Alone in Love (English Subtitled) (SBS TV Series) DVD Region 3

When you think of coming of age, films like The Aggressives and Take Care of My Cat or dramas like Ruler of Your Own World come to mind, but those works deal with the life of young people in their twenties, that period full of contradictions and bittersweet memories. But learning and maturation never stops. The characters in Alone in Love are people who have already reached a certain independence: their work pays pretty well and they live in a nice and clean neighbourhood. But after all these things are taken care of, another set of problems emerges.

Dong-Jin (Gam Woo-Sung) and Eun-Ho (Son Ye-Jin) have been divorced for a couple of years, but they still meet like old friends. They share donuts at the cafeteria, see each other at the pub, go out and drink like nothing serious between them ever happened. They're more like old neighbours or friends of siblings than former lovers. You know those relationships you carry to your grave? The ones that stick no matter what happens? That's how they live. The two keep trying to set up each other with new dates, not so much to finally get some kind of burden off their shoulders, but because they want to see the other live happily.

Eun-Ho is introduced to Hyun-Joong (Lee Jin-Wook), who is second generation chaebol but clearly doesn't seem to care about such a label as he talks to his father like a worker would with his employer. Dong-Jin is introduced to one of Eun-Ho's old friends, the attractive Mi-Yeon (Oh Yoon-Ah). She might be really bright on the outside, but because of her daughter's psychological problems and the pain of her divorce, she still can't find happiness.

But it doesn't just stop there. Also in the game are Dong-Jin and Eun-Ho's friends, like Gong Jun-Pyo (a wonderful Gong Hyung-Jin), a gynecologist who faints every time one of his patients tries to give birth, and Ji-Ho (first timer Lee Ha-Na), Eun-Ho's alien-like younger sister who makes Lee Na-Young's characters look like the perfect girl next door. There's a female wrestler, a barman who never talks, and then far in the distance those strange creatures called parents.

The world of Alone in Love feels like characters from a Japanese novel directed by someone like Jung Jae-Eun of Take Care of My Cat. It has enough pleasant familiarity and basks in the beauty of everyday habits, but the characters are still unique. It is in a certain sense also removed from the Korean reality, which betrays the fact this drama was adapted from a Nozawa Hisashi novel. But writer Park Yeon-Seon never lets that interfere with the show's dynamics. All those wonderful characters come to life, from the leads to small roles like Jin Ji-Hee's Eun-Sol, a young kid far too mature for her own good who teaches Dong-Jin more than a precious lesson in his road to become a better person.

Just about everyone watching Korean dramas knows that their most unique aspect and one of the biggest limitations is the 'live shoot' syndrome. Now this practice is clearly not exclusive to Korea, and actually in the West more and more production companies are moving to this format (whereas Korean producers are doing the opposite). The obvious benefit of shooting 2 episodes per week ahead of the following week's broadcasts are that you can better communicate with the viewer in an almost interactive way. Feedback is so immediate that you learn instantly what works and what doesn't, so good writers and producers take precious lessons from that and fix small details. Bad ones, on the other hand, may change endings or make U-turns in character development, but at the potential risk of the actors and the production itself - as Wolf made painfully obvious - or the feeling that continuity is only an afterthought and a rarity only the best writers can achieve. Dramas like Damo and even Alone in Love, closer to full pre-broadcast shoot than the regular format, helped the industry sense what's wrong with the old system.

For instance, there's no sense of urgency whatsoever here. If this was your average trendy drama, then the fact a divorced couple was still seeing each other would bring out parents, lovers, friends, family secrets, love triangles, etc. But Alone in Love doesn't care about quick fix solutions to grab the viewer's attention. It instead focuses on an incredibly affecting sense of everyday life. Characters don't just feel like pawns moved around to make a ridiculous puzzle of a script feel realistic, but are portrayed as real people with real feelings. Take Seo Tae-Hwa's character Yoon-Soo, and imagine what your average trendy drama writer would have done to him.

But you just need a quick look at the characters' backgrounds to feel how different this drama really is. There isn't a single hint of class divide (and there'd be plenty of possible sparks to ignite here), no fatalism, no last minute turnarounds with 360-degree camera pans and some horrible ballad playing in the background. To those expecting the emotional rollercoaster of Yoon Suk-Ho's or Lee Jang-Soo's dramas, Alone in Love will feel a little boring, as the quite average ratings showed. But the kind of atmosphere this kind of show is able to build throughout its 16 episodes is something rarely seen on Korean TV.

Writer Park Yeon-Seon, who previously worked with PD Han Ji-Seung on Too Beautiful To Lie and was also responsible for the smart and entertaining My Tutor Friend, beautifully conveys the uniqueness of Nozawa's original, bringing to the table a more Korean touch. Even details like Dong-Jin riding a bus home despite his social status is something other dramas would have never dared to attempt, and very Japanese touches like the silent barman are well represented.

The force of this script lies in combining some of the elements from the country's top writers, and finding a unique milieu which perfectly balances all of them - Jung-Ok's unique dialogue and characters, Noh Hee-Kyung's magical "scent of people", Jung Sung-Joo and Kim Jung-Soo's quirky humanism, and that sweet aftertaste the Hong sisters of Taereung National Village always give to their dramas. It's like a melting pot of all the best Korean TV has to offer, mixed by an able director like Han Ji-Seung, making his debut on TV after films like A Day and years as a producer.

But more than anything, this drama belongs to the actors. Gam Woo-Sung needs no more compliments; he's wonderful here just like in all his other previous performances and, thanks to the success King and The Clown, he finally got rid of the label that painted him as an eternal underachiever and one of the country's most underrated actors. Son Yae-Jin is another story. She was clearly starting to understand acting was not all about silly melodramas by choosing projects like Hur Jin-Ho's April Snow, but until now Son was more known for her beauty than for her acting skills. Well, it seems the problem was finding the right stimulus, the show which would finally challenge her enough to let all that energy inside come out.

When Eun-Ho breaks down towards the end of the show, I felt the same fire Kwon Sang-Woo finally showed in Running Wild, that of actors with potential who forget for a moment about the CF contracts and let go. She's wonderful here, and hopefully she'll continue choosing good projects like this in the future. But you couldn't possibly leave out first timer Lee Ha-Na, who does a splendid job portraying one of the cutest, strangest, yet most familiar characters of 2006. And Oh Yoon-Ah, who adds another wonderful performance (that's three on a row) to the list, arguably crowning her this year's best new actress. Did I forget anyone? Yes. Many. Gong Hyeong-Jin's superb comic timing, Moon Jung-Hee's disarming smile, Kim Gab-Soo's memorable one-liners and incredibly emotional closer...it's a long list. The best thing is that all the soldiers are on one side of the field; there's not a single bad performance here.

Some feel the ending is a cop out. I tend to disagree. Why? Because it's not simply about happy or sad endings, it's the fact that it's not over until it's over. Things like marriage, family, and all those attachments and commitments are only words written on a paper at the end of the day. What counts are the choices you make, the people you decide to meet, live with, love, and then even maybe part with. They might be alone for some, but that love, the one you can't explain with a 2-page script made to sell your drama to Japanese housewives, is what counts. For me the sign of a great drama, like Shin Don or Goodbye Solo, is when the characters still populate your mind after the show is over. I still remember Princess Noguk and Shin Don, Lee Jae-Ryong and Kim Min-Hee's lovely couple, and a strange thing happened the other day. Looking out of a bus window, I started reminiscing about Eun-Ho, Dong-Jin, and all those characters. Turns out I loved all of them like friends I always knew, and this drama with them. This little drama is 16 episodes of pure magic. And I don't think I'll be Alone in Love with it.

by X - Twitchfilm.net