I’ll start by saying I put off watching this one. I purposely did not watch it while it was airing. There are certain dramas that I know I won’t get the most out of them if I don’t watch them at a time I am most receptive to them.

Disclaimer * I don’t think this was the most receptive time either, even though I enjoyed watching it. I plan to watch it again in the future to see if I can get more out of it.

That said, for now I think it is a 9/10 drama and not a 9.5 or a 10/10 drama. The positives for me are what makes it a 9/10 and not the usual 8.5/10 that I give to solid k-dramas is that it is a heartfelt story, the plot is pretty solid and the acting is pretty good. The reason I won’t elaborate on the positives is because I’ll be honest; apart from recognising it as a solid production, this story did not get me as deep as it ought to have. I’ll go into why I think this was.

Starting from episode 2, although I was aware that time travelling was involved, the abrupt introduction of the time traveling element at the end of ep 2 felt like a sharp turn transition wise. It was not smooth at all. It was like being in a race car and suddenly making an extreme turn with little to no preparation, except this was done with the theme. Usually in dramas that include fantasy, they sprinkle a little bit of the fantasy elements in the lead up to the full blown reveal of the fantastical part of the drama. With this one, it was almost two full hours of a slice of life family drama that seemed rudely interrupted by the fantasy element suddenly being dropped in. And this was my reaction as someone who WAS waiting and expecting the fantasy element.

Another thing was, I couldn’t help but feel like this drama was an amalgamation of several movies, music and popular culture storylines and references, all pieced together. It made a huge chunk of the drama feel like a knock-off, ensuring that I could never really get into it as all I could think was, “they’re copying so and so”. I don’t mind things serving as an inspiration for others but you really have to make it your own and create something new with it, but with this drama, a lot of the concepts and scenes seemed borrowed. Whenever I was drawn into the drama, I’d notice that a scene or concept resembled something else and it would immediately take me out of the scene.

I have a minor point to make about the way the scenes were cut/edited together. It didn’t affect the majority of the drama much, as it fit that youth-indie style type of visual aesthetic but when it came to the emotional scenes, it felt somewhat choppy aka not-so-smooth transitions. It meant that the emotions didn’t hit fully 100% because the viewers weren’t able to sit with those scenes and absorb the depths of emotions before it suddenly changed to another scene. Typically for emotional scenes to work best, there needs to be a build up of emotional tension that is finally released and the cameras should not cut away in the middle of that emotion being expressed. For example, the cameras should not cut away in the middle of someone’s heartbreaking crying scene as it’s like cutting off the climax of emotion right at the top, which results in an immediate plateauing of the emotional weight built up when our focus is shifted to another scene. Instead it should be like a hill with a slow rise to the climatic top and a smooth decent to the other side of that intense emotion. This must be done in order to properly build and sustain the emotional weight of what the characters are experiencing and their plight, to help forge the bond between the viewer and the character and to allow the viewer to really connect to what the character is feeling.

This fourth reason was the most jarring for me. I have to preface this by saying I’m not trying to assume what’s best for the hearing impaired community, I’m coming at this solely from the perspective of someone who knows what storytelling mechanisms resonate with an audience. That being said, the thing about this drama that made it the hardest for me to get into it was the fact that they dubbed the deaf characters. I can understand from a practical pov why this was done but surely someone in the creative chair should have known how much of the connection and the power of the performances of the actors playing the deaf characters would have been lost by doing this. If you don’t understand what I mean, go watch CODA and tell me that by having the focus of communication solely on the deaf characters’ facial expressions, the movements of their hands and only the silence to convey their ‘lines’; you didn’t feel everything they signed just a little more deeply. That you didn’t feel the frantic and the hard hitting angry signing or the soft signing in tender moments that much more. That you couldn’t feel the frustration of the characters through their hands more than with a dubbed voice overlayed on top to explain what they are saying. I’m sure it was useful for Korean viewers to not have to read subtitles but I’d argue they lost some of the power of the performance by doing this. Of course, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have dubbing. I understand that having dubbed dramas makes it more accessible for different types of audiences such as vision impaired viewers. I’m not saying dubbing should not be available. Just like I’m not saying subtitles should not be available. I know these are both very useful features for making dramas more accessible to others. What I’m saying is that these should have been optional and the drama should have been released un-dubbed with the option to select dubbing as needed, as you do with subtitles.

If at the end of this you are wondering why I rated it so highly if I had so many critiques. It’s because of three things. One, this drama had excellent characterisation. Like truly excellent (especially the father and son). Two, I did enjoy watching it. It won’t make it on my favourites list but I really did enjoy it. And three, I like to give dramas and movies their dues. Even if I don’t fall in love with a drama, I still rate them objectively by what they have to offer and what they do well. This drama was a solid, above average and at times, truly above average, drama.

If you ask me what could have made it a 10/10, I’d say, not rushing past the emotional scenes too quickly, not dubbing the deaf characters and finally; trusting the foundation of the story more - which was a story about a boy’s love for his father and vice versa, while grappling with the difficulties of being a CODA. If they did this without trying to borrow from other films, dramas, music or American popular culture; it could have been a 10/10 drama that stayed with me.