I went in with no expectations, I actually read the brief synopsis which did turn me off, but in the end I found an amazing realistic emotional romance drama. There is nothing fancy about this series, it tackles very real-life emotions and problems. It’s very different from the usual real-life fantasy romance K-dramas, and is suited to a more mature audience. Our Beloved Summer is emotional, questionable and even mundane as real-life.
Genre: Romance, Coming-of-age
Episodes: 16
Written by: Lee Na-eun
Directed by: Kim Yoon-jin
Cast: Choi Woo-sik, Kim Da-mi, Kim Sung-cheol & Roh Jeong-eui
Synopsis: Choi Ung and Kook Yeon-soo filmed a documentary in high school about the student life of the worst and the best performers in the school and swore they would never meet again after the documentary finished. Ten years later the documentary gained popularity, and the broadcast studio wants to re-film the present life of the duo. Ung and Yeon-soo actually dated after the first documentary, and little by little we learn about their past relationship and how they broke up. Will they unite or are the past feelings too far gone?
Story: 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Characters: 4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Acting: 4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cinematography: 3 ⭐⭐⭐
Overall: 4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Review (With spoilers)
Our Beloved Summer was a refreshing take on a romantic relationship, and it shows that a romance story doesn’t have to be from A to B to be interesting. I absolutely fell in love with their relationship. Their chemistry was on another level. It was so nice to see Yeon-soo has a confident, straight-forward, hot-tempered woman and Ung has a naive, slow-witted man, a kind of reversed normal K-drama relationship.
The characters of Ung and Yeon-soo are amazing. What seems like a lovely love story between two people is rather about two people with personal flaws and conflicts. Two people who have dealt with a lot of pain growing up and have their own way fighting their pain. They reflect situations and emotions that are relatable to our own life, to what we have gone through or are going through right now.
I absolutely loved the character Yeon-soo. She is so different from the usual K-drama female main characters, rather than the male being the caretaker and initiator she was. Ung on the other hand annoyed me to some extent. He was too naive and I didn’t fully understand the choices he made sometimes.
The side characters are great for telling the story of Ung and Yeon-soo, but they and their stories are so boring individually. My favorite characters beside the main characters are the parents of Ung, which we later discover are not his biological parents. Throughout the series I was wondering why they were so kind to other people, and I found it weird how they treated Ji-ung as their own. We later learn that they lost their child to unknown reasons and later adopted Ung. That made all the pieces fall together and I was very satisfied with how the story went.
Have you watched or are you planning to watch Our Beloved Summer?
– Because I definitely recommend doing so
