It is hard to watch this show and not compare it to Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, I would be lying if I said there are not glaring similarities. The story revolves around a female protagonist who leaves Seoul and goes to a small, tight-knit, sea-faring town on Jeju Island; then they meet a hometown hero guy who loves living there and knows all of the ins and outs of the town. I will say, as I kept watching Welcome to Samdal-ri, it began to stand out and become its own show. The two leads worked really well today, and I loved the hopeless romantic aspect that Yong-Pil (Ji CHang-Wook) brought to the story, he never gave up on the one girl he always loved and it was really sweet to see.
One of my favorite aspects of this kdrama was the townsfolk, they brought it all to life. Each character had their own backstory, how they had "failed" one way or another and ended back in Samdal-ri. They each had their quirks and that made it very fun to watch. The music was also quite good, and I have only good things to say about everyone's acting. There were certainly some clichés, and the character transformations were predicable, albeit done quite well. Also, the Hae-Yal and Hae-Yeul mother-daughter relationship was brilliant and surprisingly moving, but I won't further elaborate for spoiler reasons.
The best part of Welcome to Samdal-ri was the message: the importance of home and a place to return to. It does not matter if it is small and quiet, a home is the place that you know, and the place that knows your. It is usually a "who," as opposed to a "where." It is ok to venture beyond your original home, but there is so much value in a safe place to return to, and that is why I loved the final episode of this show: it really drove this message home in a beautiful way. Whether you are growing up and venturing out in the world, or if you are old and live the same life every day, this show is for you, and this message was beautifully told.