30,000 Miles in Search of My Son (2007)

Pleasant makjangish family drama with a quite unique take on the ML

Pity that the only version that is available online has very bad subtitles and poor video quality.
The meaning of the dialogues is understandable if you have the sort of basic knowledge of Korean culture/language you get after watching a lot of K-dramas, but the English wording by itself doesn't make much sense and the personal pronouns/adjectives are often used the wrong way.
Still, it was an enjoyable watch and I didn't consider this lack of a better version a reason enough to drop the show.

This drama itself isn't special, but it has an old-fashioned charm. The editing and directing is very bland, but functional. The acting is decent (I'd dare say even good by the main cast) and the overall story has heart even if it's not particularly great.
The writing isn't exceptional, but I found some of the story beats to be quite original for this kind of drama.
I felt the ML and the little kid to be quite realistically portrayed/written instead of overly romanticized as it usually happens. The ML is good-hearted but also quite lazy, cowardly and generally weak-willed and we get a kid that actually feels and behaves like one instead of the usual perfect, angelic little geniuses whom I'm used to see in dramas. It was quite refreshing!
On the other hand, the FL is the typical naive, overly kind, self-sacrificing heroine. I'm not particularly fond of her characterization, but the actress' performance made her likeable to me.
The two second leads are quite uninteresting characters. The second ML is bland and uncompelling from the start; there was some potential there, but it was not used. I actually liked the second FL at the beginning, but I think her character was sacrificed to drag the love triangle on and on...
The love triangle (square?) started off interesting enough, but got tiring especially in the middle of the show, where we keep seeing very similar confrontations one after the other with little progress.
The ending was a bit rushed and simplistic, but decently satisfying.

One has to keep in mind that it's a family/makjang-ish melodrama and it has almost all the typical tropes of one...I personally found the extremely dramatic/emotional music at the end of each episode particularly hilarious!
But if you don't mind this kind of genre and you can tolerate bad video quality and horrible subtitles...well, this show may certainly prove to hold some entertainment value for you!

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