Letter #129: Love Andante

Good morning, Erin. 

Exactly what possessed me to give Money Heist: Korea a shot—I couldn’t say. It had been on the outskirts of my radar for a long time, of course, as much for the slick Netflix trailer as for the unexpected turn that Sun from Lost was in it (…though, actually, now that I’m writing this down, I think I only decided to put it in the mix because the lead girl from Be My Boyfriend was part of the cast—which sounds more like me, doesn’t it), but I can’t remember what specifically made me click over to this fantastical story of activist rebellion in a reunified Korea instead of just moving on to the next episode of any one of the handful of shows I’ve got cooking in the background. 

It wasn’t particularly gripping, which doesn’t mean much, given the kinds of shows I’ve stuck it out with—but I found the final few moments of the first episode unforgivably stupid, and I think we can consider that series permanently on ice. 

…unless you tell me to watch it, in which case I am totes on board!

On the other hand, I know exactly what possessed me to give Love Andante (also a show dealing with the reunification of the Korean peninsula) a shot: it stars Song Ji-woo—y’know, the actress I keep referring to as “that pretty girl from that thing I just watched!” in, like, half the stuff I’ve watched in the last few months. I’ve been such a fan of hers (whether I realized it or not), and I was very interested in seeing her in a lead role—especially after her delightful second-lead turn in Dreaming of a Freaking Fairy Tale. So, you betcha I was excited to strap in for whatever adventure this eight-episode romance series had in store. 

Did I know the premise? No. Did I even know it was a romance? No—but the poster looked romance-y. And possibly like it would be about ballroom dancing. (It’s not.) But it definitely had Song Ji-woo on it, and, as I said, that was all the premise I needed. 

So, did my baser instincts lead me to an overlooked gem? And why is the answer obviously “no”? All this and more as we dive into the unskimmed backyard pool that is Love Andante!

1. What a slow, boring, utterly pointless casserole of nothing. If not for the budget necessary to either create or more likely usurp the mini-village used as the setting of the show, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was some disposable web series on YouTube. I’m not sure what they were going for or why they thought this was the way to do it, but…goodness me, this was bad. You’ve probably never heard of it, which will thankfully make it easier for you to avoid. But, on the off chance some shadowy stranger tries to invite you into his van to help him watch his favorite K-drama, Love Andante, don’t be fooled! Tell him you’ll watch something else!

2. So, the crux of the show is that North and South Korea have decided to do a kind of pilot program for considering whether to bother thinking about reunifying as one country, sending a (nonspecific) group of citizens from both countries to live together in an isolated little commune village for a year, in the hopes that maybe they can, y’know, get along or whatever. And, thanks to wacky romcom happenstance, our handsome male protagonist from South Korea and our gorgeous female protagonist from North Korea end up falling in love, knowing full well they will eventually be separated—likely forever. 

2A. …Jiminy Cricket, where do I even start?

2B. So, the idea with the village is that it’s a secret that this is some kind of dry run for reunification. Except it’s only a secret from the public, I guess, because the participants don’t seem at all thrown by the fact that they’re being shipped off to the DMZ (or close enough) to co-mingle with folks from across the border. Except I’m almost positive the reporters who were reporting on the project at the start of the show—like, literally at the front gates of the commune village—were reporting on how this whole endeavor was a North/South collaboration (not that I’m going to go back and look). Except it’s a massive plot point that the public accidentally finds that it was a reunification dry run near the end of the series. Except also no one was allowed to post anything on social media about the reunification dry run commune village until after their year together was up. So…I dunno. Things get tense during the aforementioned accidental disclosure that the commune village was a meeting point for folks from both sides, but I could have sworn it was less that the whole thing was a secret than it was that they just didn’t want the public watching over their collective shoulder. Which…maybe this is more me not paying close enough attention at the start than I should have more than it is the show being stupid, but…I know which one I’d pick.

2C. Also…ask me how many people are in this commune village. Because I can’t tell you. There are fewer than 20 people at the welcome barbecue dinner. Later, everyone has to scurry into a bomb shelter because they think North Korea decided to nuke the commune village (just go with it), and I counted 26 people. Is that actually everyone, or was the show hoping it would look like more (and that no one would care to count)? I don’t know. They’re running a hydroponics farm. And a lab of some kind. Is that enough people? Too many people? I have no idea. Because I don’t know how any of this is supposed to work.

2D. Heck, we don’t even know how big this place is supposed to be! It’s got at least two greenhouses, some regular farmland, the hydroponics greenhouse/farmland thing, the residential area, the management building/medical facility, the scenic jogging trail, the beach, a bomb shelter—absolutely none of which is apparently near each other because our leads frequently have to drive from one location to the next. Except when they don’t. And also no one else has access to a car, that we see, so I guess everything’s actually within reasonable walking distance. Except also the male protagonist has to full-tilt spring from home to the management office when he thinks something is wrong, and we don’t see aaaaaaaanything familiar in the distance behind him as the management team notices him gasping his way across the parking lot towards them. Except also the male protagonist is able to crab-walk over to the management office to use the bathroom in an emergency (because he doesn’t have access to the bathroom in his house) and didn’t s*** himself. By what fell magicks the geography changes so, I know not—but it irked me to no end, Erin. 

2E. AND THEN THERE ARE THE MOTHERF***ING TIME JUMPS. The show takes place over the course of a whole year but only has eight episodes, so there are multiple “a month or so later!” time jumps (and you know how much I just love a time jump)—which means that we aren’t given the chance to become rooted in the story as it plays out, since we’re sort of plucked from one important development to the next having experienced neither the gradual evolution of the situations nor even really the baseline from which each new change is supposed to deviate. Like, we can tell when we’re seeing the changes happen, for the most part, but the impact of those changes is all but nonexistent, blunted not just by (lack of proper) context but the realization that things have remained inexplicably static FOR WEEKS between events. (“Oh, gosh, I can’t believe we kissed! I guess we’ll just never address it in any way between April and July until we get stuck on the side of the road together because our electric car needs to recharge. Good thing we’re not accidentally sharing the same house because a fluke typo registered us as a married couple. That’d be silly!”)

2F. Yes, the leads are sharing the same house because a fluke typo registered them as a married couple. (Which is sooooo my bag, right?) And there’s only so much stalling I can attribute to my girl’s taciturn faux-disinterest in the male lead before my suspension of disbelief runs out—so time jumps were so very much not the way to go.

2G. “But but but the show’s called Love Andante, and andante is a musical term meaning ‘moderately slow,’ so it only makes sense that the story would roll out slowly, right?” Wrong, hypothetical Love Andante apologist. Or, well, right insofar as it would make sense for the whole romance between the leads to grow at a moderate pace, but wrong in that it is absurd to consider the manner in which this story is told to be “moderately paced”—because what might seem like the proper pacing in terms of the eight-episode runtime becomes ABSURD when considering the giant gaps in time in universe between the runtime-based development beats. 

2H. Also, the dialogue is terrible, the acting is bad, and the few things that actually do happen on screen are boring as f***. 

3. …speaking of acting, I only knew two of the folks in this:

• young Stewardess Bully (etc) from The Glory (etc) as Na-gyeong, the female lead

• the neurology department head from (as yet unfinished) Bad-Memory Eraser as her father

• wait, they watch a movie with Bae Doo-na in it, and I know who she is, so…that sorta counts

4. But really speaking of acting: I’m serious when I say it’s bad. I don’t think there was a single good performance—not that the actors had much hope with the script they were given. (For example, my girl Song Ji-woo is either miscast or seriously misdirected, because she spends most of the show pulling a Princess My Name and playing one expression (mildly affronted, in this case) any time she has to emote. Na-gyeong is supposed to be cold and distant, but her performance is flat, not reserved or tactically contained. And yet, in the few moments she is allowed to smile and express happiness, she’s dazzling. I mean, I’ve never thought she was a great actress, but she’s always been pretty effective, so…I dunno.) The only real exception is probably the influencer girl who is played by…uh…she’s a member of, like, Cherry Bullet(?), I think. Anyway, she’s not much of an actor—not that she had much to do—but she’s probably the only one with any worthwhile stage presence, which she undoubtedly just has by virtue of being an idol. Or maybe just by virtue of being her. Anyway, she had a really nice energy to her, which is the best thing I can say about anyone’s performance. 

4A. To wit: I’ve just started watching No Gain, No Love (fake marriage show wooooooooo!), and the script is…not great. It’s more than passable, but a couple of the actresses in it are just too good for the script—and it’s pretty obvious that the issues are with the dialogue, not the performances. 

4B. …y’know, I’d probably be open to a fake marriage, at this point in my life. 

4C. Uh, but I digress. 

5. They never mention what a reunified Korea would be called, y’know. Because neither North nor South Korea calls their country by the same name (Joseon in the North, and Hanguk in the South). I know it’s not an important point, but…I mean, it sure would be, wouldn’t it? I’m just saying: I feel like you’d know reunification was a serious prospect if everyone involved with potentially negotiating it started batting around ideas about things like what to call the country or what their flag would look like or when they were going to hold auditions for Produce 101: Pyongyang. 

6. I like the way the North Koreans dress. It’s a little throwback. Very neat. A sort of affordable classy. 

7. Relatedly: love Na-gyeong’s assortment of large hair barrettes. 

8. Not enough of the cute doctor lady. Very disappointed. 

9. Relatedly: how is it that basically no one hooks up by the end of the series? Like, our main duo couples up, and our secondary and tertiary duos admit feelings on the “last day of camp,” but—that’s it. I mean, Cherry Bullet girl and Na-gyeong’s “bodyguard” guy don’t really cross paths all the often, so you can pretend that it makes sense that they don’t get together sooner (though it absolutely does not make sense that it takes so long), but the doctors are with each other literally all the time FOR A YEAR and basically only do something about it as they’re getting on their respective trains to go home. Even I’m not that bad.

10. There’s a nifty little indirect kiss moment when Na-gyeong drinks from a water bottle, then puts it back in the fridge, and a minute later the male lead takes the bottle out and uses the water to make coffee for himself. It’s not played up anywhere near as much as I would have if I were doing the scene, but it’s there. And I liked it. 

11. The first actual kiss (...I think it was real, right?) leads to maybe the only genuinely good acting Song Ji-woo manages in the show, which is the moment of genuine heartbreak that washes over her face when she realizes she had her first kiss with this random dude she’s living with. It’s quickly pushed aside by her having to throw an overwrought tantrum for the sake of comedy (which I thought she did pretty well), but it was there. And I liked it. 

12. I thought the decision to have the four members of the management team dress like Best Buy employees was…interesting. 

13. The cutesy scene where the male lead sprays Na-gyeong with water from the hose he’s using for the crops infuriated me—because I could not stop thinking about how he was getting her clipboard full of important hydroponics research notes all wet. She’s been working on those for months, you jerk, and now they’re RUINED!

13A. I swear, it was Ernie losing Bert’s bottle cap collection in Follow That Bird all over again, Erin. 

14. There’s one vague reference to what someone is going to do once everyone leaves the commune village, and I immediately started to worry about whether or not anyone still had jobs on the outside after a year. Or whether they’d had incomes for the last year. Seriously, this show is an onion of handwaved questions!

15. Song Ji-woo looks okay-ish when she runs. 

16. The commune village has a Christmas party, and one of the North Koreans thinks celebrating Christmas every year seems excessive. And I…don’t know what I’m supposed to take from that.

17. When the male protagonist gets sick, he lays down on the couch in the living room. Na-gyeong covers him in a blanket so he can sleep comfortably. On the couch at the time is a blanket that she brought him in the previous episode when she saw he’d fallen asleep on the couch. And a third blanket which had always been there as decoration. I was hoping they were just going to keep amassing blankets over the course of the show, but…that’s the last time it happens. Still—three blankets. I had a good chuckle over it. 

18. When giving his goodbye speech to the group, the head manager of the commune village—at least in the subtitles—touts their experience in the commune village as “historical,” sending ya boy Daryl into a tizzy as he lectured the screen about the difference between something being historical (that is, something having to do with history or the past) and it being historic (that is, an important moment), which is what he f***ing meant. 

19. Sometime after she leaves the commune village, Na-gyeong is on a trip to Tokyo, where she checks into a hotel by speaking to the young man at the front desk in English. He responds in Japanese. To my great confusion. 

19A. Also, Na-gyeong is wearing a North Korean flag pin on her lapel. Which…struck me as amusing. Because I did not expect that to be a thing. 

And we’ll leave it at that. Because that was more said about the show than any sane person should say. 

Just…woof.

Not sure what’s up next, Erin, but I’ve certainly got some options for a quicker turnaround than having to wait for the half-dozen weeklies I’m watching to wrap up. But…could be anything. 

Place your bets.

—Daryl