Synopsis:
Kang Da Jung, played by Seo Hyun Jin, is a hotel manager at a five star hotel and is successful at what she does. However, her love life does not reflect her work life. She doesn't choose lovers with the same success. She continuously falls for men who, much like her father end up being deadbeats. She moves to Seoul for a better life when she meets Choi Jung Min, played by Yoon Park, who is a seemingly happy and carefree guy who has fallen head over heals in love with Da Jung. She has her reservations about dating him though because of her knack for attracting the wrong kind of men. Along comes Joo Young Do, played by Kim Dong Wook, who is an overworked, ailing, and lonely psychiatrist who senses all is not as is seems with Jung Min. Flash forward a few episodes later and Jung Min commits suicide as recompense for allegedly murdering several people. Then the real story begins.
Review:
Welcome back, if you are a new reader let me explain how I rate my dramas. I rate my dramas on mainly two categories, storytelling, and direction. Under Storytelling, I take into account not just the acting, but the writing, and music as well. It is usually presented as a percentage. Under the category direction, I consider both editing and direction, editing counts for 2 points while direction counts for 3. It'll be out 5. I call them my sticky notes because that tends to be what I write my thoughts on when I'm watching. I gave this series a 85% for storytelling and a 3/5 for direction.
As much as I love a good mystery drama and film, this one left me wanting for more. You can almost split the drama into two different dramas and it wouldn't have suffered. The beginning of You Are My Spring married the two proponents of the series well, but toward the middle they started to split like the titanic and by the time the series ended the deck of the both plots has basically completely severed. Unfortunate, because had both the murder mystery and the romance finsihed well together the would have been somethign to watch again.
The beginning had so much promise, but the writer started to ignore the peanut
butter (the murder mystery) to it's jelly (the romance). Too much jelly and very little peanut butter makes for an inedible sandwich. After the romance started to take off any character or story regarding the the murder aspect was brushed to the side collecting proverbial drama dust only to be cracked open on rare occasions.
One character that I felt was neglected way too much and I feel unfinished with the overall arc of their story was, Dr. Ian Chase, which is a real shame because Yoon Park was doing great playing double characters. He was robbed of a complete story arch or
even development as a character. He is basically stunted at episode 10 or something like that and on the rare occasion visited again to see what he is up to. Hint, he is still in the same place the writer dropped him. It's almost as if the writer thought, oh yeah there was a third main character, oops here's a scene.
There are many philipsophical moments in this drama especially when the voice over of Joo Young Do is describing human emotion that is intended behind basic human
interactions. This is a healing drama, about four broken people trying to cope with the challenges of life. Unfortunately only two of the main character's are allowed to heal while the others die, or are ignored (can you tell I'm salty?). Well, I suppose three side characters are also allowed to heal, Kang Tae Jun, Park Eun Ha, and Ahn Ga Young. I just wanted to put out a little WHOOPEE for those Tae Jun and Eun Ha because I had the same idea for those two character's as the writer.
Anyway, the cinematography was great but I can't just blame the writer for the lack of development in the subplots and the murder aspect, that also falls onto the director. I
just could not understand the director's reason for abandoning a whole aspect of the series. Parts of the editing I didn't enjoy. The scenes were we jump from the romantic side of the series to the tortured uncertain Dr. Chase the jump is not smooth. It feels like an afterthought insert, something put in last minute.
Kang Da Jung and Joo Young Do are great actors and I loved their dynamic worked well. Their chemistry was great. Although, I do not remember a kiss. I remember hand holding, and declarations of love, even physical affirmations but I don't actually remember a kiss. . . Hmm.
Anyway, that was my take on the You Are my Spring. As you can tell it wasn't my favorite, it is worth a watch though, but it won't be something I will be revisiting. I feel like some of the character's were robbed of their stories in place of the more popular love angle. I started to lose interest around episode 11 but I continued anyway. You can watch the series on Netflix. It is an Neflix original so it won't be leaving like others that are swapped out. Anyway, let me know what you thought of this drama, dear reader. Goodbye and until next time!