equanimity
‘Cherish life and don't take each day for granted’
I picked this up because I was in the mood for a Korean family drama and because of Kim Tae Hee. I hardly watched her dramas, but I know that she was the so-called number one beauty in South Korea, so I just wanted to see her.
This drama was about Cha Yu Ri (Kim Tae Hee) while pregnant (her child was saved though), got hit by a car and died. She stayed on in the human world, watching her family and loved ones as a ghost (they couldn’t see, hear or feel her) and came back to life for 49 days after 5 years. If she managed to get back her original place that is, as wife of Cho Kang Hwa (Lee Kyu Hyung) and mother to her child, she could continue to live on, otherwise she would ‘die’ again and leave the world, but things were complicated because her husband remarried another woman, Oh Min Jung (Go Bo Gyul).
The good about this drama:
1. It reminded me of living a life without regrets. There were many meaningful sentences spoken in the drama and many a time, I was touched by them. The OST of the drama was also excellent in bringing out the emotions. If anything, this drama did remind me of living life happily, cherishing life and not taking each day for granted. And if there is something we want to do, we should do it now, because sometimes there is no tomorrow.
2. All the emotional scenes were convincingly done. The entire cast did well, especially Kim Tae Hee. I could literally feel her selfless love for her child. I believe this was because she just gave birth to her real daughter not long before she took on this role, so it should be quite natural for her.
The bad, though about this drama, were,
1. There were many other ghosts not related to Cha Yu Ri and her family in any way. Only snippets of their stories here and there throughout the drama, audience could not be vested into their stories, so they were more like fillers and distractions than anything else for the drama.
2. The female lead, Cha Yu Ri (Kim Tae Hee) coming back to life and having to leave after 49 days if she did not get her place back. I found this whole concept absurd and the scene where she came back to life, I found the entire scene bemusing. Her ranting, shouting, screaming at the top of her lungs on the street at the heavens up there and lo and behold, she suddenly became a human again, presumably having offended the gods up there or if we see it another way, presumably having touched heavens to turn her back to human again. I know fantasy dramas could be farfetched, but this was just ridiculous and absurd and didn't think it was that well done. Nevertheless, on hindsight, I guess the scriptwriter wanted to create this fantasy scenario out of a drama, whereby she came back to life and was able to say proper goodbyes to her family and loved ones before she ‘died’ again, which was of course something not possible in reality.
3. And then the reason why she came back to life was understood later. It was because her mother’s wish – which was to see her daughter once more. Her mother apparently wrote the wish on a piece of paper and the paper was hung with all others’ wishes in the temple. And after that she prayed every single day at the temple for this wish to come true. This was the illogical part to me. Just because of that, her daughter came back to life from dead?? Like, really?? Will this happen in real life?
4. There were lots of crying, saying sorry and thank you in the last few episodes. Really lots and lots of them. I had lost count of how many times ‘sorry’ was said in the last few episodes that they were no longer meaningful to me. And basically, Cha Yu Ri and many of the female characters were bawling their eyes out in the last 3-4 episodes. So much crying. Cha Yu Ri was saying sorry and thank you repeatedly in tears. By the last episode, I had enough. Such scenes, when shown repeatedly, lost their meaning when the reasons for the tears and apologies were the same over and over.
The ending was satisfying although not all ‘loose ends’ were tied properly. All in all, I would not use the sentence, ‘I enjoyed watching this drama’ because it was really heavy on the emotions in the last 5 episodes and only got heavier till the end of the drama, but I am not degrading this drama because it was meaningful and did remind me things about life which I had explained above.
And would I recommend this drama? Yes, if you are looking for a Korean family drama with many tearjerker-scenes and want to be reminded and be motivated to live more actively and meaningfully.
I know this is not something extraordinary, but it touched me when I was watching this scene. This was after her husband realized that Cha Yu Ri had been watching him for the past 5 years when she was a ghost. The conversation went like this:
Husband: “Weren’t you hurt when you saw me living a happy life without you? Were you okay with that?”
Cha Yu Ri: “It hurt. ….. A lot. …….Someone else was seeing the smile you used to make only at me. And someone else was holding the hand that only I used to hold. And someone else was in the place I was supposed to be at. It hurt.”
Husband: “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Cha Yu Ri: “But it hurt millions of times more seeing you cry alone. …….You woke up alone, watched Seo-woo alone and ate alone in an empty house without me. …. And you cried alone. …..That hurt so much that I didn’t even get jealous of the other person. It broke my heart but strangely I felt so relieved.
Husband: “I should’ve endured all that. It was something I should’ve endured even if it was agonizing. “
Cha Yu Ri: “You felt enough pain, you had endured enough. …… I only wanted one thing back then. ……I wanted you to put me behind you and go on with your life.”
Some afterthoughts:
1. The young 6-year-old Seo-woo, the daughter of Cha Yu Ri, is actually a boy! I was really taken aback and thought there was some mistake when I found out about this because he really looked like a girl in the drama with his two ponytails and pink clothing, but kudos to him, his acting was good and if the director had intended him to act like a cute little girl in this drama, it had been convincingly portrayed.
2. I have always felt so, but I am writing this out for the first time…The Koreans are indeed a community of people with strong emotions.
This drama was about Cha Yu Ri (Kim Tae Hee) while pregnant (her child was saved though), got hit by a car and died. She stayed on in the human world, watching her family and loved ones as a ghost (they couldn’t see, hear or feel her) and came back to life for 49 days after 5 years. If she managed to get back her original place that is, as wife of Cho Kang Hwa (Lee Kyu Hyung) and mother to her child, she could continue to live on, otherwise she would ‘die’ again and leave the world, but things were complicated because her husband remarried another woman, Oh Min Jung (Go Bo Gyul).
The good about this drama:
1. It reminded me of living a life without regrets. There were many meaningful sentences spoken in the drama and many a time, I was touched by them. The OST of the drama was also excellent in bringing out the emotions. If anything, this drama did remind me of living life happily, cherishing life and not taking each day for granted. And if there is something we want to do, we should do it now, because sometimes there is no tomorrow.
2. All the emotional scenes were convincingly done. The entire cast did well, especially Kim Tae Hee. I could literally feel her selfless love for her child. I believe this was because she just gave birth to her real daughter not long before she took on this role, so it should be quite natural for her.
The bad, though about this drama, were,
1. There were many other ghosts not related to Cha Yu Ri and her family in any way. Only snippets of their stories here and there throughout the drama, audience could not be vested into their stories, so they were more like fillers and distractions than anything else for the drama.
2. The female lead, Cha Yu Ri (Kim Tae Hee) coming back to life and having to leave after 49 days if she did not get her place back. I found this whole concept absurd and the scene where she came back to life, I found the entire scene bemusing. Her ranting, shouting, screaming at the top of her lungs on the street at the heavens up there and lo and behold, she suddenly became a human again, presumably having offended the gods up there or if we see it another way, presumably having touched heavens to turn her back to human again. I know fantasy dramas could be farfetched, but this was just ridiculous and absurd and didn't think it was that well done. Nevertheless, on hindsight, I guess the scriptwriter wanted to create this fantasy scenario out of a drama, whereby she came back to life and was able to say proper goodbyes to her family and loved ones before she ‘died’ again, which was of course something not possible in reality.
3. And then the reason why she came back to life was understood later. It was because her mother’s wish – which was to see her daughter once more. Her mother apparently wrote the wish on a piece of paper and the paper was hung with all others’ wishes in the temple. And after that she prayed every single day at the temple for this wish to come true. This was the illogical part to me. Just because of that, her daughter came back to life from dead?? Like, really?? Will this happen in real life?
4. There were lots of crying, saying sorry and thank you in the last few episodes. Really lots and lots of them. I had lost count of how many times ‘sorry’ was said in the last few episodes that they were no longer meaningful to me. And basically, Cha Yu Ri and many of the female characters were bawling their eyes out in the last 3-4 episodes. So much crying. Cha Yu Ri was saying sorry and thank you repeatedly in tears. By the last episode, I had enough. Such scenes, when shown repeatedly, lost their meaning when the reasons for the tears and apologies were the same over and over.
The ending was satisfying although not all ‘loose ends’ were tied properly. All in all, I would not use the sentence, ‘I enjoyed watching this drama’ because it was really heavy on the emotions in the last 5 episodes and only got heavier till the end of the drama, but I am not degrading this drama because it was meaningful and did remind me things about life which I had explained above.
And would I recommend this drama? Yes, if you are looking for a Korean family drama with many tearjerker-scenes and want to be reminded and be motivated to live more actively and meaningfully.
I know this is not something extraordinary, but it touched me when I was watching this scene. This was after her husband realized that Cha Yu Ri had been watching him for the past 5 years when she was a ghost. The conversation went like this:
Husband: “Weren’t you hurt when you saw me living a happy life without you? Were you okay with that?”
Cha Yu Ri: “It hurt. ….. A lot. …….Someone else was seeing the smile you used to make only at me. And someone else was holding the hand that only I used to hold. And someone else was in the place I was supposed to be at. It hurt.”
Husband: “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Cha Yu Ri: “But it hurt millions of times more seeing you cry alone. …….You woke up alone, watched Seo-woo alone and ate alone in an empty house without me. …. And you cried alone. …..That hurt so much that I didn’t even get jealous of the other person. It broke my heart but strangely I felt so relieved.
Husband: “I should’ve endured all that. It was something I should’ve endured even if it was agonizing. “
Cha Yu Ri: “You felt enough pain, you had endured enough. …… I only wanted one thing back then. ……I wanted you to put me behind you and go on with your life.”
Some afterthoughts:
1. The young 6-year-old Seo-woo, the daughter of Cha Yu Ri, is actually a boy! I was really taken aback and thought there was some mistake when I found out about this because he really looked like a girl in the drama with his two ponytails and pink clothing, but kudos to him, his acting was good and if the director had intended him to act like a cute little girl in this drama, it had been convincingly portrayed.
2. I have always felt so, but I am writing this out for the first time…The Koreans are indeed a community of people with strong emotions.
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