Geu Gyeowool, Barami Boonda

I love a melodrama that tells a story in the long mini-series format. In this regard, I have discovered some gems in some recent South Korean TV mini-series. The basic melodrama is the oft repeated formula: Boy meets Girl, Boy loses Girl, Boy gets Girl Back, and this may recur again. Human relations can be complex even if only the boy and girl are involved, but this complexity increases as more people are involved. If personality dynamics are properly depicted in a valid manner, and if the production is skillful, powerful emotions can be evoked in the viewer. In this way we can live many lifetimes through movies, in our one lifetime - greatly enriching our experience.

These South Korean productions (on Netflix streaming) are first class with excellent production and direction, some terrific casting and acting (particularly from some of the females who give some world class performances), brilliant musical accompaniment and staging. What makes these so good is the way they skillfully evoke deep emotion in the viewer. South Korean movie making is impressive.

However, the following caveats must be considered. They are subtitled and some people hate this. The South Korean cultural norms, values and sanctions may sometimes seems silly or old fashioned to the USA viewer. The families are close knit and decisions by an individual may be subject to family approval. Social distance is maintained where formal speech is used, and personal speech forms are reserved for close friends or family. There is a strong work ethic and community cooperation/unity - sometimes reminiscence of old Capra films.

Also, in order for the sometimes complicated sub-plots to work, people fail to communicate with each other as might be expected, keeping many in the dark as to what others are doing. This leads to misunderstandings and error judgments of some people which sometimes seems unlikely by USA cultural standards. The viewer may wonder at times why good but trusting people are so easily manipulated and deceived by bad and selfish people, but con artists do often succeed (just look at politicians for example). This poetic license of implausibility is needed to develop the story - just accept it even though unlikely at times. Taking these factors into account will help you become involved and emotionally engrossed. It was hard for me to quit watching at times so I binged watched.

I would rank these as follows but tastes differ and your rankings might not agree: 1 - 4 (hard to say which is best)

Shining Inheritance

When a Man Loves

That Winter, The Wind Blows

Secret Garden

5. Five Fingers

6. The Scent of a Woman

7. The Great Queen Seondeok

8. A Hundred Years Inheritance

9. Lie To me

10. Roof Top Prince

11. Dr. Jin

12. The Great Doctor

"That Winter...." is story of good and evil, a poignant story of love overcoming sociopathy (criminality and hate), nicely paced and developed, engrossing and involving thanks to great acting, music and production/direction. However, the ending is flawed because of what is left out, requiring the viewer to fill in the blanks. To help you fill in the blanks without any spoiling, let me offer this: The stabbing death only seems to be, the void of the scene is that the person was saved and lived, but this fact was concealed to call off those wanting the death. Without this info the ending seems perhaps strange.

Another reviewer unjustifiably denigrates this series.

First, this reviewer states a dislike for love melodramas preferring comedy. Such a preference can cause a negative prejudice toward "When Winter Comes...., and if you have this prejudice you can find fault with this one.

Second, if you have extremely strong feelings against incest you will be disturbed with any mild hints of mild and false incest as in this series, but there is no incest at all in this series. Psychologically, most people have instincts against incest, but some people lack such negative incest instincts and there are cases of happy incestuous relations that cause no harm whatsoever. Most cases are harmful, where trauma was induced by one of the partners who forced/coerced incest onto the other unwilling partner.

Third, the negative reviewer questions how the evil nanny (erroneously described as the "stepmother" by the negative reviewer)does harm to the girl yet later loves her greatly. Here you have to understand the evil-good character transition of the nanny who was initially hired to take care of the girl and sexually service the father. She was an outcast from her family and desperately needed the nanny job and thus degraded herself. She committed evil toward the girl in order to create a continuing need for employment as a nanny and be in a family. With time she comes to truly love the girl, and secure an important job in the company, and then becomes good rather than evil. Morality is a luxury - Dr. Arthur Wells. As this love and relationship developed over the years the nanny felt guilty but became devoted to the girl. We sometimes hurt the one we love, feel guilty, and become more loving as a result - it happens.

Fourth, the negative reviewer wonders how the hired hit man threatens to kill the other man in order to collect a debt for the hit man's gangster boss (who ordered the other man killed out of the gangster's jealousy over his girlfriend who was in love with the man to be killed, using the framed debt as an excuse). What is the problem in this for the negative reviewer? What is also overlooked in this is that the hit man has extra incentive to kill the other man since that man is blamed by the hit man for the death of someone the hit man loved. Did the negative reviewer really watch the series?

A gambler plans to rob a blind heiress by pretending to be her brother. Firstly the most amazing part is the amount of concentration it must take for an actor to play someone blind and Song Hye-kyo is particularly impressive in this role. It's a love story but is a bit icky to begin with due to the incestuous overtones and the fact the male lead is not very likeable. Overall a decent story with some interesting side characters but a decent script would have served this talented ensemble far better.

You'll never stop once you started. It keeps me till the morning hour just to finish every episode.

The story is interesting at times but maybe even uncomfortable due to the "sibling" relationship. The crying at one point from Young felt a little forced and honestly repeated. But overall it's ok. I recommend you watch it slowly and maybe and not too many episodes at one cause I can see how it can get tiring.

That Winter the Wind Blows. KTV love story melodrama. 16 episodes. Early Spring 2013.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Story: This is the 2006 Korean movie 'Love Me Not' remade into a TV drama with a different cast, wherein a young heiress discovers that everyone around her is trying to take advantage of her newfound wealth. She's at a disadvantage in her fending for herself though, because she happens to be blind, suicidal, and has a brain tumor!. Yep!!! This would be a little hard to swallow if this weren't Korean melodrama, but it is, so you're just going to have to roll with it!

A con man with low morals and gambling debts quickly shows up to scheme the blind woman out of her money; he was (SPOILERS) friends with her actual long lost brother (who's now dead), so he assumes her brother's identity and gets to work trying to steal a fortune. The con man soon finds his new found "sister" is somewhat of a kindred spirit though, and he begins to pity her and quickly regrets what he's doing. Slowly but surely, he begins to truly want to care for her as the oppa she's always been missing, and then ultimately, he starts to fall in love with her.

If you've been around the block with these shows, you know where all this is headed; Can con man become a decent guy? Can blind woman find her reason to keep on living, if she doesn't die outright anyway? Can these two help each other heal over time, and perhaps eventually be together and find love and live happily ever after? Blah, blah, blah!

This particular series is primarily a simple slow burn romantic/tragic melodrama when you get down to it. I typically don't like these shows very much because they're usually relentlessly bleak and somber, and they're often quite boring to boot as a result. To be fair, I personally prefer romantic K-dramas that are more lighthearted & fun, or completely outrageous. This show plays it straight with its story for the most part, and although it tries to avoid being too tedious, it can be VERY slow moving at times (especially down the stretch).

The reasons for the two leads to fall in love are a bit sketchy, and, their love sometimes lead to being borderline creepy in an incestuous way. I've seen this semi-incest theme in a number of K-dramas over the years, and it never fails to rub me the wrong way. There's always some out/excuse/reason so that it's not actually incest, but it frequently comes across as just being plain "icky"!

Jo In-Sung plays the con man. He's got a nice charisma to him, and, he does pretty decent work here in the role he's given. Song Hye-Kyo plays the female lead. She's solid too (as usual), and she gets bonus points for having to portray a blind woman week after week. There's nothing wrong with either of their performances, but it's hard to really like either of their characters in the long run because of the nature of this show and the characters themselves. There's a few other primary supporting roles, the most prominent being the blind woman's caretaker/stepmother, and the mob henchman who the con man has to pay back. There's also your two secondary young pretty characters (played by Kim Bum & Eun-ji from APink ) who aren't really all that essential to the main plot in the scheme of things; they get the job done well enough in their subordinate parts, and they're arguably more likable than anybody else in this show by default.

There are some problems that hold this show back from being just better than average IMO. It has some really bad pacing issues as it progresses, and, several of the story lines & relationships don't really make a whole lot of sense as the plot unfolds, such as (SUPER SPOILERS): A) Evil stepmother actually truly loves blind girl and will be sad if she ever has to leave her? Wait! What?; B) Con man's gangster friend must kill con man if he doesn't pay off his debt by an exact date?...why?...his death would clearly benefit no one because you can't collect debts from a dead guy; the only reason this story angle exists is to serve as a contrivance for the con man to have a "made up" reason to face his own mortality (i.e. so he can supposedly better identify with the dying blind/tumor girl he's in love with); C) Can you operate on the blind/tumor girl or not?...make up your mind will you!; D) The con man's gangster friend also has stomach cancer and he's dying too, but he sort of wants to reconcile with the con man (or maybe kill him) over something that happened to a girl they both loved when they were younger?...why?...is any of this back story nonsense really necessary?; and on and on it goes.

This show is not overly terrible, and there are several things to like throughout, but I can't really recommend it as being anything more than just barely OK. It screamed to be only 10-12 episodes long (even though I realize that is unrealistic in this genre), and, it just hammers you with so much nonstop agony & misery that the central love story ultimately gets lost along the way. This mix of love, life, and loss should never be as difficult or complex (and depressing) as these shows tend to try to make you believe it is, and, the more these shows try to convince you otherwise, the worse things will inevitably get. There's a fine line between an epic sad love story saga versus an unenjoyable & overwrought emotional tale that's not all that coherent or cohesive. This is a perfect example of a show that is equal parts both!

Summary: Skip this show and watch the movie 'Love Me Not' instead; you won't miss anything and you'll save yourself 14 hours.

Bottom Line: 6 out of 10 stars.