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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "It's Okay, That's Love" Episode 9

The Jae-yeol / Hae-soo loveline moves into a strong position of security here. The Okinawa trip concludes, and our leads return to Korea with a clear sense of mutual respect and understanding. For the most part this is just the natural progression of the sequence of events from the last episode. It's just a matter of a few serious chats, an airing out of various psychological issues, and there it is- intimacy.

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There is not, at this point, anything that could be considered a serious emotional obstacle to the relationship. All of that was mainly on Hae-soo's end anyway. Given how much of Jae-yeol's behavior she's been willing to tolerate up until now, it would really be kind of inexplicable if the woman decided that Jae-yeol's mental illness is the point at which she's unwilling to tolerate any more of the relationship. And yes, it is a relationship at this point, by any reasonable defition.

This might not necessarily be a good thing, given the extent to which the "It's Okay, That's Love" emphasizes a psychological disorder that is in fact strongly reenforced by an intimate relationship. But like with most of the medical situations in the drama, this is not gone over in any serious detail and I rather expect the matter will be quietly dropped before too long, just like every other medical case that makes it into the script. There hasn't been much serious introspection in the drama so far- why start now?

"It's Okay, That's Love" belongs to a different kind of storytelling tradition. It deals with emotional issues that can be more easily defined- specifically, that can be defined as psychological diagnoses. We do get a brief moment here where one character call another out for being disrespectful to people who happen to be less fortunate. But this moment rings rather hollow, since the character in question is disrespectful to everyone she meets, regardless of personal circumstances.

I need to note here that I find this particular brand of character writing to be obnoxious, to some extent even offensive. There's plenty of stories with easy answers to overcomplicated problems, but "It's Okay, That's Love" is unique in that it offers pseudo-psychological explanations for its narrative developments. This gives the proceedings an air of legitimacy that's absent from most romantic comedies, and often unforgivably smug. However, outside of this personal taste issue, everything here is done reasonably well.

Review by William Schwartz

"It's Okay, That's Love" is directed by Kim Kyoo-tae, written by Noh Hee-kyeong and features Zo In-sung, Kong Hyo-jin, Sung Dong-il and Lee Kwang-soo.

 

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