyun) had to take on the huge responsibility of becoming his caretaker at too young of an age. By the time we see him as an adult, he understands exactly what his brother needs and how to care for him. I had to smile when I saw the chart posted up with all the faces and emotions labeled under. I too have used similar charts to help teach my students with ASD to understand how to read emotions. On the outside Gang Tae was a very put together, selfless and even perfect person. Which brings us to the title of the drama. Moon Young is a huge disruption to Gang Tae’s world. And although she does it in some cringy ways, she helps our hero realize that you don’t have to pretend to be perfect, you can be angry, you can be sad, you can be whatever it is you are feeling, it’s okay to not be okay. I just wish she toned it down a little with the cruelty and cringe worthy moments. But in gothic fairytale fashion, I think the writers wrote her that way on purpose. She had to be the very opposite end of Gang Tae so the two of them could help each other pull towards the middle.
Over all, I found this drama to be executed very well. The writing, directing and acting were all excellent. The side characters all were well developed and you care for them too. I especially loved Kim Chang Wan as the hospital director (and special reunion, he was also the lawyer friend in My Love from the Star!) and Kim Mi Kyung as the hospital chef/Ju Ri’s mother. Both of them providing warmth this show needed. I loved seeing a show centered around a psychiatric ward and showing the humanity in all the patients and that their disorder doesn’t define who they are. We need more shows like this to normalize psychiatric disorders, mental health and autism.
I struggle with how to suggest this drama to others. On one hand, I think it’s a special work of art in the Kdrama world. On the other hand, it really can be hard to watch at times and wasn’t my personal cup of tea. I definitely have zero desire to rewatch this. But going in with the right frame of mind and understanding of this drama, I think it can be a very interesting watch and expose and educate viewers unfamiliar with autism spectrum disorder as well as an array of psychiatric disorders.
Final Opinion: Add it to your list, just be prepared to cringe.
kdrama binger 
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