Skip to main content

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (2021)

la la la la la la la la la… romantic Sunday…

 

It still rings in my head sometimes!

 

Around this time last year, I finally watched a Netflix series (yes, yes, latecomer), and added to the more than 250 million hours that Hometown Cha-cha-cha had chalked up by then.  At that point, it was still a top ten Netflix show and I joined what must be millions who have written something about it.


 

One reviewer called it a ‘seaside vacation in drama form’.  Indeed, it is!

The show is set in a dream seaside location, fictitiously named Gongjin (in real life Pohang, which has since become a tourist destination).  It is simply gorgeous in its:

- sea and seaside scenes – morning, daytime, evening, night, sunny and rainy weather




- clothes, bags and shoes – mainly, Hye-jin’s (Shin Min A), and also those of her friends




- Shin Min A – beautiful even in pyjamas

- Chief Hong’s (Kim Seon-ho) hair highlights

- fresh seafood.  
All fabulous visually!

 

What I loved were:

- the pretty houses




- the relationship between the café owner and his daughter

- the birth of the supermarket couple’s baby – alternately hysterical (the couple) and pro-life (especially when Hye-jin and Chief Hong each held the baby and looked in wonder, though of course you wonder how a dentist could deliver a baby without major problems)

- the supermarket couple, who are hilarious, as is the policeman Eun-cheol (Kang Hyung-suk); also, he is such a sweetheart and to me, it was Mi-seon (Gong Min-jung) who won the show’s best boyfriend and it was also Mi-seon who delivered the best line (to Eun-cheol): I praise my eyes for having discovered you.



- the two precious kids and café owner’s daughter – lovely characterisation and impressive acting! 

I saw the girl who plays Ju-ri (Kim Min-seo) in another show as an annoying spoilt brat.  She really comes into her own here and is a scream in the scenes with/about her boyband idol and when she is barfing while everyone is delighting in Hye-jin and Chief Hong being a couple. 



The show reminds us that everyone has a backstory, and it will not hurt to be sympathetic and to try to empathise:  We don’t all go through life in the same way.  Some are always walking on unpaved roads; some run at full speed only to hit a cliff and fall off (paraphrase of subtitles).

 

It’s about healing, and finding and loving yourself, family and friends.  Isn’t this what a seaside holiday is all about?



So thanks, Hometown, for the heart-warming, hope-filled little (mercifully at just 16 episodes) ride! It was hugely enjoyable!  You sure made me laugh and smile lots, and who else cried buckets at episode 15?


There are many fan videos of visits to Pohang and I enjoyed this amusing, high-energy one by Babo Prae (cousin of Bam Bam of Got7!).

 

pictures from Hancinema

 

16 episodes, tvN


 

first posted here

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A lesson in love

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. -Mother Teresa Most of the time my eyes just glaze over when I see article upon article of football news. One caught my glazing eye over the weekend, though - 'De la Cruz - Mother Theresa in boots' , because of the familiar name. Mother Teresa, that is. It was the first time I’d ever heard of this de la Cruz guy, an EPL player who hails from Ecuador (GNI per capita US$2,630; as a comparison, Singapore’s is US$27, 490 – source: BBC country profiles ). His is a great story to illustrate that famous Chinese saying about not forgetting your roots. According to the article, ‘Each month a proportion of that salary (about S$150,000) Reading pay him - be it 10 per cent in January or 20 per cent in February - goes direct to the village’ (where he grew up). (Picture and profile from here ) Here's what he has been credited for: 1. 'The 2002 World Cup,' de la Cruz reflects, 'finan...
4 comments
Read more

True train school

‘Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.’ How would you like to have such a headmaster? I finally re-read (read it first as a teenager) Totto-chan, The Little Girl at the Window , a ‘school story’ by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, translated by Dorothy Britton. Totto-chan is the name Tesuko Kuroyanagi called herself, and the book is about her life during her school days at Tomoe Gakuen. Totto-chan was expelled from her first elementary school because of her ‘disruptive’ behaviour, which included constantly opening and closing her desk top (because she was so thrilled by it), ‘vandalising’ her desk (because there wasn’t enough space on the piece of paper to draw) and standing by the classroom window waiting for street musicians to pass by or talking to swallows. Her mother, although probably alarmed about the ...
3 comments
Read more

When the best man doesn't win

Speaking of 'sway' spurned lovers, the latest one I've come across is in Love Revolution ( only 12 episodes!), a J show I recently watched. Heroine of the story is pretty, 30-ish Smart Doctor, who is dying to fall in love and get married. She meets Aspiring Actor and Broadcast Journalist (right). She falls for Broadcast Journalist like a ton of bricks. It's obvious from the start (to the audience but not to her) that Aspiring Actor is nuts about her. But... she has fallen for Broadcast Journalist like a ton of bricks already. No doubt, Smart Doctor and Broadcast Journalist must be given credit for their love that stands the tests of time, separation and misunderstanding, but the one who loves most in the show is undoubtedly Mr Aspiring Actor. What he does/does not do because of his undying love for Smart Doctor: Y does not pursue her at first because he is still struggling to survive in this small-time drama group and he knows he doesn't have much to offer Y resp...
Post a Comment
Read more