‘Encounter’…A slow burn romance with terrific performances, but with a lack of conflicts, makes for a tepid second half.

While I was watching Encounter, I was constantly reminded of Something in the rain. Both shows concentrate on a relationship where the woman is older than the man, with mothers opposing the relationship and fathers silently supporting them from the side. The major difference is that in Encounter, Cha Soo Hyun, is the CEO of a successful chain of hotels. She is what most male leads are in Korean dramas, except that she is also a divorcee. Due to her politician father and her short-lived marriage to a chaebol, she is under constant public scrutiny, a burden that is expressed through Song Hye Kyo’s disinterested yet exhausted face. So, we often see her framed in long wide shots, devoid of people that echo her isolation. Whether it’s her large, empty house or her empty office, Soo Hyun is always alone.

But a trip to Cuba and an accidental meet up, leads her into a loving relationship with Kim Jin Hyuk (played by a charming Park Bo Gum), where we watch her open herself up with his support and encouragement. The difference in their social status, their age, their positions, doesn’t make any difference to them, but you can’t have a happily ever after without some disruptions. So there is some uneasy at work, problems with her ex-in-laws, some juicy gossip for the tabloid, but this couple, gets through them all, only strengthing their relationship in the process. Song Hye Kyo and Park Bo Gum’s chemistry is extraordinary, and they exude a sense of ease and a spark, magical at times, which portrays their relationship with the maturity of the lead characters, as well as the giddy sensation of first love.

Then, there are also supporting characters that can habitually be found in a typical K-drama, but they never behave the way you would expect them to. You have the ex(husband), (played by Jang Seung Jo) who you keep expecting to cause some sort of trouble for Soo Hyun, but is actually trying to win her back by being…nice. Then there is the best friend (played by Jeon So Nee) with a secret crush, who you think with the right opportunity would try to disrupt her crush’s budding relationship, but she actually shudders at that thought. Even the ‘break up with my child, as you will never fit in our family’, comes from the mother you expect the least from.

The scenes in Cuba are shot gorgeously, with diffused sunlight, colourful bokeh backgrounds, and a moving camera, all mirroring Soo Hyun’s freedom, while the colour back home is colder with singular tones of blues, whites and greens and the camera more stationary.

Encounter treads slow, and you need to be patient with it. For the first half, the absence of melodrama is great, as it is a testament to Jin Hyuk and Soo Hyun’s defiance to everyone’s nosy opinion about their relationship, but as time progresses, the show rids itself of conflicts to solve, well mostly the tension that is associated with them, and you end up looking for a purpose for the show to progress.

What I did love though, was how characters have to learn to maintain their existing relationships, with a growing one, especially since they live together with their family. In Something in the Rain, Jin A has to sneak out every night (and sneak back in the morning), to spend the night with Joon Hee, and here, we see Jin Hyuk’s discomfort in declining to his mother’s request to have dinner at home, especially when he knows she cooked specially for him, but at the same time, he also is aching to meet Soo Hyun.
Such small details, make the story more rooted and relatable to people like myself, as from where I come, living with your family even when you are older is a common occurrence. So watching these characters maneuver this balancing act hits close to home.