1번으로!!🍊🍊🍊
When director Kim Won-suk presented When Life Gives You Tangerines to journalists gathered at a pre-release press conference, he said: “This series is a tribute to past generations of our fathers and mothers, and it’s also an anthem of encouragement for the daughters and sons who will now navigate the world ahead. We were hoping that the story will help break down the invisible barriers between generations, genders, and just people in general..” Even backed by an all-star cast that included IU, Park Bo-gum, Moon So-ri, Park Hae-joon, and Yeom Hye-ran, and one of the biggest production budgets in K-drama history, these still felt like grand ambitions. Somehow, When Life Gives You Tangerines managed to pull it off.
The sweeping generational drama follows characters across four “seasons” of their lives, from the 1960s to today. Ostensibly, the series follows the life of Ae-sun (played by IU and Moon So-ri in different decades of the character’s life) as she goes from poor kid on Jeju Island to slightly less poor adult with a husband and children. But Ae-sun isn’t in it alone. First, she has her mom, a haenyeo diver who endures a hard life for the slim chance her children’s will be easier. She has her childhood friend and later husband, Gwan-sik (Park Bo-gum and Park Hae-joon), a softhearted stoic who will do anything for his family. And she has a tapestry of humanity around her made up of ordinary, diverse people who mostly care, even when they have their own suffering to endure.
In recent years, K-dramas have become more ambitious when it comes to genre. From superhero series like Moving to fate-defying romances like Lovely Runner, this had led to some of the decade’s best storytelling. However, this year’s best K-drama—and one of the year’s best TV series - full stop—told a beautiful, deeply engaging story using only the stuff real life is made of. Anyone can make the fantastical seem extraordinary. But to make the ordinary feel extraordinary without losing any of its complexity or texture? What a rare and precious feat.
