I did something that I usually do not do, and that is to start a series before it has finished airing. I am binge-watcher so I can’t stand to wait for weekly episodes, but after watching some short fan clips I couldn’t resist. The chemistry, the story was really appealing and I had to check out the drama to see if my first-instinct was right.
Genre: Drama, Romance, Youth
Episodes: 16
Written by: Jin Soo-Won
Directed by: Son Jung-Hyun
Cast: Ryeo-Un, Choi Hyun-Wook, Seol In-A, Shin Eun-Soo
Synopsis: Eun-Gyeol is a hard working high school student who has passion for music. To relieve his stress from school at night he plays guitar. A secret that has kept from his family. When Eun-gyeol stumbles upon a magical music store at night, he sells his guitar and is going back in time to 1995. There he meets his father as a high schooler who has a huge crush on a beautiful and popular girl, Se-Kyeong, which is not Eun-Gyeol’s mother. He has to figure out how to connect his father Ha Yi-Chan and his mother Yoon Chung-A while forming a high school band with his father.
Story: 4 
Characters: 4.5
Acting: 5
Cinematography: 4
Overall: 4.5
Worth watching? Yes, absolutely!
Twinkling Watermelon is an excellent youth romance drama with its own great flavors and elements. The story is overall fantastic. I enjoyed almost every moment of it, from the heart-warming moments to the absolute tear dropping tragic moments. The pacing felt nice, there were never scenes that were out of place or were unnecessary for the story. There were definitely things that I felt were missing, but it didn’t ruin the whole story that creators have made.
Something I can’t complain about is the amazing cast of actors who did an incredible job. The story almost became irrelevant because of the amount of chemistry and performances they produced. They themself could have done another 16 episodes, and I would not complain. It’s sad knowing that we will most likely never see these characters and cast together again.
!!SPOILERS!!
Let’s start with the thing that I didn’t like, the ending. Throughout episode 16 it felt really rushed and it needed at least one more episode. The last episode created more questions than it answered and it left a bitter aftertaste. There are scenes that would just elevate the story and the ending that are missing. I really wanted to see the reunion of Yi-Chan and Chung-Ha after the accident and their university moments. We don’t get much insight into Eun-Yu’s family situation in 2023 either, and it would have been nice to see Eun-Gyeol introduce her to his family.
Chung-Ha’s father did a lot of external things to repair his relationship with his daughter like hiring Eun-Gyeol to learn her sign language, giving her fax machine and kicking out the evil teacher, but we only got one scene with them actually interacting. Even though that scene was really heart-warming I feel we deserved more. I wanted at least 2-3 scenes on how their relationship developed before it jumped to the present time.
It’s such a shame for an amazing drama like this to have such an underwhelming ending.
My favorite were Chung-Ha & Yi-Chan, as a couple and as individuals. Choi Hyun-Wook (Yi-Chan) really embodies these youthful teen roles, who I thought also did an amazing job in Twenty-Five Twenty-One. It’s my first time seeing Shin Eun-Soo (Chung-Ha), but she also did an incredible job with her role. She showed a lot of emotion without saying anything and doing sign language. The characters were fantastic. Yi-Chan, the biggest green flag. Caring for his grandmother, learning sign language for Chung-Ha. Chung-Ha’s character started off cold and gradually got warmer because of the people around her. Her smile was exceptional. A smile full of love which could cure the world from all the bad.
All the actors did an incredible job. I absolutely hated Chung-Ha’s teacher (which was her job). When the father discovered what she had done and she tried to beg for reasoning I rolled my eyes so hard and wouldn’t feel guilty for whatever would happen to her.
In the end I really enjoyed Twinkling Watermelon and it will probably be my favorite K-Drama of the year.
