[K-DRAMA REVIEW] One Spring Night (2019)

One Spring Night is your modern day, adult-based K-drama focused on the lives of Lee Jung In, played by Han Ji Min, and Yoo Ji Ho, played by Jung Hae In. Jung In first meets Ji Ho at the pharmacy as she pulls herself together from a night of drinking with the help (both physically and financially) from Ji Ho. What starts out as a hidden friendship becomes something more as they both deepen their relationship. Jung In who has been in a four-year, stale relationship, begins to reevaluate what that relationship means. All while having to deal with her partner’s denial of their not so rosy relationship. Both Jung In and Ji Ho have to deal with their growing emotions while navigating her familial and societal expectations that could affect them. 

The K-Drama Themes

The most prevalent themes in this K-drama are the individual expectations and the familial and societal expectations of how one should live. Also, who one should build their life with. The heartache in this K-drama shows how Korean women are left to their own devices and how they try to pave their way to be heard within the familial and societal expectations.

Jung In’s sisters bring a unity of strength, support, and friendship as they navigate the expectations that require their happiness and safety their father places on them. These sisters are resilient in their own way as they are making way for their own path to live a happier and fuller life where they can have their happiness and safety guaranteed. Expectations are a quick way of falling down and hitting your face whether they are your expectations or someone else’s. Someone ends up getting hurt one way or another. One Spring Night really captures how those expectations play against each other. 

The Drama Setting & Expectations

Set outside the norms of the high school and university drama setting, the glimpses of adult life shows us that the older we get, the more complicated our relationships get with our family, love partners, and friends. Nothing is as simple as black and white. We have to work things out even if it means having conversations we don’t want to have. This drama gives you a glimpse of the working adult and of being a single parent (father). Also those being in an abusive relationship, and the growing pains and joys of pursuing your wants. Although the stigma of being a single father isn’t bad, you see the disapproval from Jung In’s father. Also, the concerns that come from both families than society.  

Written by: Erica ZR