Our Blues

 Our Blues

8/10

Our Blues

Genre:                                        Episodes: 20                     Year: 2022

Melodrama

Synopsis:

Interweaving and interconnected stories following a tight knit community of friends and families living on Jeju Island.

Cast:

Lee Byung Hoon (Lee Dong Seok)

Shin Min Ah (Min Seon Ah)

Han Ji Min (Lee Young Ok)

Kim Woo Bin (Park Jong Joon)

Lee Jung Eun (Jung Eun Hee)

Choi Young Joon (Bang Ho Shik)

Park Ji Hwan (Jung In Gwon)

Roh Yoon Seo (Bang Young Joo)

Bae Hyun Sung (Jung Hyeon)

Cha Seung Won (Choi Han Soo)

Ki So Yoo (Son Eun Gi)

Jung Eun Hye (Lee Young Hee)

Go Doo Shim (Hyung Chun Hee)

Kim Hye Ja (Kang Ok Dong)

General Thoughts:

This has been a drama I have been anticipating since the casting news was announced. Kim Woo Bin has returned! After having not seeing him in anything since ‘Uncontrollably Fond’ in 2016 after his health issues, I have been very excited for his return.

Guyysss, it's Kim Woo Bin!

There were a lot of big names pulling together for this drama, which also gave me quite high hopes for the script- I know big manes don’t really equal a good drama, but I hoped with so many high profile actors signing on that this would mean the script sounded pretty darn good. And it was! There weren’t really any episodes where I felt like the story was dragging or I was super disengaged from the plot or the characters.

Big emotions can come from small moments

While it wasn’t a fast paced show, the story continually had forward momentum, taking its time to go a bit deeper into each character in turn. Which is another thing I liked about how the plot moved- the same characters were always present giving the show a feeling of continuity as if it was just telling one big story. But what it was really doing was telling lots of smaller, shorter stories using the same characters present. It flowed really well and was always a gradual shift from one character to the next. It didn’t feel like we finished Eun Hee’s story and then launched right into Jong Joon and Young Ok- Jong Joon and Young Ok had their chemistry and moments building in the background while the show focused on Eun Hee, and Eun Hee was still very present in island life as the focus shifted slowly to Young Ok. Another thing I liked about the writing in ‘Our Blues’ is that it didn’t try too hard to be too dramatic. The plot was still engaging without murder and betrayal and Big Dramatic Moments. The show focused instead on the emotions in smaller moments- many of which were relatable to the viewers. We don’t all know how it feels for you father’s hidden son to shoot your mother, but we do all know about small regrets, and loving your children even when you don’t understand them, and feeling nostalgic. The show used relatable characters to portray relatable emotions in a constantly interesting way, and I think that in a nutshell is why the show was so successful.

This drama knew how to punch you in the heart

If you can make your audience feel something while watching, then you're 3/4 on the way to a great drama. Despite the fact that this show is called ‘Our Blues’, going in I kind of didn’t think that it would be a sad drama. In hindsight that feels like a silly assumption to make, but I kind of always associated Jeju with fishing and holidays and good times, so it did take me a little by surprise how sad a lot of the episodes were. The show wasn’t as lighthearted as I’d thought it would be, but I do still think it hit a nice balance. It never became too overwhelmingly depressing that it wasn’t enjoyable to watch. It hit that sweet spot in between fun and emotion so it wasn’t too heavy or too light as to be easily forgotten.

A great blend of sweet and sad

Everything pulled together really nicely in this show and really gave it a cohesive feel. The characters, acting, plot, pace and directing all contributed towards forming the show into what it was, and it never felt like any of those aspects were outperforming the others. This show is well balanced and easy to watch- I was never really not in the mood for an episode of ‘Our Blues’, and I enjoyed every episode that I watched.

What Was Great:

The People:

Both the cast and the characters. There were such a large range of characters to have in the show and it really felt like all of those had been cast perfectly. Though I will admit to being ever so slightly disappointed that Kim Woo Bin and Shin Min Ah were not paired together in the story.

I enjoyed seeing a more serious side to Shin Min Ah too

The characters all felt very real and lived in, and the writer provided each character with such rich and detailed backstory that it was easy for the viewers to feel like they understood the people they were seeing on screen. The journey in this drama was really in slowly revealing the different layers to each of the characters so that we could see what moments and relationships forged them into the people they were in the present day. I surprisingly enjoyed the way the show would present a character a certain way, and would then slowly work to show why these characters were behaving the way they did. The prime example of this is Young Ok- I really didn’t like her at first as she was presented as flippant and manipulative. I found it hard to cheer for her relationship with Jong Joon to work out when it was so obvious that she was hiding something important. Yet when it was revealed that she was the sole family for a disabled sister all her actions suddenly made sense, and she became a character that was understandable and sympathetic. Young Ok only wanted to have fun because she was trying to distance herself from something that was already so emotionally grinding. She didn’t want to commit to a future with Jong Joon because she didn’t want to rope him into a caring role he didn’t want, and she also didn’t want to expose herself to a situation where she was very likely to be hurt- a situation she had experienced multiple times before with previous partners leaving.

I went from wishing Jong Joon would leave her alone to really rooting for them to work out

There were similar revelations for each of the charters that the show focused on, which made the village where the stories were set in feel so real and easy to connect to. The drama seemed to focus on this idea that it’s difficult to actually know people, even people you see everyday, as we are all made up of so many experiences and emotions and memories that shape who we are.

What Wasn’t:

Some Stories:

While there are lots of perks to a drama that is set out the way ‘Our Blues’ is with lots of smaller stories building a bigger, more whole picture of a community of people, there are undoubtably going to be some stories that don’t resonate as well as others. There was no section of story that I was vehemently against, but the last two stories of the show didn’t draw me in quite the way the others had.

Ki So Yoo was cute as but this storyline was so so

There were aspects I liked to each of them- the resolution of the fishermen of Jeju coming together to give Eun Gi and her Grandmother 100 moons to wish on really hit the emotional spot it was aiming for. But a lot of that story just felt like Chun Hee not even trying to connect with or comfort her granddaughter- in fact it often felt like she went out of her way to say antagonising things to upset Eun Gi. I understand that the show was trying to depict a generational difference between Chun Hee and Eun Gi, but I also felt like I was experiencing a bit of a cultural gap as well. I found Chun Hee quite difficult to relate to, and rather than coming to understand her character more, there were times where I just felt like the show made her feel more unlikeable by giving her this storyline. It was a similar thing with the story between Dong Seok and his Mum- all the emotional beats were there, and it was a wonderfully emotional way to end the show. But even at the resolution of the story I never felt like I fully understood Ok Dong or her actions. I understood the emotions between the characters and the emotions that lead to the opening up of their communication and their reconnection, but I honestly never fully grasped why she had felt she needed to do the things that hurt Dong Seok in the first place. None of these complaints are that big, but next to a whole bunch of stories that felt so complete where you felt like you deeply knew all of the characters, these small lapses in understanding felt a little disconnecting.   

Recommend?

Yes- if you like dramas that feel quite slice-of-life rather than having one overarching story then I think you would enjoy ‘Our Blues’.

I feel like you'd have to be trying really hard to not like this drama