ltspada
This review may contain spoilers
A beautiful story that completely falls apart at the end
7.5/10 is my rating. This is a 2020 South Korean romantic comedy drama series with 16, 60 minute episodes.
Goo Ra-ra (Go Ara) seems to have the world at her feet as an heiress to a cosmetics company whose father dotes on her. On her wedding day, her world falls apart when her father suddenly diesd, on his way to the wedding, from a heart attack. Her father's secretary encourages her to go into hiding as her father was going through a bankruptcy (which Ra-ra did not know) and the creditors would be looking for her. With nowhere to go, she decides to meet a fan who encouraged her piano playing but winds up in an accident with bicyclist, Sunwoo Joon (Lee Jae-wook). Joon is barely injured but Ra-ra injures her hands and is helpless in the hospital. The two bond as Joon icannot leave a damsel in distress even if the damsel is a cute but overly needy ex heiress. With no-one left and being quite helpless, Ra-ra appeals to Joon to give her a place to stay and help her get on her feet with the promise that she will pay it all back. Cold on the outside but warm and caring in reality, Joon cannot say no to someone so clearly in need. When he finds out she is a pianist, and seeing it as a way for her to support herself, Joon builds Ra-ra a space within his space to have a piano school called "La La Land". Joon and Ra-ra become an integral part of the small community they are in, Eunpo City, and form form friendships and develop surrogate families. There is a deeper story behind Joon and Ra-ra's connection and it slowly comes to light that the accident was not their first meeting. There are also reasons Joon holds people at arms length and indicates he has no family.
At the start of this, I loved the energy of Ra-ra and how her engaging personality made people want to help and do things for her. Jun was the complete opposite and people were drawn to him because he was incredibly handsome but had a brooding cold exterior. Those that got to know him a little better, quickly realized he was actually very warm and giving. Watching the energetic and irrascible Ra-ra hammer her way into Jun's cold exterior was entertaining to say the least. I loved them as a couple because their personalities were so complimentary - each providing what the other lacked. The relationship Ra-ra developed with Jin Sook-kyeong (Ye Ji-Won), a single mother who owned the beauty shop next door and Jin Ha-yeong (Shin Eun-soo), who become her best/friend little sister substitute was so heart warming. Sook-kyeong became the mother figure Ra-ra never had. There were lots of plot twists and intriguing incidents to keep things going and keep the viewer engaged and I thouroughly enjoyed the majority of the series. Had it continued on that trajectory this would have been in the 8.5/9 range out of 10 for me. **Spoiler Altert** What nearly ruined it for me was the last couple of episodes. First there was the standard trope where he crushingly breaks up with her and is with another girl and you suspect it has something to do with his mother and her aspirations for her son's marriage. We have all been through that one if we have watched very many dramas and know that typically resolves as he simply refuses to live (often quite literally in starvation strikes etc.) without her. And this resolved as well and they were back together and things were cruising on toward the final episode. Then we find out, at the nth hour, he has leukemia. And I had a horrible feeling at that point it just wasn't going to end well. It would be some kind of "better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all" kind of nonsense. He makes the very uncharacteristiclly selfish decision to hide his illness from the majority of his friends and her and makes up an excuse that he is going to the States to study and has no idea when he will be back if ever. And she actually puts up with that and rekindles her romance with him remotely. She is all geered up for him to finally come back to South Korea for a visit and her and all his friends throw a party and are all excited but he never shows. Then there is the excuse he couldn't come because of his flight being cancelled. It is a crushing disappointment and made my heart very sad for her. Then his mother shows up looking very sad and there are some heart warming moments when she apologizes to her for being awful to her and thanks her for bringing joy into her sons life. Then she tells her June is never coming back because he had leukemia and died. I think I just about cried my eyes out. I was so angry I declared that the show was a zero. How could they build us up with this beautiful romance and then just kill him? After that it shows everyone moving on with their lives and she is around pretending to be happy but you can see she is still just incredibly sad. Then, wham, guess what - he isn't dead after all but FIVE YEARS later he comes back, fully recovered, to get his girl. She doesn't believe it at first. Are you a ghost? And, I have to say, by this time I am with her. What the heck are they putting us through now? Nope, it's him. His only excuse is he didn't want her to have to see him sick and didn't want to come back until he was fully recovered. She cries some more (he makes fun of her for crying) and she pummels him with her tiny fists. And I guess that was supposed to be the happily ever after. Okay but I am still pissed at him for putting our girl through emotional hell. I think, if you love someone, you give them a choice whether to be by your side or not. To keep her in the dark and make her think he had died was emotional cruelty. It would ruin the trust you would have with that person. For a girl who had lost her mother, and her father, and her entire life - for her to think she lost him for so long was really devastating. I do not, at all, like sad movies or series. I can handle a little saddness as long as it is not too long or a significant portion of the show, or ends sad. But, this one, the happy ending was only minutes and the sad part was much, much longer. I do not recommend this for anyone that is an empath or who deeply feels sad movies or series. If you don't mind saddness, then this is, overall, a very good series. I would not personally rewatch it, because of the overwhelming sadness I felt, but it is complex enough you would catch additional things on a rewatch.
Goo Ra-ra (Go Ara) seems to have the world at her feet as an heiress to a cosmetics company whose father dotes on her. On her wedding day, her world falls apart when her father suddenly diesd, on his way to the wedding, from a heart attack. Her father's secretary encourages her to go into hiding as her father was going through a bankruptcy (which Ra-ra did not know) and the creditors would be looking for her. With nowhere to go, she decides to meet a fan who encouraged her piano playing but winds up in an accident with bicyclist, Sunwoo Joon (Lee Jae-wook). Joon is barely injured but Ra-ra injures her hands and is helpless in the hospital. The two bond as Joon icannot leave a damsel in distress even if the damsel is a cute but overly needy ex heiress. With no-one left and being quite helpless, Ra-ra appeals to Joon to give her a place to stay and help her get on her feet with the promise that she will pay it all back. Cold on the outside but warm and caring in reality, Joon cannot say no to someone so clearly in need. When he finds out she is a pianist, and seeing it as a way for her to support herself, Joon builds Ra-ra a space within his space to have a piano school called "La La Land". Joon and Ra-ra become an integral part of the small community they are in, Eunpo City, and form form friendships and develop surrogate families. There is a deeper story behind Joon and Ra-ra's connection and it slowly comes to light that the accident was not their first meeting. There are also reasons Joon holds people at arms length and indicates he has no family.
At the start of this, I loved the energy of Ra-ra and how her engaging personality made people want to help and do things for her. Jun was the complete opposite and people were drawn to him because he was incredibly handsome but had a brooding cold exterior. Those that got to know him a little better, quickly realized he was actually very warm and giving. Watching the energetic and irrascible Ra-ra hammer her way into Jun's cold exterior was entertaining to say the least. I loved them as a couple because their personalities were so complimentary - each providing what the other lacked. The relationship Ra-ra developed with Jin Sook-kyeong (Ye Ji-Won), a single mother who owned the beauty shop next door and Jin Ha-yeong (Shin Eun-soo), who become her best/friend little sister substitute was so heart warming. Sook-kyeong became the mother figure Ra-ra never had. There were lots of plot twists and intriguing incidents to keep things going and keep the viewer engaged and I thouroughly enjoyed the majority of the series. Had it continued on that trajectory this would have been in the 8.5/9 range out of 10 for me. **Spoiler Altert** What nearly ruined it for me was the last couple of episodes. First there was the standard trope where he crushingly breaks up with her and is with another girl and you suspect it has something to do with his mother and her aspirations for her son's marriage. We have all been through that one if we have watched very many dramas and know that typically resolves as he simply refuses to live (often quite literally in starvation strikes etc.) without her. And this resolved as well and they were back together and things were cruising on toward the final episode. Then we find out, at the nth hour, he has leukemia. And I had a horrible feeling at that point it just wasn't going to end well. It would be some kind of "better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all" kind of nonsense. He makes the very uncharacteristiclly selfish decision to hide his illness from the majority of his friends and her and makes up an excuse that he is going to the States to study and has no idea when he will be back if ever. And she actually puts up with that and rekindles her romance with him remotely. She is all geered up for him to finally come back to South Korea for a visit and her and all his friends throw a party and are all excited but he never shows. Then there is the excuse he couldn't come because of his flight being cancelled. It is a crushing disappointment and made my heart very sad for her. Then his mother shows up looking very sad and there are some heart warming moments when she apologizes to her for being awful to her and thanks her for bringing joy into her sons life. Then she tells her June is never coming back because he had leukemia and died. I think I just about cried my eyes out. I was so angry I declared that the show was a zero. How could they build us up with this beautiful romance and then just kill him? After that it shows everyone moving on with their lives and she is around pretending to be happy but you can see she is still just incredibly sad. Then, wham, guess what - he isn't dead after all but FIVE YEARS later he comes back, fully recovered, to get his girl. She doesn't believe it at first. Are you a ghost? And, I have to say, by this time I am with her. What the heck are they putting us through now? Nope, it's him. His only excuse is he didn't want her to have to see him sick and didn't want to come back until he was fully recovered. She cries some more (he makes fun of her for crying) and she pummels him with her tiny fists. And I guess that was supposed to be the happily ever after. Okay but I am still pissed at him for putting our girl through emotional hell. I think, if you love someone, you give them a choice whether to be by your side or not. To keep her in the dark and make her think he had died was emotional cruelty. It would ruin the trust you would have with that person. For a girl who had lost her mother, and her father, and her entire life - for her to think she lost him for so long was really devastating. I do not, at all, like sad movies or series. I can handle a little saddness as long as it is not too long or a significant portion of the show, or ends sad. But, this one, the happy ending was only minutes and the sad part was much, much longer. I do not recommend this for anyone that is an empath or who deeply feels sad movies or series. If you don't mind saddness, then this is, overall, a very good series. I would not personally rewatch it, because of the overwhelming sadness I felt, but it is complex enough you would catch additional things on a rewatch.
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