Secret Angel (2012)

While I can tell from an objective standpoint that Secret Angel isn’t the highest quality production overall, it manages to be sufficiently endearingly charming and entertaining that I don’t mind any shortcomings it may have. The plot is pretty straightforward—it’s really just an innocent love story that develops between an angel and human while the angel does her best to protect the human from the machinations of a death god—and in this case, it works. It’s not a series I get heavily emotionally invested in when I watch it, but I always enjoy the ride.

The story is what draws me in every time, and the actors all played their roles convincingly enough. It’s interesting to watch the various characters cope with the situations thrown at them, from the more humorous moments like the first official and exceedingly awkward meeting between the human and angel after she’s charged with protecting him, to the more serious aspects like the death god being all too aware that slowly becoming human means gaining unwanted human emotions.

The music suits the drama pretty well, though there are only about two or three songs with lyrics throughout the whole show and those are mostly limited to the beginning and end of each episode. Even so, the opening song in particular is so cheerful and upbeat that I’m perfectly willing to keep it in my head for a few days.

As for the subject of the male lead’s voice getting dubbed into Korean, I can kinda see both sides of the issue. On the one hand (assuming the actor wasn’t proficient in Korean) it would be odd if only one character were speaking in another language and it wasn’t acknowledged by any of the other characters, and if it was acknowledged it would’ve almost certainly distracted from the story’s intended focus. And to be fair, I think whoever provided the dubbed voice did a solid job on conveying the appropriate emotions for the character in any given scene. On the other hand, it was kinda distracting to be able to tell the words I was hearing didn’t quite match the movement of the actor’s mouth, and I would’ve liked to be able to hear the actor’s own intonations and how he chose to deliver the lines.

So ultimately, would I recommend this drama to others? Absolutely! It’s sweet, charming, and has a touch of melancholy to it without ever getting too dark, and at only two and a half-ish hours total it can be completed in one sitting. I’ve rewatched it multiple times over the years and I’ll probably return to it again in the future.

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