Bullet Point Review: Just Between Lovers
Published in
4 min readOct 14, 2018
- ‘Just Between Lovers’ follows Ha Moon Soo (Wo Jin A), and Lee Gang Doo (a brilliant 2PM’s Junho), two victims, (or rather survivors, as Sang Man (Kim Gang Hyun) states) of a horrific building accident. Thirteen years on, the pain and suffering are still present. Moon So’s mother (Yun Yoo Sun) becomes an alcoholic and has separated from her father (Ahn Nae Sang), who now runs a noodle shop and both of them spend hours in front of the television. Gang Doo stays in a motel, working various odd jobs, while his sister interns at a hospital, working hard to pay off her student loans and buy their house back. From an outsider’s point of view, it may seem like all these characters have moved on, but mentally they are still fixed on to the day of the accident, the what-ifs that could have prevented them from being at the mall that day, the nightmares, the different scenarios they reimagine, that could have prevented them from going there that unfortunate day. Like Gang Doo states in one of the earlier episodes, that the people who died in the accident are not the only victims, but also their families who have to live with this pain of losing a loved one their whole life.
- Just like the lead pair, the people they attract are also a victim of circumstances — Moon So’s best friend, Kim Wa Jin (Park Hee Won) is paralysed from the waist down after a motorbike accident, while Gang Doo is close to Ma Ri (Yoon Se Ha), a hostess now, but was once a victim of physical abuse. These characters empathise with each other and share a very tight bond. Their conversations are devoid of pity and are filled with everyday concerns, jokes and sarcastic comments, like between any two friends, but once an outsider appears, they are very protective of one another.
- Death, destruction and reconstruction is a major theme throughout the show. The story unfolds majorly at the site of the accident, where a new township is going to come up (a metaphor for tearing down the past and building a new future). Gang Doo and Moon So get closer by visiting memorials and the homes of the victims of the accident, one in which, they even find a dead body. Moon So makes physical models for an architectural firm, while Gang Doo works at construction sites, shipping docks, all that are a form of building and rebuilding. Moon So’s mother who blames herself for the death of her daughter, runs a bathhouse, symbolic of washing away one's sins, and her father sells noodles, a sign of long life, near the site of the accident.
- The pace of the drama is slow but steady, (mirroring the slow pace of construction work) and the focus is all on the characters. The insert of the past between the present was cleverly done, and these inserts served more as an insight to Gang Doo and Moon So opening up to each other, and coming terms to their shared past than a thrill factor.
I also loved that Moon So never remembered all her forgotten memories, unlike most dramas, where the memory comes back whenever it is convenient for the plot. Thankfully there aren’t many flashbacks too, and the audience is not force fed information every time the past and the present are linked.
- Gang Doo and Moon So’s romance is a breezy ride, partly because, they never give up on each other, when a crisis hits. They are constantly there for each other, and the empathy and love they feel for each other is wonderfully portrayed by Wo Jin A and Junho. Even when Gang Doo and Moon So part for a short while, it isn’t made to seem like the end of the world for either of them. She goes back to work, and he is out at sea, catching fishes. There are small flashbacks where they are thinking of each other but no hysterical cries, or misunderstood jealousy. Even Gang Doo’s decision to leave comes after much deliberation. He decides to leaves, then decides against it, and then decides to leave again when he keeps hearing how everyone around Moon So wants her to date Joo Won. It isn’t a rash decision that stems just out of jealousy.
- Junho plays Gang Doo with a hot head, but a soft heart. He is protective of those close to him and is mentally still suffering from the accident years ago. His character is not preachy, but very frank, and his rapport with the grandmother is one of the show's major highlight. The grandmother (played by Na Moon Hee) imparts wisdom (and sarcasm) with her fast running mouth. Her reaction upon hearing that she has a tumour was respectfully shown, without being too shrilly, but emotional enough to strike a chord, and the conversation that follows between Gang Woo and her was too sweet!
- Background scores are limited to a few OSTs, and in scenes involving conversations, there are none, helping us to pay more importance to what the characters are saying.
- The wide shots of the construction cranes with a setting sun, the fishing boat at the sea, the dockyards, add a layer of artistry to what could have been a dull setting.
- The whole stretch of the what-could-have-been was gratifying to watch. Though since the start of the show, Gang Doo avoids this thought and tells others to do the same, because it is a futile attempt to try to change the past, and imagine a non-existent future but eventually, we do get to see what would have happened if the accident didn’t occur. Like Haruki Murakami states in his book, Kafka On The Shore, “It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”, and that’s exactly what Just Between Lovers is, a story of pain, sadness, suffering and solidarity.
