This is the first Korean show I’ve watched and oh boy… what a show. Should you watch it? Yes, if you like romance, comedy, mystery and intrigue, this show is the whole package.
So let’s talk about my favourite parts of the show. The first being-
Male Vulnerability
The depiction of sadness in Hollywood and Indian cinema, mostly rests with the female. Crash landing on you moves away from this. On this show, men cry.
The protagonist cries in front of his father because he can’t breathe without the one he loves. They then show a flashback of his father crying at his brother’s funeral. The two men in this scene are army officers, whose lives are dictated by rules and violence and yet they are able to show love, compassion and sentiment in the rawest form. He reminds his father how it feels to not be able to save someone you love. And while his father is shocked, he knows how it feels and from then on, he helps them.
This show has 16 episodes that are more than an hour long but whenever I think about it, this scene plays in my head again and again. They portray the ability for a man to cry and be vulnerable and sad in front of his father. At the same time, he also remains dignified, he stands tall, he’s not broken, he’s just in love. There’s a female presence in this scene but they’re hidden and they’re not carrying the emotion in the scene.
This ability is not something I’ve seen before and in my opinion is the best part of this show. The kind of vulnerability the protagonist portrays not just in one scene but throughout the show depicts another side to a man. One where they wear their heart on their sleeves, fall in love and want others to respect their love. I love this scene because he tells his father what love means to him. Without any woman being understanding or sympathetic, these few dialogues show men accepting each other, however subtle it may be. It’s the formation of a different father-son bond, a bond we don’t often see on camera.
Female friendships
While the focus on the show is on the protagonists, the reason their romance is like no other is because of the community around them.
On screen, we regularly witness a male group of friends who are extremely close together. Women either appear alone, are part of groups where they are suppressed or the entire idea of the show is female friendship. It doesn’t appear as organically as male friendships do (Think: Sonu ki Tittu ki Sweety or Pyaar ka panchnama series). For whatever reason, the dynamics of female friendships are quite different. Crash landing on you changes this.
In one of the scenes, a murderer in South Korea sends orders to kidnap the woman and child of the man who dared to stand up to him. As a viewer, you’re afraid this means they might be tortured or killed. However when they’re being dragged away, the whole village comes to save them. The women step out of their homes and use every trick in the book to protect one of their pack. There’s no external help that arrives, they are able to protect each other on their own. Knowing that the other would do the same for them.
The protagonist when she returns to South Korea makes products with the names of all the women from the North Korean village. There’s a beauty in the way Yoon Seri remembers each of their faces and the true bond she builds with them. She calls the limited collection ‘Saudade’. A word that means yearning for something that will never be the same again. I’d be lying if I said this scene didn’t make me tear up.
So my second favourite part of this show is the friendships. The realness of their relationships, their affection for each other and their willingness to care. In a digital age where we’re all afraid to be real and get hurt, this show is so real it hurts my heart.
Love
The last thing I love about Crash landing on you, is the love.
Any romantic comedies that we watch now is set in the material. There’s a sense of love but also an overwhelming sense of lust that drives romance. Appearance, social status, physical attraction are all factors considered in creating the perfect love story.
While the protagonists of this show also are aware that the other is ‘their type’. Their bond is not limited to this idea. Their bond is almost destiny more than love.
Tw: suicide
There are multiple flashbacks throughout the season that show us that they’ve met before. In one scene, Yoon Seri is contemplating suicide when Ri Jeong Hyeok asks her to take a picture of him and someone else. They don’t know each other yet but she walks off the bridge with them safely. In another scene, she is thinking about jumping off a boat and hears a piano playing in the distance. She doesn’t know who is playing the piano but it gives her the strength to live, like someone is looking out for her.
Ri Jeong Hyeok understands her troubled youth and gives her a new meaning to live. Not for him but for herself. They generate a relationship that is so overwhelming that seeing them being separated physically pains you. You need them to be close to each other.
There are so many scenes of romance in this show but my emphasis is not only on romance but the idea of love.
Love here becomes a beacon of hope. Whether it’s love between friends, between lovers or between family, it is what moves them. It makes them care, it makes them real and it drives them to be themselves.
There is a beauty in the way this show deals with the idea of love. It’s probably the most non- problematic love story I’ve ever seen. They exist without each other, they can protect themselves and each other, they grow as individuals. Yet you yearn to see them together, not as one but as two emboldened individuals.
And they do find this love and harmony, on a mountain top in Switzerland, far from the hatred of between borders. This reminds me of Amitav Ghosh’s shadow lines where he discusses the trivial nature of borders and lines that separate us from each other. I could go on forever.
