How to fall in love in a demilitarized zone

I gave twenty-six hours of my life to a KDRAMA. Should you?

Welcome back, lovers,

It’s me, Meg Oolders, award-winning author, bona fide super-romantic, and your faithful bomb-defusing sidekick across the cliché-cluttered minefield of romantic storytelling. Whether you’re writing love stories, reading them, watching them, living/dreaming them, or secretly despising their existence, this is the guilty-pleasure safehouse for you.

Shout out to loyal reader,

Leanne Shawler

, for shoving me (lovingly) into today’s main course— a gooey genre casserole of soap opera, romcom, melodrama, hallmark cozy, and military thriller, featuring a knockout spice blend¹ of mouth-watering tropes that might not be legal outside of South Korea’s film and television industry.

CLOY

“A paragliding mishap drops a South Korean heiress in North Korea -- and into the life of an army officer…”

Thank you, Netflix.

As a registered skeptic, I was legally obligated to roll my eyes at this gimmicky premise. But I love a good “limited series” for its guaranteed ending, so I went into this viewing with an open mind, knowing I could paraglide the hell out of there anytime I wanted.

But KDRAMA had other plans for me.

At minute sixty-seven of episode one, I was captured.

Twenty-six viewing hours later, I’m ready to dish.

Plot Tornado

Trying to summarize a sixteen episode South Korean soap arc is like trying to explain the multiverse to someone who “doesn’t watch those Marvel movies.” So, I’m just going to deliver the “A plot” parameters like a prize fight promo … but with romance … and move on to my review from there.

In this corner, the champion—

crazy rich, crazy successful, willfully single, staunchly independent, South Korean entrepreneur Yoon-Seri,

Mmmm

CEO of her own fashion/ cosmetics/ furniture/ adventure-wear company, Seri’s Choice, and recently appointed successor to her father’s super-conglomerate, Queen’s Group, much to the stone-faced indifference of her step-mother and the disappointment/ rage of her two underachieving half-brothers and their conniving AF wives who’ll stop at nothing to dethrone Seri, illegitimate sister spawn that she is.

In this corner, the challenger—

Grrrr

decorated North Korean soldier, surviving brother, loyal son, lapsed concert pianist, and village shy-hunk, Captain Ri Jeong-hyeok, ever determined to uncover the mysterious circumstances surrounding his brother’s death, along with other suspicious deaths Captain Ri is certain were orchestrated by his nemesis, the spurned-orphan-turned-irredeemable-villain, Cho Cheol-gang, all the while avoiding an arranged marriage to an upper middle-class ice princess he reluctantly agreed to over ten years prior.

While field testing some new state-of-the-art paragliding attire, heiress Seri sails her high and mighty ass into a tornado, which tosses her clear over the border into North Korea, where she is discovered by Captain Ri.

I’m not making this up. 👀

Captain Ri is bound by law to apprehend Seri and deliver her to the authorities, OBVIOUSLY. But he must have known that wouldn’t make for a very exciting story, because once the feisty fish-out-of-water’s safety is threatened by villainous forces (the evil orphan), Captain Ri swoops in (literally … minute sixty-seven) to rescue her. And because he’s a jar of marshmallow fluff trapped in the body of a hybrid soldier-musician, he commits himself to keeping Seri off the military’s radar, and out of harm’s way, until he can get her safely back home.

Minute 67, Episode 1

Of course, neither Seri nor Captain Ri lives in a vacuum, and the more trusted (and untrusted) people in their respective corners/ countries get wind of their arrangement (the hard truth version or the fabricated version where they pretend to be engaged to avoid suspicion), the more danger they ultimately face, and the more entangled their lives, souls, and heartstrings become.

Where it hits 💘

Empathic transference.

If you’re looking to get jerked off emotionally, look no further. This story puts the human condition through every conceivable wringer. While the plot circumstances can be a touch melodramatic, the performances are heart-renderingly genuine.

B-team chemistry.

I’m a sucker for a deftly woven B (C,D) plot and a memorable supporting cast, and CLOY delivers both in ample doses. For every tension-fueled moment of drama shared between the leading lovers and their respectively defective families, there is a warm hearth of ensemble brilliance waiting to lighten the mood. Captain Ri’s unit of adorably naive subordinates and the gossipy village wives club provide plenty of gendered comic relief, but at no point feel like soulless caricatures. Many, if not all, of them have their own compelling character arcs to traverse.

And the B-plot love story between Ri Jeong-hyeok’s neglected fiancé, Seo Dan, and the rootless playboy/ con-man, Gu Seung-jun, is arguably more “fun” and eventually “tragic” than that of our leads.

Plus they kiss more better.

And show more some skin.

If that kind of thing is important to you. 😇

Soundtrack.

Seri and Jeong-hyeok have an earlobe-nibbling theme song that plays every time they reunite.

Always in the snow. ❄️

Need I say more?

Where it misses 💔

Who’s in charge here?

The military hierarchy stuff baffled me from beginning to end. And because the organizations were all fictionalized, I couldn’t even ask Google to help me sort it all out. It got to the point where I wouldn’t know who was the highest ranking officer in the room until a new guy walked in and everyone else looked like they were going to piss themselves. Didn’t help that they all wore the same damn uniform.

Mo money, NO problems?

I’m not saying Seri and Captain Ri didn’t have their hands full with legitimate obstacles—they were literally falling in love in a demilitarized zone—but the number of times they got out of a pickle with the cunning use of “money," “power,” or “influence” was brow-furrowing.

Seri, of course, is rich AF and while she can’t leverage that weapon until she’s back on her home turf (episodes 10-16), Captain Ri’s dad is the one guy in the North Korean military that makes everyone else piss themselves … so that card obviously comes in handy. And I know what you’re thinking—money, power, and influence make the world go round, but frankly, I don’t watch romances to be reminded of how rigged life is in favor of the .01%, I watch them to forget that noise. So, in that small, petty way, CLOY failed to reach me.

There were five curtain calls.

In true Shakespearean melodramatic fashion, the story ended … then ended … then ended again in a series of Happily Ever After death throes I’d wager could have been cut in half and been more satisfying. That said, they did a fine job of tying up most of the story threads, and the ones they didn’t I forgot about because I fell asleep during the aforementioned death throes.

Last Word 🎤

No way in hell I would have sacrificed the amount of time I did for a program that didn’t successfully yank my diversion crank. Crash Landing On You was a stellar first dive into what I now know is a boundless sea of formula-driven, consumer-approved, brilliantly stylized, motion picture art. One I could spend years exploring and never reach the bottom.

Whether this will be the last KDRAMA romance I cover on the The Romantic remains to be seen.

But Netflix will never forget what I “like.”

And neither will I.

CRASH LANDING ON YOU - FINAL SCORES

Emotional punch - 8/5

I ugly-cried at least once an episode. And you all know I’m a cold-hearted cynic. If you need a reliable test for whether someone in your life is human vs. LMD (life model decoy), this is it.

I’m not crying, YOU’RE CRYING!!!

Heat index - 0/5

If I could score it lower, I would. As someone who has binge-watched both Outlander and Bridgerton, CLOY’s commitment to giving me NEXT TO NOTHING in the neighborhood of skin, steam, pelvic thrust or tonsil hockey was … refreshing. Hollywood doesn’t let us want for anything anymore. As storytellers, we mustn’t forget: Slow burn is a highly effective thirst trap.

Banter caliber - 5/5

Props to the translator(s) who provided the subtitles. Not a drop of nuance is lost, and so much is gained by surrendering to the language barrier and getting swept away by the emotional undercurrent. In addition to sparkling dialogue, the characters routinely soliloquize, a genre quirk I found a bit goofy at first, but warmed up to quickly. I mean, how else are we supposed to know what these beautiful people are thinking?

I’m not smiling, YOU’RE SMILING!!!

Recommendability - 4/5

The series is highly watchable, but I never felt the clawing need to binge past my bedtime or view back-to-back episodes, lest I die of FOMO in my sleep. Maybe if it had been produced like a network TV soap and I had to wait a week in between chapters, I’d have felt more desperation. Or maybe it just needed more sex love scenes to keep me … motivated. Measured viewing aside, I was thoroughly titillated for twenty-six hours of my rapidly dwindling existence.

No regrets.

I’d crash through it again in a heartbeat. 💕

I don’t just review love stories, I also write them. 💜

Black Coffee

Masterdate

Next week on The Romantic - If you won’t talk to your kids about angry breakup songs, I will. 🖤

And on Valentine’s Day - A sticky slice of (documentary) pie ala mode. No partner required. 💗

Talk to me …

1. Have you experienced KDRAMA first hand? I want titles! And takes!

2. Is being able to “cry at sad things” (empathy) the best determination for whether someone is human vs. LMD? If not, what is?

Thanks for hanging out with me.

See you next week, love nuts. 💕

1. Contains: Fish-out-of-water, forbidden love, forced proximity, fake engagement, slow burn, fated mates, love triangle, arranged marriage, hidden identity, found family, opposites attract, protector/protected, redemption, second chance, star-crossed lovers, damsel in distress … to name a few.