The smile has left your eyes : K-drama review

I would first of all like to mention the fact that I love the title, I can’t explain in words why, but it sounds almost poetic “The smile has left your eyes”

This a story that revolves around three people; Kim Moo young, a very complex man with no recollection of his childhood, he meets and falls in love with Jin Kang, who also has a troubled childhood. Her brother, Jin-gook, who is a detective tries everything to push them away and suspects Moo-young of murder. - this is in a nutshell.

I have watched a lot of k-drama’s since Mr. queen, and to be honest, none of them seemed to interest me that much (a lot of skipping), so you can imagine how happy I was to finally watch something with a storyline that got me really invested, like you could not imagine the joy I felt when I realized that I was watching a drama that genuinely intrigued me. It was definitely a new kind of k-drama for me, it was dark, but not like other dark dramas, it had a certain vibe to it that I’ve never seen in all the dramas I’ve watched. I think the main actors were cast perfectly because they both had eyes that portrayed sadness very well.

It felt like it was divided into phases, like first a mini series, then the actual thing, the first being about Seung-ah and munyeong’s relationship, the second delving more into the main storyline, so I guess more like a prologue, I found this interesting because it felt like a few episodes after Seung-ah died, she was never brought up again...almost like she was never there. I actually found a lot of things about this series to be interesting; the unconventional male lead, the secrets, and the ethics of it all. When I talk about ethics, I mean as painfully cute as the main leads were, in the beginning all I could think of was the fact that she was dating the guy who dated her dead friend, not even a month after her passing, and knowing that if he could make it so that the friend didn’t die, he wouldn’t change it. The fact is, in reality, despite his good looks, I would also be scared for Jin Kang, maybe not as irrational as her brother, but nevertheless scared, also there’s the fact that he was hitting on her, while he dated her friend, and that she knew he was playing with her friend’s heart, if I wasn’t such a sucker for love, I don’t know if I’d enjoy watching that part. The fact that both main characters were in relationships is something I’ve always found interesting, it’s not the first k-drama to do it, but most K-dramas have the main characters single in the beginning, sort of like they’re waiting for each other, so it’s always nice to see stuff like this.

I absolutely loved the romance scenes, they were the absolute cutest couple, and now I wonder if it’s some type of psych thing the writers were doing, because, we know how the relationship started, it wasn’t the most honest way, so we shouldn’t be loving them, but yet we do, I guess like a guilty pleasure. It’s the writers trying to tell you that, despite knowing all that, you still love it.

The fact that Moo-young protected Jin-Kang from the hot water when there were kids, and then as adults Jin-Kang tried to save Moo-young from the bullet was so sad, but so smart of the writers to connect.

I watched the last two episodes on a plane, and I can imagine how awkward the person sitting next to me felt cause I was weeping. This show broke me in so many ways, and it is by far the most gut wrenching k-drama I have watched. I was really trying to hold back the tears, but when her brother found them and started to cry, I lost it. So many people died, and with that saying, please don’t watch it if you can’t handle it, I am a big hypocrite for saying this, but just thought to put it out there.

I really liked the cinematography of the drama, it had a constant vibe to it from the beginning to end, even when things were going good, there always felt like there was a dark undertone, so my anxiety was always there whenever I watched this show. Which is why I could not binge watch it in 2-3 days like I usually do. My heart simply could not take it.

I think the writers did an amazing job with the script, I was so confused at the beginning because I knew there was so many hidden secrets, but they did a good job of bringing it all together and connecting it all.

Let’s talk about Kim Moo-young aka Kang seon Ho, I actually did prefer the latter name, even though moo-young fits him better

He was such a complicated character, you never could tell what he was thinking. You could see that he had a lot of inner demons to work through, and we got more of an explanation during the tragic last episode. He just did these things, if he felt some type of way, he did something about it, we saw this with how he started a relationship with Seung-ah, him getting a gun to kill Jin gook, him killing Se-ran. I was both shocked and not surprised that he killed her. Shocked because I would’ve never expected him to actually kill somebody, especially with his family history, but not surprised because it was so like him to do it, se-ran was saying a lot of things that he did not want to hear, and it got too much, obviously she didn’t deserve to die, but she definitely knew what she was getting into. I love how he loved Kang Jin, it was such a contrast from the dark brooding image he showed in the first few episodes, you could tell he genuinely loved her in every action he did. I liked that he shared (most) stuff with her with ease. Generally he was the kind of character we loved despite everything. Not going to lie, the whole thing with Yoo-ri gave me goosebumps, he didn’t directly kill the person, but a good lawyer could prove he might as well, we know he didn’t have any particular deep feelings about it, and that helped in us knowing what kind of person he truly is.

Kang-Jin

I feel like a better job could have been done with introducing her character, I actually had to double check just be sure she was the female lead while watching the first two-three episodes. I feel like we didn’t get to know enough about her. But the one thing we know is that she loved a whole lot, and I loved her for that, even though there was the whole dead-friend-boyfriend thing. She was such a supportive person to munyeong, and in an alternate universe, I know they would have a happy ending. I hated how much she was left in the dark, even though it was “for her own good” She found out too much at once. I hope she finds moo-young in the after life, and that they’re truly happy, I know it’s a lot to ask considering he was a murderer, but we can only hope.

Yoo Jin gook

I don’t know how to feel about him. One one hand he was a good brother, on the other hand, he kept way too many secrets. He could’ve just told Jin Kang why he did not want her around moo-young. If his goal was to protect her telling her the truth should have definitely trumped her knowing his past. I will never be able to understand why he stabbed moo-young even though he felt like he was the child from before. It was too much, I really hated him at that point because at that point, the audience was made to believe that he shot moo-young’s dad, but no explanation was given, we didn’t know he was a criminal, so him stabbing moo-young made him look dirty. He was definitely a tough character to deal with, and after the show ended, I wondered what would become of him, he loved Jin Kang so much, she was all he had, I don’t know how he will be able to be okay and live without her, I’m especially sure he would blame himself. I wish he got to say goodbye to her. I also wish we got an epilogue.

Now the ending....

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was certainly not expecting for BOTH of them to die, I was shocked to the core. It was such an unconventional ending. I wish they showed a scene with the killer getting caught, because now we will never know. It is so ironic that I was complaining about how tired I am of watching all these k-drama’s with the too good to be true happy endings, like the ones where everything seems to fall in place at the end. I guess I found what I was looking for. But I would take it all back to see them have that cheesy happy ending. It’s going to take me a while to move on from this show, it really did a number on me, I don’t think I will be able to come to terms with how they died, it took all my strength to not make this whole review about the ending.

Now for my rating;

This is definitely one of those shows that leave you thinking about so many things...what are the events that contributed to the ending? how did we get here?.

It is one that I will never forget.

9/10