Call It Love (2023)

Call It Shim Woo Joo

I was unprepared for how much I liked this drama, especially since I've been in a somewhat prolonged slump in K-drama, so this was a welcome surprise. Without a doubt, Shim Woo Joo is the star of this drama. I love everything about her. She is a rare and refreshing character in the K-drama world. I love how much she feels and isn't scared to show it. I love that she isn't a pushover. I love that she lets herself live her emotions, whether anger, frustration, hate, love, or whatever else. Kudos to Lee Sung-Kyung for doing such a fantastic job with her. She has come a very long way.

A lot touched me with this drama, and it's what makes it so relatable. I am from a culture where one is expected to respect elders and authority figures, but as I grew up, I realized respect is earned, not given. People cannot just demand it because culture expects it or because of age or blood relation. I don't know if this drama intends to push this notion, but I respect it for putting it out there, and it's why the story and the way it's told captured me completely.

The raw emotions in this drama and how it looks to tackle societal expectations in who and what love looks like and the need to continually save other people's face/pride, especially of elders, bosses, seniors, and family members, at one's expense, always disguising their true feelings feels more like punishment than reverence. Add to that the hierarchical societal roles and the logic or illogical stance of obedience, responsibility, and adherence at all times is a part of the culture that is hard to accept or even understand if one is not born into it.

As good as Lee Sung-Kyung is, Kim Young Kwang is even better in how he plays Han Dong Jin. I love him in this very stoic, melancholy role. I haven't seen him like this before, apart from his last Netflix drama, Somebody, now that was something else. I liked him as an actor, but that drama proved he isn't just a pretty face with a beautiful smile. The man can act. But this drama doesn't just do a fantastic job of flushing out Woo Joo and Dong Jin as leads but puts the same detail and care in Yoon Joon, Shim Hye Seong, Choi Sun Woo, and even Min Young. It's what makes it such a good drama. One of the best of 2023 to date.

Early on, I understood Woo Joo's need for revenge, and I appreciate her family's reaction to her falling in love with the sworn enemy's son. But I can't find fault in Woo Joo catching feelings for him. What hurts most is that Han Dong Jin was unfairly judged for being the enemy's son. Even before knowing what kind of person he was, they had already considered him as foul as his mother. The sad thing is that when people judge others, they do not define them; they define themselves.

I wish Woo Joo had just opened up to Han Dong Jin, but then life is so much more complex than that. Despite growing up with a selfish mother, I love the person and man he's become. To think that this world has a parent like his makes me cringe and filled with sorrow. I cannot comprehend parents like her, but I now fully understand the saying that every child deserves a parent, but not every parent deserves a child. People say we are products of our environment, but I tend to agree with those who say we are products of our choices despite our environment.

Life is so unfair at times, but it's also a string of natural and unexpected changes and opportunities for growth, despite or maybe because of it. It's admirable how far everyone in this drama comes, or maybe a better word is grows, especially Woo Joo and Hye Seong. I love that falling in love doesn't distinguish between enemies or friends. It doesn't follow human-set cultures or blind traditions. It happens because it's right and, in the process, changes everything for the better.

I love this drama and how everything, spoken and unspoken words, movements, stares- has meaning. It just clicks and falls into place despite how complex we humans can get, as it happened for Woo Joo and Dong Jin and Yoon Joon and Hye Seong. I value this drama for conveying that life is a matter of choices. Just because something is traditional or culturally acceptable, or not for that matter, is no reason to continue, especially when it causes more harm than good. As they say, one's tradition and culture should be a guide, not a jailor. As I said, I wasn't prepared for how much I would enjoy this drama, and to think I almost didn't watch it because of its title. A lesson learned never again to judge a drama by its title.

They say to engage an audience and have them relate to the characters in a story, character development is critical, and if there was any drama that had that in abundance, it's this one. Throughout the 16-week journey, all the characters, even the horrid mom, grew tremendously. What made this drama special was how convincing the actors were, but more importantly, the dialogue and the talking back and forth were beautifully done. I love the message too. Love can forgive all if we let it. All the actors were outstanding, but Kim Young Kwang stood out to me the most. He was just superb. Kudos to everyone involved with this heartwarming drama. Watch it, it will not disappoint you.

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An uncommonly, almost tenderly told revenge story

"Call it Love" begins with a quote from a writer about love, followed by a voiceover radio announcer's summary: "To understand the loneliness of others, for me, that's the beginning of love." Beautiful, sensitive words... and at the same time: the grounding of this KDrama.

There are so many lonely people out there (even if that doesn't necessarily mean they're alone). There are also those who recognize the other in their loneliness. Love in different facets swings back and forth between each episode - quietly, tenderly, unspoken, then also outspoken, sometimes here, sometimes there. In the case of Shim Woo-joo and Han Dong-jin, despite barriers love like determined water finds its way.

The KDrama offers no ´boom-squish´, no spectacle, yet slow food for the heart. So slow, that it almost touches the edge of the bearable at times. Watching the two protagonists moving through scenes is almost like in slow motion. The facial features are minimal, too. However, it´s nevertheless expressive and intense. Tender emotions are held back, an the next moment some razor-sharp thoughts are communicated without hesitation – Woo-joo is good at that. She embodies a sharp mix of disinterest and impulsiveness. Dong-jin, for his part, is the master of outward indifference and equanimity, enduring life´s challenges quietly and good-naturedly – almost stoically. But both are basically victims of their learned helplessness and of being overwhelmed with their extremely ambivalent feelings towards their own parents. ´She´ is still bitter because of her cheating father, who left the family for another woman. His burden is his exalted mother, who notoriously charms other people's husbands and lives a ´good life´ at their expense, with her son being in the way and left with the father.

A web of loving people are surrounding both Woo-joo and Dong-jin. So, even if they may feel alone with their feelings, they really aren't. Woo-joo's friend, the pharmacist Yoon-jun, feels a lot more for Woo-joo. Dong-jin's school friend and business partner knows his buddy like the back of his hand. Then there's Woo-joo's sister, who for her part is struggling with dating and finally just discovers her feelings for Yoon-jun. And suddenly Dong-jin's ex-fiancé is back, who left him without a word a year ago, went to the USA and is now suddenly back, being ready for the next step. ... Somehow everyone seems a bit lost and sometimes awkward in their emotional life, as well as in their (traditional) family liabilities. They might feel lonely. But they are actually not alone.

Technically speaking, the plot aims for something completely different than romantic love: revenge is the driving force of the story. There's Woo-joo on her vendetta against the woman who stole her father and secured the house as an inheritance – with the vendetta actually targeting the son, Dong-jin. Then there is Dong-jin's former boss, who wants revenge for Dong-jin resigning along with his childhood friend from school to start a rival business. And there's the age-old dynamic between Woo-joo's mother and her rival who stole her husband years ago...

Somehow like balm: here the revenge motive can't prevail in the end. Rather, a gentle template of compassion and forgiveness settles over resentment and bitterness. Like a silk scarf, this compassion covers the wounds and thus changes, rather widens, the perspective. "To understand the loneliness of others, for me that is the beginning of love." In the end the truth of these words is revolving about much more than 'just' romantic love – the heart empathically banging on another one´s wall, makes the wall come down and healing become possible.

Gaze, movement as well as camera angles are chosen with care. Like that more than once time is frozen, sort of. Often enough, this KDrama is deliberately so slow that you might want to give the protagonists a nudge here and there. Paradoxically, this perceived standstill envelops the actually quite dynamic story, which gains its drive from the revenge motive and knows very well how to come up with tension, too. This idiosyncratic mixture of dramatic events and moments of standstill, of revenge and honest love, results in a very unique, ambivalent, subtly burned-in dynamic and elusive fascination for this KDrama. Cupid interjects encouragingly and does it well. Actors and actresses also successfully correspond with authentic emotion.

Ultimately, an uncommonly, almost tenderly told revenge story.

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I love melos and haven't seen one that really got my attention in a while

A romantic melodrama that depicts the story of a man and a woman who, exhausted from their harsh reality, begin to understand each other with new emotions and find themselves gradually changing.

The FL and her prickly attitude. I AM LOVING OUR CHAOTIC FEMALE LEAD.

First thing I really want to mention is how much I really like the entire Shim family. The siblings are adorable and the mother is a pretty nice person, now that we finally get a chance to know her. They are good people. It makes you even sadder that their father, who seemed to have a good relationship with them before, cheated on his wife and abandoned his family.

She really was dealt by life with so many shitty cards due to her father’s infidelity, and I think because of the trauma and environment she was raised in she was never able to fully express her opinion or be open about anything. She can speak about what’s on her mind about other things and people. But you can see her and her siblings struggle with being open and honest with each other - they instead choose to pretend to not notice things. So I can see why this is difficult for her.

The chemistry is WOW - Lee Sung Kyung and Kim Young Kwang both are incredibly expressive with micro expressions. The director and writers and actors are all incredible.

My heart broke for all of the characters. The oldest sister consumed by anxiety and the pressure of being the oldest, who feels like she failed her siblings by being weak minded. The mother who was ill later on but before that, disappeared when her kids needed her the most, consumed by the pain and anxiety of her husband’s betrayal. The FL who felt like the world was on her shoulders and that happiness never would be hers again. The brother who feels guilty for how immature he has been, but really doesn’t see that in normal circumstances it would be okay at his age to chase his dreams.

And then we have ML, I feel so bad for him because aside from the man who was his stepfather and took him camping, he has been so incredibly lonely. You really finally hear from him how badly his mother treated him, leaving him alone for days as a child while she pursued a married man. She failed him in so many ways, neglected and abused him, and never apologized for it. In fact, she continued to torture him and destroyed his personal relationships. His life revolved around the destructive hurricane that was his mother. When he said he never even called her mother then, I had tears in my eyes.

For a show about revenge, there’s just so much love. Romantic love, love between a parent and her three children, love between siblings, love between life long friends, love between co-workers.
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Let's conclude here :) hope you are convinced by my views and already started watching this ?❤️

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Best Healing show ever made

This is the best thing you will see in 2023. Its so comforting and healing and beautiful and soft that you will not want it to end. Its slow.. but not slow where you want to skip to other parts or you find it boring. No its slow in a very pleasing manner. When the characters find comfort and peace you will find it too. It honest about human emotions. The Characters are flawed and human and you love them.

The love that builds up between the two is so pure and beautiful and the way they both want to sacrifice every single peace in their life to just give a little comfort to the other is sooo soothing and so pure. They will forever be my favourite.

If you have not started watching it because of any reason, stop thinking and start it. Just start and you will never want to stop watching

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beautiful start into a melancholic love story but then...

after finishing this drama today I'm sad to say it jut get's a shaky 6 in the end - when it was almost a 9 for the first few episodes.

Why is that?


-this drama started sooo promising, good story with some kind of a fresh twist I like -
a male lead character who is handsome, rather rich but still very unhappy and lonely in his life. As a counterpart, a female lead character who is stubborn, painfully straight forward, but rather strong willed.
This is a mix I have rarely seenin K-dramas yet, and I feel it's refreshing and realistic to show that men, also handsome, rather successful men, can be unhappy and lonely and hurt.

The story was progressing rather slowly from the beginning and I did like that pace as the main characters neeed the time to find ways to reach each other, it only makes sense in all the story context.
I found the pace and development perfect until episode 7. From episode 8 on and I was a little worried that due to the fact this has 16 episodes, it suddenly started to drag.

The lead characters both around at least 30 or even 40, first needed some very understandable time to become aware of their feelings for each other, given they are both shy people when it comes to personal emotions, and given the difficult circumstances.
But from episodes 8 on we got more and more if these dragging scenes, the characters just standing around in slo-mo forever looking sad, or walking along a street in slo-mo. looking sad etc. It felt like time fillers to me from a certain point

We had the lead characters confessing their feelings for / to each other from episodes 8 to 10, they go camping together sleeping in the same small tent and spending the night there (the writers just completely leaving out what happened there? What did they talk about? how did they say good night? how did they interact? how was the next morning waking up togther etc. etc?)
We even have them spending a real night together as lovers, the fl openly confessing her love to the ml and then? Nothing, the next day these two people, who are not teenagers but between 30 and 40 years old and very good looking both of them, act like 13- year old teeagers, awkward, cold, distanced, even like they don't know each other personally? I didn't find that convincing.

(In reality: These two lead characters have been drawn to each other for what feels like forever. They finally spend the night together. Yeah, you know what would happen after that? If you ever had that situation yourself with such a prolonged...'forepaly', you know exactly that hormones are in crazy mode after spending such first night finally, and there is no way these two people would act like strangers and all cold the next day. Normally, after all that and confessing to each other, you search the next possible time window to spend more time together and you definitely interact differently, even when it's small things, and you look at each other differently.)

After epsiode 12 the dragging gets worse. There are so many silent scenes in slow motion repeating themselves, where you see either the ml or the fl walking down any street suuuperslowly (especially the fl), looking dazed and sad, or the ml sitting somewhere (either his appartment, a noodle shop or his office) looking blank and sad.
It was just too much of that slow motion walking and looking sad for me. You can use that to accentuate important moments, or moments of real daze and sadness, but when it is used like here the effect wears off and it feels artficial and annoying.

So, the story unfolds, the ml finally hears that the fl is the daughter of his dead stepdad and one of the siblings who got thrown out of their house because of his bitchy, nasty mother. He tries everything to clear the situation, even gets them the house back.
His mother, remaining the nastiest person, gets forgiveness from everyone (which I find HIGHLY unbelievable, especially because she did not change one bit and was just a bit softer for a short moment because she felt pity for herself for having been caught.) What happens to her in the end? We don't really get to know.

I found the last two episodes even worse to be honest. Apart from lots more dragging slow-mo scenes, we suddenly see the pharmacy guy getting together with the fl's older sister - which felt forced to me. I didn't feel like that could have really happened like it did, simply because the pharmacy guy had strong feelings for the fl for years. Suddenly switching to her sister felt strange to me.

So, back to the leads; after all is cleared, surprisingly everyone forgave the ml's awful mother, the siblings get back the house etc - and our leads? - still do a supertragic ' we have to seperate, goodbye forever' - ending of their relationship at a point when it's not necessary anymore? Oo (All of it by the way with both of them having almost robotic blank and sad facial expressions all the time, even when they are alone with each other in the woods.) Ok, even if so, and although I don't get why at that point, they don't do it the way most probably would, by particularly _not_ meeting again to not make it even more hurtful, but istead send a message or talk on the phone to say goodbye, - our leads? They go the extra painful length of driving out of Seoul two hours to go to the favourite wooden trail of the ml, walking together in the sunshine at the most romantic place to then really, expresionlessly, saying goodbye in front of the fl's house? No way!

Then, a time jump all of a sudden, one year later. So for some unknown reason the leads really haven't seen each other for a full year. Then, for further unknown reasons, the older sister suddenly tells the flthat their mother kind of forgave the ml already a year ago (which makes me wonder why the mother wouldn't have told the fl herself a long time ago knowing perfectly well how much her daughter is in love with the guy), the brother sets up a meeting of the leads at a rooftop concert, they both get there, the ml has a bunch of flowers, (endless slow motion again Oo) - they smile at each other and?.....THE END?

I was just annoyed at the end, thinking like what? Why? Why didn't the mother tell her way before she forgave the ml? Why didn't they get together after it was all cleared up a year earlier and instead do this reall weird break up scene with the wooden trail? Why all of a sudden can they now meet exactly a year later, why the flowers, why now? What then?

And I just couldn't get past this unchanged behaviour of the leads after they had spent that night together, I felt like I just saw they were actors acting, and that these two people have not spent a night together. You know, when you are in love like that, when there is such longing, and after you have finally spent a night together, knowing the other person intimately, their body, their scent, etc, you just look at each other differently, you act differently etc. It was just obvious it was an artificial script with two actors who played their roles like it was written down, but these two characters didn't really exist and they were not in love or had spend a night a after a long time of longing for each other.

All in all, almost the whole second half of the episodes was rather disappointing and it got worse with every episode. If the writers would have kept the good tension and realistic vibe they had from episode 1-7, It could have been one of the best and most touching stories in a long time then.

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Enjoying the angst that comes from misplaced revenge.

Call It Love was emotionally aesthetically pleasing. What I mean is, even the sadness, anger, frustration, regret - all were presented in a way that did not make me feel emotionally exhausted and tired. I was relating to and appreciating the sorrow.

What the show did an amazing job with was showing different sides of psychological issues - for some people it makes them completely detached from social interaction, for some it makes them forget about their needs, others would focus on the negative emotions as their driving force, some would be able to accommodate their lives around their issues. Depending on the character, their personality and past experiences, we saw all the different sides of how we as humans deal with difficult emotions.

About the cast - we got blessed with some well written and complex characters and well delivered portrayals of them. How the same people could be victims and perpetrators. How everyone had to learn from their mistakes and figure out how to set boundaries, but also respect the boundaries others set. How to understand yourself and be able to communicate with others. How to move on from past, how to move forward with the future, how to find happiness and peace.

Were all the characters well written, with many layers? Not quite. While Ahn Hee Yeon did a good job with her performance, Kang Min Young did not exactly have much to offer except from being yet another external factor the leads had to deal with. Similarly, Choi Sun Woo existed only in the context of leads’ issues and struggles, and presented no personal plotlines.

Cast wise, Kim Young Kwang ate the role. One of the most versatile actors we get in mainstream shows. Can do drama, action, comedy, romance, thriller - you name it and you will get it in one of his roles. In Call It Love he presented so many raw emotions from Han Dong Jin. Even though the character was not an open book, not the most expressive guy out there, it was still clear for the viewers what he was going through, what he was thinking and feeling.

At the same time, while for most scenes Lee Sung Kyung did great (it’s a role we have not seen her in yet), there were just a few moments where her delivery was too monotone and at times felt empty.

As for the production - I loved it, but I can see why someone else could hate it. The colors were not saturated enough and the whole show was presented in this pink/purple filter. For me, it perfectly fitted the overall mood of the drama, adding to the melancholic and stoic feeling. What also caught my attention was how the shots were centered vertically. In many the characters were presented in only 1/3rd of the screen. For me it seemed like the same way they were not centered in the frame, they were also not centered in their lives - still unsure about their place, a bit lost in their surroundings.

All that said, it’s a typical “you either vibe with it or not” drama. The same visual aspects I loved could look ugly and weird for others. The same characters I related to and enjoyed analyzing could be frustrating and unrealistic for others. The same dialogues I found touching, others could see as faking profoundness with no depth.

Why not a perfect 10 from me? I did not like some of the conclusions and I wished a few characters were developed better. For such a complex situation the drama presents, some aspects just lacked nuance.

Overall, I already miss this drama.

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A gloomy, purplish masterpiece

Call it love. As the title suggests, we are invited to watch another drama revolving around LOVE. But what kind of love?

This Drama is so typical; it is a melodramatic, slow-burn, revenge type of drama. If you have seen such a genre, then you won't be surprised, but this drama in essence is quite different from the rest.

Plot Summary:
Revenge, adultery, drama, and romance, all depict this drama. A very average, yet very vengeful girl is set out to avenge their shattered family after their father cheats on their mom and makes them homeless after 13 years. But who does she go after? The mistress's son who happens to be a CEO living a somewhat OK life. but that's the just surface. There is more to it. As the story goes, the leads get to know each other and yes Fall in love. The Love is slow-burn, with long gazes, and minimum physical contact, the type that makes you crave more. The leads are both very hurt and depressed, and you will get to see them crying a lot, but the romance is so deep that keeps you going.

Acting:
Both leads delivered a wonderful job. You get to feel their pain and growth as the series goes. Definitely one of those dramas that need an appraisal for the leads. Just look at their direct gazes and long silent walks. even their very short intimate scene was beautiful.
Even the villain exhibited proper character development and other actors/actresses delivered their respective roles decently.

Writing:
I'm not familiar with the writing team, but this drama is not without fault, however, most of the questions are answered in the end. There are no loopholes or over-complicated plots, yet the drama became slow in the last few episodes. Plus, the leads needed to have more skinship/intimate scenes for the audience to enjoy their relationship better, but that's how Kdramas are. Always trying to be artistic and different.

Production and cinematography:
One thing i heard a lot before starting this drama was that many said the drama has a purple theme. That's true and it can be annoying to some, yet i personally enjoyed it. Why? because the color itself could depict how the leads were in pain and how the story wasn't happy. it's actually a psychological effect and the writers used this deliberately to play with our minds. it can be irritating at first, but as the story continued, i felt more and more in sync with the color.
The locations used in this drama are SUPERB. Beautiful sceneries and aesthetics. are one of the great aspects of this drama, Again in sync with the characters and the story's gloomy theme.

Soundtrack:
Beautiful choice of songs. All convey the feelings of pain and love at the same time. Wish i could find the background music pieces by the composer, yet we only got the original songs so far. No theme songs.

Overall, it's a 10/10 for me personally, yet had i to deduct a point for the fact that the leads had very little skinship and in my honest opinion, romantic dramas need intimacy on-screen.
Highly recommended to those who want LOVE and ANGST at the same time. and the ending doesn't disappoint too :)

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Got me out of my kdrama slump

Book Hangover - the feeling when a reader finishes a book—usually fiction—and they can't stop thinking about the fictional world that has run out of pages. Never had this feeling for a drama before, and I'm still reeling from the effect this drama has had on me.
Call it love, is a show I didn't know I was looking for the past year. I've been in a kdrama slump and have dropped multiple shows this year, Call it love was one of them. I watched the first episode and everything about the show just felt very depressing (the sad faces of the ML and FL, the colour effects). But something made me pick it back up recently and I'm so glad I did.

This show is what I felt was missing from the recent kdrama world, the reason I fell in love with kdramas - passionate, undying love stories; just stories about two people and how they fall in love. A love that in this current world that almost seems impossible to have.

Call it love was heartfelt and intense. All the emotions felt by two people just expressed through their eyes. I felt their love and their pain. They way their relationship progressed was so seamless and natural.
The ML and FL did a great job show casing their flawed characters. At times they felt like the most boring people in the world but you are still rooting for them. The FL did a great acting job showing her attraction to the ML at the same time the pain of being attracted to him and not being able to tell him who she is. My first show of the the ML and now i'm going to watch more of his shows.

On a lighter note, I just wish the ML put his hair up :), annoyed me a lot.

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Call it yawn saga!

I enjoyed it less than I assumed I would. Slice of life is my jam and I was looking forward for this show. The initial 6-7 episodes were the best and I didn't want to stop binging. From there onwards, the show became a big nothing. The middle section was still bearable with few draggy scenes which can be saved by ff. Towards the end, particularly 13-15 I lost interest.

For the MC, I liked the premise buildup. A FL captured by her past with spunky attitude and a ML , kind and caring, who would suffer in silence rather than lashing it out on others. The mood was intense whenever they were on screen and I couldn't wait for them to be together already. To some extent, i was able to relate Dong Jin with my experiences and how I am on some level similar to that. His stooped shoulders spoke about him more than his dialogues. I am sucker for still scenes. Scenes with silence have a certain healing element to them. And I have no complaint about the slow burn. But I was frustrated when the show went from a healing slice of life to what would happen if the secret is out. Also, I saw some comments on them being step siblings and its gross. Well I think it would depend on the culture itself. There are a certain section of culture where cousins are allowed to marry each other. Similarly, I think in Korea its not of a big issue if they are from different family registers and different surname. It could my understanding gap though.

Different from the comments on the second couple, I enjoyed them more than the leads and was got interested in their story in latter half. Their dynamic was organic and I wish it could have been explored more and in a better way. I liked how the communication flew naturally between them with no lies, Perhaps this is the best kind of relationship in my eyes, two people who have nothing to hide and can work it out with communication.

Also, there was less romance scenes. By that I mean not skinship moments rather the vibe you get when two people are in love. The smile, heart fluttering excitement when you see your partner, all that was lacking. Even after the couples getting together we get more sad vibes with scenes like them walking--standing staring at each other--crying -- or random scenes from office with them just sitting and working.

To add to the dragginess, the remaining set of characters bought nothing to the table. Heeja was insane beyond comprehension and my brain wanted to just skip her scenes, Minyoung had some depth in the middle when they were exploring why she broke up. I was not entirely convinced with arc, I understood where she was coming from and Hani did okay yet I didn't find much depth. The office politics was a yawn fest. The drama with FL mother was another cliche low value addition to the story. For somebody who was supposed to be sick, she was quite energetic and ignorant on her children's well being. Left them to survive on their own then coming and demanding they consider her feelings in all their decisions felt selfish because of which I was not able to sympathize with her. Sunwoo was a good though and I liked the friendship displayed.

As I said, my biggest complaint is that most of the scenes were bland and filled with will-he- find- out the secret and guilty FL which served no purpose, From meaningful conversations it became a crying fest soon. And the breakup was forced just to manufacture the feeling of longingness in the viewers.

I know a lot of people enjoyed the show but it didn't gel with me. Like I understood in a logical way yet it didn't hit me on an emotional level. For the first half it would be 8/10 but the second half is more like 2/10.

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Those healing and slow burn need more actions to keep me engaged.

Following her father’s death, Woo Joo and her siblings had to move out of their house when her father’s mistress kicked them out. Woo Joo wants revenge, so she starts working in the company owned by Dong Jin, who is the son of this mistress. However, she becomes conflicted when she starts falling in love with Dong Jin.

The first mention is this unique pinkish hue of all present-day scenes, that I'm very fond of; It’s got an artsy feel. Also, I love the sound design which emphasizing ASMR like footsteps or the crinkle of a plastic bag, and when the music plays, it's like a breath of fresh air from the heavy silence.

Another pro is the acting from the two leads. They're pretty much the main characters you'll connect with and it’s easy to root for. The siblings interaction is very real; They don't seem to be that close at first, yet they show a lot of care for one another. They might not be overly bonding, but at the end of the day, they love and care one another whenever they need it.
Now, the pacing is too slow for me. Every scene felt like it went on forever, I kept thinking, 'Is it just a minute?' It is not a good binge; I binged it in three days and felt a bit robbed. I keep watching it because it’s a promising story with a fresh twist.

Sadly, the later part of the story was disappointing: there’s a time jump and it just got much less interesting. I just couldn't get past the unchanged behavior of the leads after all their time spend together, their interactions don’t feel natural anymore. If the writers would have kept the good tension and realistic vibe they had from episode 1-7, It could have been one of the best and most touching stories in a long time then. So it didn't live up to my high expectations, but it is still a beautiful story about healing and finding solace in others.

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Jus 'call it LOVE'

I'd really watch too much dramas, some of them still makes me happy that I've been watched, of course some others just wasting time for me, but like My Liberation Notes, When the Weather is Fine, Summer Strike dramas were so heart warming, healing, hopefull and full of happiness for me, then just now I've finished the Call it Love about a half hour ago and really sorry for that I've finished so quick cause from now I've missed it already, it's a beautiful drama that I like to watch, all of the leads were absolutely wonderful, it's all so good from start till the end of the last scene, I also want to say that some long scenes between two leads really makes me fell happy, they were so deep that I couldn't love it

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A Melo That Surprised Me

Just like the headline says, this melodrama surprised the crap out of me. (Hope I can say that in a review lol) In all seriousness though, it really, really did. I usually pass on melos, though there have been a few exceptions. I wasn't expecting this one to be added to that list at all. After the first two episodes, I even got on the feeds and asked if the whole drama was depressing with these main characters living their lives like zombies. I picked it up again a few days later, wanting to at least give it a fair try. I was, quite literally, suddenly hooked. I have not binged a drama in a very long time. I'd say the last drama that deprived me of sleep was Gu Family Book. I completed Call It Love in a day and half.

I found myself emphasizing so much with Dongjin. Usually, I do that with the female characters, being a female myself, but Dongjin's life was very similar to mine. I, too, had had my heart ripped out by someone I loved and trusted for years and just like him, I fell into a long, deep depression. (It was years ago and I am fine now, btw mostly thanks to dramas actually.) Also like him, I had an absent mother similar to his,that I only saw occasionally until I was an adult. So I knew the character's pain very well and understood why he was like the way he was.

The story is sad, yet there is always this tension there with both characters that give you hope. Also, Shim Woo Jin is usually so straight foward and harsh in her words, yet her actions and especially facial expressions, really betray her true feelings. Lee Sung-kyung was absolutely brilliant there with showing the character's emotions with her eyes. She was also excellent in one scene where she delivers a powerful outburst with perfect emotion and confusion. I won't spoil it, but that part alone had my rating skyrocket because it moved me so much.

I do want to take special note of Sung Joon in this. This is the first drama I have seen with him in a few years and OMG did he suddenly turn from a boy into a man! His acting has improved, too. I used to get annoyed by him in dramas but he was great here and I was very impressed.

This drama hooks you in with wondering when these two will confront their feelings for each other. You are left with cliffhangers making you watch just one more episode to see if that will be the one. Then, eventually you are in the exact same dilemma, needing to watch just one more to see if they stay together snd if they have a happy ending.


In conclusion I would reccommend this to melo lovers. I would also urge those of you that hate melos to give it a fair chance like I did. Watch beyond ep two and see if it moves your heart, too.

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