-GJ-
Assen, NL
“Can a person become a miracle for another?”
Originally written on Nov 06, 2022
One of my biggest gripes with K-Dramas is how the story often gets dragged out because people aren’t talking about their feelings. It’s always something like having to choose between a career and a person, and instead of trying to make it work, they just give up on one of the two, even when it’s not what they really want. When the Camellia Blooms is the exact opposite, with Hwang Yong-sik declaring his love for Dongbaek in the very first episode, leading to her thinking he’s a big weirdo, which immediately sets the tone for the rest of the show.
At first, I was quite happy with this, until I started to notice that it’s literally the same thing, but instead of the story being dragged out because people aren’t honest to each other, it’s being dragged out because they are too honest. This results in When the Camellia Blooms being a ~12-episode story spread out over 20 hour-long episodes. The pacing, especially towards the middle, is really bad, and it feels like characters are just running in circles to meet the network’s 20-episode quota.
The plot revolves around Yong-sik, a police officer who falls head over heels in love with Dongbaek, a single mother who runs a café at the outskirts of town. While this is happening, a serial killer is on the loose and starts to threaten Dongbaek. It’s super obvious near the start of the show who this murderer is, making it incredibly frustrating to see a team of cops needing an additional 10+ episodes to figure it all out. What could’ve been one big, fantastic, interconnected story turns out to be two separate storylines that only intertwine when the love story starts to stagnate. The number of times the same thing happens multiple times throughout the story is insane. It’s like I’m watching Dragon Ball Z. There’s no character development at all, except for in the first and last couple of episodes. I really wish this was done better.
What I liked was the lead characters' groundedness. Yong-sik is a goofball who tries to cheer up Dongbaek every chance he gets, whereas Dongbaek is a very insecure but pure-hearted soul who just wants to be a good mom for her kid and keeps getting thrown into awful situations. They balance each other out almost perfectly. I just wish the writers made better use of this. The supporting cast was nice as well, although they felt a bit too much like caricatures for me to really like them. There’s the biological father who wants to get the mother of his son back even though they’ve been out of each other's lives for years and he’s married. There’s the mother who doesn’t want her son to be happy with the female lead for no reason at all, which goes on for like 18 episodes. There’s the shitty kid who doesn’t like his mom’s boyfriend one scene, while they’re best buds in the next, etcetera. You know exactly where this is going a couple episodes in, but it’s still fun to watch.
And that’s the strength of When the Camellia Blooms. It’s not that well written, and it drags out way too much, but it’s incredibly wholesome and heartfelt when it needs to be, which makes this show a great comfort watch. My last couple of nights have been spent hanging out with my homies at the Camellia café, watching them try to catch a serial killer. And even though I didn’t love it, I’m sad that it’s over. It was a fun time.
One of my biggest gripes with K-Dramas is how the story often gets dragged out because people aren’t talking about their feelings. It’s always something like having to choose between a career and a person, and instead of trying to make it work, they just give up on one of the two, even when it’s not what they really want. When the Camellia Blooms is the exact opposite, with Hwang Yong-sik declaring his love for Dongbaek in the very first episode, leading to her thinking he’s a big weirdo, which immediately sets the tone for the rest of the show.
At first, I was quite happy with this, until I started to notice that it’s literally the same thing, but instead of the story being dragged out because people aren’t honest to each other, it’s being dragged out because they are too honest. This results in When the Camellia Blooms being a ~12-episode story spread out over 20 hour-long episodes. The pacing, especially towards the middle, is really bad, and it feels like characters are just running in circles to meet the network’s 20-episode quota.
The plot revolves around Yong-sik, a police officer who falls head over heels in love with Dongbaek, a single mother who runs a café at the outskirts of town. While this is happening, a serial killer is on the loose and starts to threaten Dongbaek. It’s super obvious near the start of the show who this murderer is, making it incredibly frustrating to see a team of cops needing an additional 10+ episodes to figure it all out. What could’ve been one big, fantastic, interconnected story turns out to be two separate storylines that only intertwine when the love story starts to stagnate. The number of times the same thing happens multiple times throughout the story is insane. It’s like I’m watching Dragon Ball Z. There’s no character development at all, except for in the first and last couple of episodes. I really wish this was done better.
What I liked was the lead characters' groundedness. Yong-sik is a goofball who tries to cheer up Dongbaek every chance he gets, whereas Dongbaek is a very insecure but pure-hearted soul who just wants to be a good mom for her kid and keeps getting thrown into awful situations. They balance each other out almost perfectly. I just wish the writers made better use of this. The supporting cast was nice as well, although they felt a bit too much like caricatures for me to really like them. There’s the biological father who wants to get the mother of his son back even though they’ve been out of each other's lives for years and he’s married. There’s the mother who doesn’t want her son to be happy with the female lead for no reason at all, which goes on for like 18 episodes. There’s the shitty kid who doesn’t like his mom’s boyfriend one scene, while they’re best buds in the next, etcetera. You know exactly where this is going a couple episodes in, but it’s still fun to watch.
And that’s the strength of When the Camellia Blooms. It’s not that well written, and it drags out way too much, but it’s incredibly wholesome and heartfelt when it needs to be, which makes this show a great comfort watch. My last couple of nights have been spent hanging out with my homies at the Camellia café, watching them try to catch a serial killer. And even though I didn’t love it, I’m sad that it’s over. It was a fun time.
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