Call It Love (2023)

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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Quiet and emotional

This is a moody drama. The colour, tone, dialogue, music, it's all melancholic. Especially the silences. All the gaps in between that would typically make me feel so impatient, instead felt heavy and meaningful. Never felt slow to me for a second. Phenomenal acting by the leads, as two people trapped in a harsh, dull, resentful and exhausting reality. But the heartaches become heartfelt moments soon and there's one around every corner, paving a path to healing. A set of support characters given the right amount of focus not too long nor short. Overall it's a bumpy, teary ride but one I thought was worth it for the moments that make you feel light towards the end.

Did not feel like a typical healing drama with motivational messages and laughter and love all the way. But there is still a lot of depth that can impress and reel you and leave you feeling full. A 10/10 for me, but be sure this is what you're looking for when you go in.

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Support. Consolation. Love

It’s been a while since I felt butterflies in my stomach from a Kdrama. This is slow burn romance done right.

The pacing might intimidate you at first but if you hang on the first few episodes, you will begin to appreciate the calmness and beauty of this drama. I love the ML and FL’s performance. Their chemistry is on point.

I really enjoyed watching this. It made me want to fall in love. Not to mention how I love how mature their love is. Their breakup at one point is the healthiest I’ve seen in any Kdrama. It may not be always the case in real life since humans tend to have messy partings, but at least theirs was an example to strive for.

I also love the cinematography, lightning, soundtrack.

Is it worth a rewatch? Definitely for me because I feel like there’s still a life or love lesson to pick up that I can savor and digest which I might have missed on my first watch.

Congratulations to Team Call It Love! It was an amazing ride!

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Just cant emphasize enough on how much i loved this

I love it when leads are binded into complicated fate despite loving eachother , staying together becomes difficult, just my cup of tea.

Now this is what is called plot development, you can clearly point out the influence the leads had on each other.Relationships that help you grow as a person are the best and we got to see it here, clearly Shim WooJoo will remain as one of the unique and beautifully written women characters in my memory, she does'nt hesistate to speak her mind which makes her appear as cold and rude but to me as an audience felt totally refreshing to hear as we in real lifes would want to went out all our frustration but would hesitate.

Han Dongjin again a very well written character, no one can be perfect and characters like these makes the drama more realistic and loveable. Despite growing up under some unfortunate circumstances i loved how the 3 siblings and Dongjin were living a very independent and respectable life. I also loved haesung and yoonjoon.

Dialogues are very well written, there is not a single thing i disliked in this drama. I loved it how the family opened up to each other and communicated all that has happened in their lives so far, we could see how the leads personalities changed towards the end and i didnot question a single thing that happened here the transition was amazing and smooth . I wonder why i skipped it while it was on air but glad that i binge watched it now . I actually wanted more of this but good that they ended it the way they did . Super satisfied

What! Kim young kwang and lee sung kyung were in this drama but all i could see were just Han Dongjin and Shim woojoo. I found myself bawling many times while they were just speaking to each other with straight faces that is when i realised i was way too much empatising with their pain which made me cry even more.

Definetly this is not for everyone, to sum it up i would say this is a melo drama which involves complicated feelings also this is themed to be sad so all the ep's had dim screen tone which most of them might not like but that added more to the emotions.
Soooooo if u want to experience virtual pain , witness beauty of love and relatinships, Give this a try

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stole my breath...

I haven't seen such a good melo drama in a long time. this drama has everything I like, excellent acting, well-built characters, a beauty in the scenes that makes you feel so good.
And here I want to congratulate the film crew and whoever directed it because each episode was like a painting, it was pure poetry. I'm so grateful to be able to watch this drama and go through all the evolution of the characters, and what a great evolution they've had.
If you're thinking about watching it but don't know yet, go and watch it, it's worth it. each episode is well constructed and has a sensitivity that often left me with tears in my eyes.
There is a part that describes exactly what this series made me feel: support, comfort and love, if I have to resume what this series gonna make you feel, those would be the three words I would use.
I sincerely hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
ps.: I'm not that good at writing reviews but I wanted to leave here my simple opinion that this drama is beautiful

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Calm and soothing cinematic kdrama

The cinematography is really one of the best ever produced for a kdrama, even a simple scene is shot beautifully with amazing perspectives and delicate touches. The storyline setting is also quite refreshing, the buildup it has is insane right from the start till the end, the pacing could be a little on the slower side but still totally serviceable due to its artistic choices of the drama. The acting performance though is just unbelievable, the chemistry between Kim Young Kwang and Lee Sung Kyung is over the roof, their gaze is magnificent and perfect for the roles. For those who want to get into a calm and soothing cinematic kdrama, this will be the best of this year.

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The Journey of Forgiveness

This series is about how love can remove all hatred and grudges. With a slow pace, a small amount of dialogue between Shim Woo Joo and Han Dong Jin, and the color tones chosen successfully make us feel the emotions felt by the characters. Maybe for some people, this series is boring because of its slow pace but according to me, this is the advantage of this series.

Week by week we are introduced to Woo Joo and Dong Jin more closely, how they feel hopeless in life with the burden that each of them bears but are interrelated because of Dong Jin's mother. How after getting to know each other Woo Joo realized that Dong Jin also suffered because of his mother's behavior. From a sense of caring, love finally emerged but Woo Joo also could not forget the grudge of his family.

A beautiful story about making peace with circumstances, the courage to seek happiness in life, and becoming a better version of yourself and then returning to the one you love.

Great acting and chemistry from Lee Sung-Kyung and Kim Young-Kwang. Even if we just look at them or sit side by side, we can feel the emotional turbulence they have. Because not everyone can express their emotions no matter how angry they are.

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A very strange and enjoyable drama but not for everybody.

1/ STORY:

The story is simple and cliché about a woman falling for the wrong guy and things become complicated when he falls for her too. Nothing special and the story could be summarized with 50 words. The good thing of this drama is that it throws the viewer into an intimate connection with the characters using a pinkish filter and a very slow pace. The viewer is able to put himself in their shoes to understand where they come from and why they do what they do. The drama is a gallery of portraits and characters with their qualities and flaws and their understanding of the situation they are in. They are simple people stuck in their own little world but they face hurdles that force them change their point of view and open themselves to each other because they care for each other and they want to do things right in their own pov.

2/ CHARACTERS / CAST:

Very relatable and endearing lead characters. They have their flaws but these are understandable considering what they went throught. FL is the main character. She is reckless and daring but also protective and caring. ML is a loner who suffered a lot from others' actions but he is taken aback by FL. Lee Sung Kyung and Kim young Kwang did great portraying these two characters. Loved the emotions and lack of emotions they conveyed. Secondary characters are good supporting characters despite being less interesting.

3/ OST: Good without being special.

4/ REWATCH VALUE: Not sure I will rewatch it. It is very slow and it is not a roller coaster of emotions. It is more like an intimate experience.

5/OVERALL:

I loved watching this drama week in week out and I totally recommend it to the ones who are not afraid of slow paced drama and are ready to feed themselves with the words and emotions of the different characters.

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Starts great … but

Every time, I see a high rating on 16-20 episodes Kdrama lately, I’m always wary about it. And praying that once i start binge watching it wouldn’t disappoint me midway. I was truly enjoying this drama, until midday and my fear come true. Casting was amazing, I just Wished they flushed out most of the characters and made it a solid drama from start to end.

Once the main couple got together; which I thought They could survive no matter what writers had to mess it up by bringing the usual cliches of “sick” mother who will chose some form of revenge instead of their own kid’s happiness. I wish they showed how these siblings worked hard to heal from the trauma, instead of one always being angry, the other relationship jumping and the brother who was still lost in all of it. They could’ve done so much more than fall into the cliches ending.

Overall it was a good series that lost the plot midway.

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Korean parents or How To Ruin Your Kids' Lives!

If we are to draw conclusions about the korean society from their dramas, I'd say it is the parents who are destroying it by controlling kids under the guise of "it's for YOUR own good (and for MY reputation in the neighbourhood)!" Korea has a very big problem with birth rate which is amongst ,if not THE lowest in the world! Why? Just look how Korean parents suffocate and try to control their children making them utterly miserable and unwilling to procreate by trying hard not to merry or/and have children.

This drama is one glaring testimony of it. The kids are miserable and are forced to suffer and pay for their parents' sins. And why is that? Because the society won't let them do otherwise: everyone is busibody, making judgements on other people's lives and being afraid to be free and live their life the way they want it in order to be happy. In all these dramas, kids are forced to live up to demands and ambitions of the parents. Resulting in a lot of unhappiness and misery. But the appearances are saved and that is what seems to be the most important to parents. The appearances and not their own children's happiness. So sad!

Call It Love talks about three such families.
One is destroyed by a father abandoning them following an affair. The three children were left to fend for themselves and protect their mother. The person really left in charge was the middle child when she was 17, ruining her life, sports career and any feelings of happiness.
The second one is the pharmacist under constant scrutiny from his parents who are demanding of him to get married which he finds more and more difficult to avoid.
The third is a CEO of fair organizers' company whose mother's philandering ways have made him miserable, taciturn and withdrawn.
Their interactions make for the most of this wonderful and beautiful drama.

This is my favourite kind of drama, slow burn, slice of life. While I was watching it, I was constantly reminded of My Mister not because of the plot but because of the overall feeling and the pace of both dramas which are identical. Here the misery overflows. Both main characters are poster children for unhappy, miserable, unsmiling people. Being with each other, gives them an inkling of what happiness might look like. If only, as one of them says so at one point, they were all alone in the world!

But there were not only parents working hard in ruining the kids' lives. There was also an older sister who did her best to ruin further her younger sister's already miserable existence with her jealousy and envy. That one drove me mad: she took out her own insecurities and pounced on her sister when she was the most vulnerable instead of supporting her, she decided, all of a sudden, to act as adult she never was before! And of course she failed miserably but she achieved her goal of making her sister even more unhappy. She tried to make amends later but it was too little to late!

The pace is extremely slow but not for a minute, I found it boring! It flowed, slowly but it moved on forward. This slow pace, made me take notice and really admire cinematography. It was stunning. The colours were all dull, subdued, just like the feeling of the drama. The amazing part was framing of scenes both in technical aspect and literal one. There were some very interesting camera angles: from above and as well cutting the actors practicall off, making them very small and low on the screen and therefore making them almost disappear in the surroundings. There were many travelling shots: camera moving at a constant speed straight left to right to left or zooming in and out. And mostly there were real frames around actors in scenes: windows, walls etc. creating a photo frame !

I know absolutely nothing about cinematography and camera work but I notice things. And this drama is worth watching for this!

The actors were perfect. The music sad as prescribed! It was a perfect slow burn melodrama /slice of life. I was debating with myself whether to give it 9.5 or 10 which almost never happens with me! Since I consider that nothing is ever perfect though this was approaching it!

And then they went on and ruined a perfect slow burn drama with a trope filled last episode. The writers decided to go down the well trodden path of break up and time skip which were both completely unnecessary with the awful sister adding another layer of contempt for her sister by trying to make amends a year too late! Thank god for the youngest brother who seemed to be less affected by grown ups' (i.e. parents'!) problems and decided to act as Cupid.

Misery loves company! And this drama kept me company!

One more word of wisdom from the main character: When I feel down, I look up other people's lives on line and realize I am not that bad off, that there are people much more unhappy than myself.

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A feel-good series with an endearing CL

The story of a girl (FL = Lee Sung Kyung) thrown out of her home with her brother and sister by her father's last wife after his death. She wants revenge, goes to work with the son of the bad wife, ML = Kim Young Kwan. She thought the son was shameless like his mother, but she soon discovers that this is not the case and her business is facing difficulties. She couldn't stop to boss him around and they tend to be attracted to each other.

PROS:
+ A duo of great actors, Lee Sung Kyung and Kim Young Kwan, who bring their characters to life with great talent. This couple is very endearing and shows great chemistry.
+ This is a slow-burn story on the daily life of employees, on family, friendship.
+ OSTs are sweet, pleasant and amplify emotions.
+ Narration is dynamic, without lenght
+ the drama allows us to discover some magnificent landscapes (it makes me want to go to Korea ;)

CONS:
- The character of the mother is detestable, a little excessive, but I suppose parents like that exist in real life.

=> Don't hesitate, it's a touching and comforting drama.

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What Do You Call Love?

I took my time writing this review because I wanted to digest such a wonderfully well executed drama.

We all have high expectations when watching these dramas. Why? Because we invest so many hours each week watching episodes. This drama is a hidden gem that you will definitely want to watch. The title, "Call It Love" you are drawn to it because we see these two beautiful people looking at each other and think what a great love story, I'm getting ready to watch. Which it is but, it isn't your "traditional" love story; we all think of as, Boy meets girl. They fall in love. Couple has issues with their families, an adversary to break up the couple, couple gets back together, and, in the end, true love prevails. In my opinion this isn't that type of love story.

Lee Sung Kyung as Shim Woo Joo is our main character that has decided to make things right by seeking revenge and getting justice in the loss of their family home. She does this by getting close and working at the same company as Han Dong Jin. Seeing Shim Woo Joo for the first time, you see a woman that has eyes that are expressionless, you can't read her due to the aloofness. She has a coldness that emulates her every fiber along with her no-filter type of personality which I believe is her mechanism to keep people at bay. But there is another side that she saves and hides which is a supportive, caring, loving individual that has such pain that you want to just want to wrap your arms around her. The first few minutes of just seeing her I could tell she would give us a performance to remember. And she did in spades!

Kim Young Kwang as Han Dong Jin was the male lead that was in some respects a man that had the "weight of the world" on him. He was reserved, quiet, thoughtful, and loved his mother unconditionally, which was his weakness and his downfall. When he found out everything that Shim Woo Joo had done, he felt more pain and sorrow for what his mother had done to Shim Woo Joo's family. So as the saying goes, "the sins of his mother" became the "sins of the son" which HE willingly accepted because of his love for his mother. But then after all was said and done, we got to see him go his journey of self-discovery and eventual happiness. Another poignant performance which held you.

Lee Sung Kyung and Kim Young Kwang in this drama were so well suited and cast. Each scene they were in together just held us all in the palm of their hands relishing such thought-provoking performances. We didn't even need them to speak because them not speaking made us get to see the emotions that their silence portrayed to us their every gesture, look, glance, smile, and we were so honored to be a part of those beautiful moments by this extraordinary couple.

There were so many nuances that touch you but two in particular for me.

The first was when Shim Woo Joo's mother was meeting Han Dong Jin's mother at the home which her husband had left to the children, and it was first time they were meeting. This to me was a pivotal moment for Shim Woo Joo's mother because she had the flashback to when she left the house and smashed the potted plant at the bottom of the stairs. Her remembering this, and seeing her expression, the sigh that she let out, meant she had finally left all those emotions of her husband leaving her with that smashed potted plant all those years ago. She now had the strength to confront this woman that no longer held any meaning to what had happened.

The second scene which I believe was so meaningful was when Shim Woo Joo and Han Dong Jin were standing in front of the house and Shim Woo Joo was telling him everything about the revenge that she wanted to take to get the house back. But as in usual fashion for Han Dong Jin he knew that Shim Woo Joo did not mean to hurt him per se, hence him saying to her, "Because you didn't. But in the end, you couldn't take your revenge on me. I wasn't ruined." He wasn't ruined. How profound is that? After everything that had transpired, his only thought was she didn't ruin me. He wasn't feeling any animosity towards her because he had fallen in love with her as she with him.

They both in some respect would have come out of this situation unscathed but there were still ramifications that did follow so they accepted their fate and broke up. But like all things it takes time for everyone to take a beat, step away and just let go of what no longer matters. Love in the end did go full circle bringing the happiness that everyone deserved.

This drama really had so many meanings that everyone of us can take as we see. I fully enjoyed every moment of it. There is so much more I could write but I feel you need to experience this drama for yourself. Take the time and watch it.

And keep in mind as you are watching it; What is your meaning of love? What do you call love? Think about it...

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