[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha" Episode 1

Hye-jin (played by Shin Min-a) is an extremely confident thirty-three year old dentist. Unfortunately, Hye-jin is preceded in this role by a similarly headstrong boss played by Bae Hae-sun, and soon finds herself out of the job and unemployable. From this backdrop, Hye-jin comes down to the titular seaside village of Gongjin for sentimental reasons, and is quickly stuck there. After meeting various locals, most prominently the mysterious jack-of-all-trades Chief Hong (played by Kim Seon-ho), Hye-jin perhaps inevitably decides to open up a private practice in the aging community.

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"Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha" is in no hurry to get anywhere and that's a big part of the story's appeal. What with Hye-jin stressing out over a bad employment situation, the more mundane problem of being temporarily trapped in Gongjin is just that- a more mundane problem. All Hye-jin can really do is wait, and experience some badly needed humility. Hye-jin does not have the most affable personality, and being forced to talk to normal people from a position of weakness rather improves her manners.

And yet Chief Hong seems quite rude to Hye-jin, what with his habit of never bothering to use honorifics. Although really, the whole way Kim Seon-ho talks is fascinating in its sheer nuance, because the man really does do just about everything. We're first introduced to Chief Hong giving a novice immigrant fisherman some advice, in his own native language no less, on how to best to tolerate the rocky waves.

When Chief Hong talks about the informality foreigners use in their daily conversations and how he believes that should be imported, his understanding of what these words mean is entirely different from how Hye-jin understands them. Hye-jin is a woman who has, for her big daily highlight in the city, the purchase of expensive shoes. Hye-jin appears to have exactly one friend, Mi-seon (played by Gong Min-jung), and not much of a life to speak of, professional qualifications notwithstanding.

Chief Hong, by contrast, seems to be everywhere at once, with little that can be called an obviously selfish motivation. Save, perhaps, for his habit of dealing in cash for everything, typically in exact change. The culture clash is only just getting started, the exact ends unknown. For the first episode anyway, "Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha" is nice and breezy and cool. It's a relaxing story that's less about dramatic stakes and more trying to disassociate from the entire abstract concept of dramatic stakes.

Review by William Schwartz

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"Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha" is directed by Yoo Je-won, written by Sin Ha-eun, and features Shin Min-a, Kim Seon-ho, Lee Sang-yi, Gong Min-jung, Seo Sang-won-I, Woo Mi-hwa. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2021/08/28~Now airing, Sat, Sun 21:10 on tvN.