Dali and Gamjatang (2021)

I have never seen a more genuine couple in my long history with kdramas

Dali and the Cocky Prince is really something special. I've gotten accustomed to writing reviews about dramas that don't offer anything new but are enjoyable nonetheless, but Dali is not that. It's a lot more. Sure the premise is simple and has been done before, but the execution is brilliant. The characters are wonderful, from the leads to the side roles, and they bring the story to life in a way that feels refreshing and new. They're entirely believable.

Moo Hak is an eccentric male lead, which was a really popular trope for a long time, and he's the poster-boy for that trope. He has his tacky, flashy designer suits and his expensive watch, he's extremely bad at English and he's not well-versed in common cultural knowledge and phrases. But his shortcomings are balanced out with his business savvy and his very genuine predisposition. Moo Hak is not a polite man by any means. He's rude and brash and loud, loves money, and commands attention when he walks into a room. But he's honest, more so than anyone else in the drama, and he's passionate about everything he does. Food is important to him. He runs a restaurant chain, never skips a meal and cares not only about how food tastes but also about how well it will fill his customers' stomachs and how affordable it is. And when he's passionate about something, he puts a lot of care into it. And that's just what we learn about him in the first few episodes. The characters are multi-faceted and deep, enough to feel like real people.

Dali, on the other hand, comes from a very different world. Where Moo Hak is uneducated and had a rough childhood working for his father's business, Dali comes from a prestigious family who has owned the Cheonsong museum for generations. She's well-educated and passionate about art but has trouble taking care of herself - even eating and sleeping on her own. Reality hits her when her father passes away suddenly and she's sent from the Netherlands to Korea to deal with the estate, the art museum, and the many debts her father left behind. But she's resilient and determined to take care of the museum that her father loved, even at the expense of all that she has left. To her, Moo Hak is a strange but incredibly interesting man. He makes her laugh and gives her the help that she needs to try to protect Cheonsong, even if the ways he does so are crude and frustrating to her at times.

As I said, the story itself, if you're just looking at it from a plot perspective, is nothing new. It's how it's handled that makes it special. With a drama like this, you can easily look back at your previous experience with similar stories and imagine what plot twists and dramatic turns it's going to take, and know where you're going to end up in the end. Except that a lot of those common pitfalls don't happen here. The misunderstandings, the sudden revelations, the big reveals and family please for the couple to part - all those annoying subjects crop up exactly where you're expecting them to, but Dali isn't so easy, and it's going to subvert your expectations wherever it can. Those romcom climax lows where everything is suddenly going wrong and the characters who were best buds in one episode are suddenly enemies or apart for the next two or three? Yeah, no. Dali's not about that. And that's what I loved about it. It's one of the few romances I've watched in the past several months - maybe a year? - that doesn't use those tropes to pad out the last 6 episodes, and I'm eternally grateful. I enjoyed every minute of it, from beginning to end, with no dragging in the middle.

The biggest appeal for me, though, is the relationship between Dali and Moo Hak. They're genuinely in love. They have an adorable honeymoon phase, they're honest with each other and they prove how much they care time and time again. I've watched a lot of romances. They're my guilty pleasure when I'm sick or having a rough go of things. I've seen couples turn on each other or break up for several episodes just to add drama and pad the runtime. But every time these two go through one of these things that would, in any other drama, take several hours to resolve, they work it out. They talk to each other, they work it out, and they don't let the other person go. In addition to that, we get to see a lot of shows of affection between them that you don't see often in Korean dramas - butterfly kisses and implied sex (which is getting more common but not overtly so) to name a few. I could maybe see some people being turned off by just how much and how often these two are showing affection for each other, but when I'm watching a romance, that's kinda what I'm looking for and I loved it. I genuinely believed in their relationship, and I rooted for them all the way. These two are precious.

So watch Dali and the Cocky Prince. Just do it. I suppose if you prefer mysteries then maybe it's not for you, but I don't think you'd be looking at Dali at all if that's what you're after anyway. So just give it a shot. It's funny, charming, sweet, and brightens your day. What's the worst that could happen?

Lees verder