Synopsis

A beautiful nostalgic romantic drama set in the backdrop of one of the biggest political mess ups in Korea in our time, the Gwanju massacre/uprising which took place in May of 1980. Hwang Hee Tae (Lee Do Hyun) is the pride of his neighbourhood who got into a the prestigious Seoul National University. He meets a nurse, Kim Myeong Hee (Go Min Si) who was pretending to be her best friend, Lee Soo Ryeon (Geum Sae Rok) on a blind date. Hee Tae seems like an easy going guy and falls in love with Myeong Hee and knows that she is not Soo Ryeon from the beginning. Myeong Hee is a tough woman who had to fight for everything that she has.

This show is definitely a beautiful show but if you are looking for a happy feel good ending, don’t watch this one. The spoilers have been floating around for a while and I’m sure you’ve already read them.

This section contains spoilers

I knew the whole time I was watching this show that there was a tragic ending but I watched it anyways. I was coming off a string of makjang multi-generational family dramas and I wanted some intensity. I was not expecting this. The show is so intensely sad. Not the nice cathartic sadness that makes you feel better. It’s the kind of sad that makes you stop believing love exists.

I love the setting in the 1980s. It reminds of the Korea that I remember from my childhood when I used to visit my wealthy relatives and my humble grandmother who lived in the country side. Although the set designer from Reply 1988 was way better but the feeling from the 1980s was definitely there.

Every romance show needs to that chemistry between the leads. Go Min Si and Lee Do Hyun definitely accomplished it. It was that feeling of falling for someone so hard when you’re young. Your boyfriend/girlfriend becomes the centre of your universe and nothing else matters. Myeong Hee’s father (Kim Won Hae) explained it best to his son, she found someone more important than her family and you will too.

There aren’t many shows that tackle the Gwanju uprising (I prefer to call it the massacre). After talking to those around me in Korea, the opinion of who’s to blame is very divided. There is a large number of those that believe the university students that were protesting are to blame. Very few people from my anecdotal survey actually believe the government is to blame. There are other movies such as 26 Years and more recently Hunt (directed by Lee Jung Jae) that clearly point the finger at the government. Snowdrop takes place during the aftermath of Gwangju and also makes the government look bad. If you remember, Snowdrop was almost cancelled because they did not want the anti-communist bureau (Agency for National Security Planning) to look like heroes. Either way, creating a Kdrama set right in the middle of this tumultuous time was risky. The whole anti-terrorist movement and ICE in the US is not any different today.

The family dynamic between Myeong Hee and her father compared to the Soo Ryeon and her father are so different. Soo Ryeon’s father is using her as a bargaining chip with the government and wants to marry her off to Hee Tae who is the son of the anti-communist group leader, in order to save his company. Myeong Hee has a strained relationship with her father and the reason is not obvious in the beginning but we later find out his family are communist and defected to the north. Despite their strained relationship, her father has been doing things for her behind the scenes. He was saving money for her secretly so she can fulfill her dreams of becoming a doctor.

Despite winning awards, this show’s average rating was 4.7%. Koreans don’t enjoy watching ugly on TV. Shooting innocent people and being poor is not appealing to most Korean viewers.

The ending is tragic. Myeong Hee is killed by the Korean military on the day that her and Hee Tae were supposed to get married. They did not find her body until 40 years later and they were only able to identify her because of her father’s pocket watch. Her death was so unfair. She did not get involved or have an opinion about any of the politics. She just wanted to go to medical school and take care of people. In the end it looked like Hee Tae never married either since he lost the love of his life but continued working as a doctor.

Objectively this is a fantastic show and beautiful story but I wish I didn’t watch it. They went a little too far with the heartbreak. Why does the woman have to die? I feel like her father dying was enough to get the point across.

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