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Valid Love

Extramarital affairs have always been a fragile subject with unpredictable reactions. One thing is for sure, there’s always a chain reaction of events following the moment of truth, but there are also reasons behind one’s actions that led to that point. It’s not something that happens all of a sudden and it’s not a controlled explosion either. It’s that imaginary hand trying to permeate the surface of one’s void step by step. Once the entrance perimeter has been secured, no one can guarantee anything.

To be honest, ever since I read Valid Love’s synopsis and watched the trailers one after the other, I felt the sudden urge to watch this drama for all the painful reasons in this world. It just felt like it would serve its purpose well, and I was in the right place at the right time for a woeful journey.where else? In front of my computer whose screen becomes a brand new horizon ever since a drama starts unfolding its contours!

The cast seemed promising with Uhm Tae Woong (Can We Love?) portraying Hee Tae, Lee Shi Young (Golden Cross) depicting Il Ri, Lee Soo Hyuk (High School King of Savvy) behind Kim Joon and Choi Yeo Jin (Emergency Couple) presenting Hee Tae’s sister, Jang Hee Soo - whose figure is going to surprise you. Yeo Jin shines through the twofold path she walks upon as Hee Soo. Out of these recent dramas in which the main figures of Valid Love participated in key roles, I had only watched Emergency Couple, so I was really curious as to how Valid Love would flow.

To sum things up, a glorious day for humanity had arrived. Jang Hee Tae was having a circumcision operation, while at the same time a high school girl, Kim Il Ri, was being examined because she couldn't believe that all of her bones were just fine after falling from a tree. Lee Shi Young definitely looks like a high school girl which is always remarkable! It was the day they met for the first time and it seemed as if it would be the last one. Later on, Hee Tae worked as a pollack—I mean, a temporary biology teacher at an all girls’ high school. Guess who he met there? Yes, you guessed correctly, Il Ri! It’s a short era of eccentric, cheerful innocence for Il Ri and platonic caring on Hee Tae’s behalf. Her bright personality and delirious explosions of adoration towards our pollack’s face are all over the place, but her rare emotional outbursts when it comes to her background and/or her interactions with Hee Tae are moving and deep.

Years later she would become his precious wife. Hee Tae would become a marine researcher, a mackerel specialist to be more precise, and Il Ri would become a painter. One day she starts working for a peculiar employer, carpenter Kim Joon, and everything starts changing.

Around the main cast you will witness Hee Tae’s parents (a stalker mother and a player father), Il Ri’s sister, adorably neurotic Yi Ri (Han Eu Ddeum is such a beautiful young lady!), Gi Tae who is Hee Tae’s brother, Soo Young (Il Ri’s friend), Sun Joo (Hee Tae’s hoobae), and Il Ri’s mother, to mention the most important ones.

Taking into consideration that this is a 20-episode drama, the more it progresses the more you steadily admit that it’s not what one would have totally expected. I mean, it is; the synopsis was pointing towards one direction, but Valid Love is much more than that. Its multifaceted beauty never ceases expanding its territory in highly expressive and creative patterns.

Except for the interpreting factor which is one of Valid Love’s strong cards, one of the main reasons this drama becomes addictive is its elegantly devouring and graciously caressing cinematography. It doesn’t only enrich each and every scene but breathes an eloquent poetic aura that launches Valid Love’s emotional aspects into an open space of expanding magnificence. Director Han Ji Seung’s first drama attempt creates a highly emotional and atmospheric scenery in which scriptwriter Jim Do Woo’s visions dance violently and elegantly inside a loop of harmonious dissonance, a well-crafted coordinated chaos that makes perfect sense in its very own unconventional way. And the dancers seem unerring by following the magic flute’s tune. With every maneuvering figure they depict, we witness their steady transformation.

The storyline opens up in the present and nighttime evokes a lurking blight in motion. Hee Tae’s on a nearby rooftop spying on Kim Joon’s workshop/house. By the time his wife, Il Ri, passes the workshop’s door Hee Tae’s world starts crumbling. Shortly after, urban depression surrenders to the bright sun’s stare and the blooming landscape. Valid Love dives into the corners of the past and it will remain in past tense for a welcome amount of episodes, to find itself anew at the present later on. You will witness that Valid Love divides itself into distinctive time periods of various duration on screen.

One could say there’s a fragile balance between positive and negative emotions in the overall atmosphere. Sometimes the positive ones exceed the downbeat vibes thanks to the drama’s humorous parts, but the negative ones are bound to outflank them due to the number of people being steadily affected by a certain line of events. What will eventually happen we have yet to find out.

South Korean dramas are renowned for the sense of grandeur and maximalism that overruns their formulas from houses to enterprises, fashion to looks. Even Sageuk dramas are the older equivalent of modern era dramas. Valid Love tends to differ: it’s realistic, it undresses the flamboyant formula in order to bare the very soul and essence of the drama. One could refer to it as an undercover Japanese drama more in feeling than terms of structure. It honors the distinctive South Korean air it breathes, while at the same time seemingly walking hand-in-hand with the recent Hirugao on a different story-line scale but in a like-minded vibe.

Valid Love evokes waves of feelings, the silent overwhelming ones that flow underneath the surface and leaves you stunned. And watching Valid Love through the tones of director Han Ji Seung’s lenses feels as if you were secretly staring at pictures in motion through one of Haruki Murakami’s imaginary windows; devoutly.

It’s remarkable how episodes relate to one another, the way the story flows strengthens the overall consistency of the drama. The last minutes of each episode are apparent in the beginning of the next one and it’s not a tiresome decision at all simply because on each following episode the last minutes of its predecessor are enriched with scenes and lines that were previously absent. So even if you have forgotten a few details you acclimate yourself immediately and you get a more concrete picture of the previous episode’s events. It’s a tactic we don’t usually encounter, at least not to this extent, but it works just fine on Valid Love.

The Casta Diva workshop is a place where sins and miracles look much alike, processing with unparalleled craftsmanship. The rain enriches the overall scenery, it’s there, it’s always been there, but now it feels more apparent. And photography is exceptional, through perspectives and angles, but also through closeups and a sense of distance, Valid Love is adorned by an excessive coloring of emotions that strengthens the cast’s vivid and expressive interpretation. The canvas has yet to be completed, part of it was portrayed as the rest is struggling to get to the surface.

Valid Love is realistic to the core, devoid of your average South Korean dramas’ dream-like aesthetic and even when it dreams and breathes, it’s always in the shadow of reality. There’s brewing blight, an omnipresent transformation as time passes by. Everything’s caressed by a warming decadence and a discordant eloquence due to the magnificent lighting factor under director Ji Seung’s supervision, which offers an older film aesthetic. The light through presence and absence is one more part of the cast, an actor among actors and actresses interacting viciously or graciously with each one of them in person, in pairs, in groups. Every time it passes through the workshop’s windowpanes it’s being filtered into another world.

So, I was thinking of going to Andromeda, you know, the constellation. It’s not that I always wanted to become a gardener, but I suddenly felt the urge to search every single star consisting of Andromeda and find the most appropriate spot on that specific part of the universe to plant an apple tree. There are plenty of free seats, the interstellar spaceship Valid Love will be departing soon, fasten your seat belts and your heart will follow.