Review: Crash landing on You

Crash Landing on You (English title) / Love’s Emergency Landing (literal title)

• Revised romanization: Sarangui Boolshichak
• Hangul: 사랑의 불시착
• Director: Lee Jung-Hyo
• Writer: Park Ji-Eun
• Network: tvN
• Episodes: 16
• Release Date: December 14, 2019 – February 16, 2020
• Runtime: Sat. & Sun. 21:00
• Language: Korean
• Country: South Korea

Source: Asian Wiki

Synopsis

Crash Landing on you tells the story of Yoon Se-Ri (Son Ye-Jin) a rich heiress to a conglomerate in South Korea who ends up in Borth Korean due to an accident caused by the strong wind while paragliding. There, she meets Ri Jeong-Hyeok (Hyun-Bin), a North Korean army officer who tries to protect her by hiding her. They both fall in with each and face many adversaries together.

Characters and their roles

Hyun Bin as Ri Jeon Hyeok

Ri Jeon Hyeok is a North Korean officer with a cold exterior but a warm and sweet person at heart. Known as an indifferent person, Ri Jeon Hyeok had to lie on several occasions to keep his cover and protect Yoon Se- Ri who crash-landed in North Korea due to an accident.
He is a captain of Company Five in the Korean’s People’s Army. They were stationed along the North Korean portion of the Korean Demilitarized Zone when the accident occurred.

He is also the son of the Director of the General Political Bureau. A position considered valuable as people treated him differently when they found out. He prefered to keep his lineage a secret to investigate his older brother’s death. As he tries to help Se-ri find her way back into South Korea, he begins to fall in love with her despite having a long time fiancee.

Seo Ye Ji as Yoon Sae Ri

Yoon Se-ri is from the 0.0001 per cent tier South Korea. Despite being from a wealthy family. Se-ri owns her fashion and beauty company called Se- Ri’s Choice. She is the illegitimate child of her father and has a bad relationship with her family.

Yoon Se-ri lost her biological mother after she was born. She has a strained relationship with her stepmother due to a childhood misunderstanding because she thought she abandoned.

After being released on probation after 283 days, Chairman Yoon announced Se- Ri as heiress of Queens group which makes her the target of resentment from the entire family. Yoon Se Ri had numerous casual relationships with celebrities. She is a demanding boss, who keeps her workers late at night even on holidays.

Seo Ji-hye as Seo Dan 

Seo Dan is North Korean and the fiancee of Ri Jeong- Hyeok through an arranged marriage by their parents. Her mum owns a department store in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. She is also an aspiring Cellist 

Seo Dan was always in love with Jeong-Hyeok since they were both in middle school although he did not reciprocate her feelings. Having been in Russia for studies for a long time she returns for a while and realises her marriage could turn out fake without love.

Desperate to turn her marriage, she tries everything possible.  She turned to Gu Jun Seung for advice. As time went on, she developed feelings for him.

Kim Jung-hyun as Gu Jun Seung/Alberto Gu

Gu Jun Seung is also known as Alberto Gu because of his British Citizenship. He is a conman who embezzled one billion from Queens group under Se-Hyung (Se-ri’s brother) watch. Smart and intelligent, he fled to North Korea to avoid being arrested.  while under pursuing by gangsters hired by Se-Hyung.

After his father was scammed by Se-ri’s father, leading to his family’s bankruptcy, he decided to be a conman to get back at him. He was to marry Se-Ri, but she sensed Jun Seung intentions on their first meeting and rejected him. He eventually had feelings for Dan after running into her on many occasions.

Themes Derived from the Drama

Romance

Firstly, Crash landing on you (Cloy) is basically the first K-Drama that brought up North Korea’s culture, customs and people in a different way delivered on this theme perfectly. From being hostile towards each other to falling in love. 

”Hyun Bin as Ri Jeon Hyeok was just adorable, sexy and honest and honourable and kind and perfect.  It was so refreshing to see Son Ye Jin step out of her usual Melodrama set-up (well, most of the time anyway, haha) and play a badass, funny heiress. She nailed this role. I loved what she was wearing in North Korea (anyone remembers the sunflower-print dress? It was so lovely). I also loved the fact that she did not wear any make-up in her North Korea scenes.” This was said by someone on Mydramalist and it was the perfect description I wanted.

The main couple we idealist and realist at the same time. it was fun watching them I must say. I must say I loved the second lead couple too and it hurt to say goodbye to Alberto.

Comedy 

The Friendship Se-ri had with the Ajumas of North Korea brought smiles to my face. Instances would be where they visited her thinking Ri Jeon Hyeok was cheating on her and when she went to the market with them was quite funny.

Every scene with the North Korean Army was chaotic and fun to watch. Describing it will take a long time. I leave that to you.

Because of the diplomatic clash between South Korea and North Korea. Hence, I won’t talk much about movies and dramas with the topic. This Drama reminds of is The King 2 heart which starred Lee Seung Gi. 

Performance Worth Watching

Every scene ended on a cliff hanger making it difficult to choose which scene is worth more than the other. If I have to choose one,  The reunion between Yoon Se-ri and the comrades would be it. The expressions and interactions were worth watching. Of course, Pyo Chi-soo and Se-ri’s interaction was fun to watch.

• Skin-ship: hugging, kissing overall the maturity rating is 13+

Closing shot; 

Although it seemed impossible, they were able to make it. So if you are wondering what I’m talking about, then it’s the happy ending. Because the unification between the North and south is yet to happen, they decided to meet in Switzerland, the land of their first meeting.  I didn’t want them to split up so I was excited they found a way around it.

• Places to stream And Download

                Netflix, viki, Kissasian.sh

• The Drills Decision; The plot had the right dose of rom-com, heartfelt and action which I love. Every episode ended on such a cliffhanger as I said earlier and it was stressful waiting every weekend. I remember watching it in class because I waited long enough for the episode. If you love romantic comedies with a few action scenes,  then this drama is right for you. I feel enough research was conducted for this drama because of the way North Korea was portrayed in a different light as compared to other Dramas with the theme.

Ratings

• Plot/Script: 10

• Screenplay: 10

• Cast/Acting: 10

• Props/costumes: 10

• Location: 10

The OST was perfect! I already want to watch it again. The chemistry was so, so good.

If I had to summarize this drama in one say, I would say I LOVED IT !!!!!!!!!!! I’ve’ already rewatched it so many times so it on the rewatch list.

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• The Trailer of the Drama