Kdrama Review: Crash Landing on You

Drama: Crash Landing on You (on Netflix)

Genre: melodrama
Starring: Hyun Bin, Son Ye Jin, Kim Jung Hyun, Seo Ji Hye
Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤


So this one just finished airing this past weekend, wrapping things up with a 2 hour finale. It was all the buzz in the kdrama fandom and ended up receiving the highest ratings for a kdrama on this particular network. Yeah. It was GOOD!

It's premise is one I've not seen before an any kdrama... which is basically a romance between a South Korean famous/rich lady, and a North Korean soldier. Because, one day, she goes out paragliding, and a storm comes along and blows her off course and she crashes into a tree and gets all tangled up there. Our guy, going on his patrols, happens upon her and gets her down.

Well. Now he has a dilemma. Does he turn her in? or let her go? He decides to let her go of course, and tries to direct her the way to go, on foot, to get back across the line, but she doesn't trust him and goes the opposite way. Wrong choice. She ends up wandering all night, gets lost and then ends up in a nearby village where just when she is about to get caught... he shows up and hides her in his house.

AH!! Yes... and so now begins this awesome part where she totally becomes a different person from the spoiled rich person she is... as she learns to adapt to life in North Korea. And everyone falls for her and her spunk, including our quiet, reserved, shy North Korean soldier. It's the best.

Anyway. How much to say!? Stuff happens, and we end up all back in South Korea eventually, even our soldier, and his subordinates, who were deemed "the ducklings" by the fans and were absolutely adorable! AH! So now we see them trying to adapt to life in South Korea. But of course, they can't stay long and have to go back.

There's also a very bad guy who is causing all kinds of problems. Ugh.

There's also a roguish guy who is tied to all our characters, who is running away from the law, and he ends up in North Korea too... and falls for the girl that our solder is supposed to be marrying. It's all very complicated and wonderful. But anyway. Dang...I fell HARD for this character! What a fabulous comic relief he was and such fun to watch! I've seen him in one other drama, but he seemed totally different in this one. I NEED MORE!

Well, and so... the big question was... how can there possibly be a happy ending with this scenario? Everyone was very worried,but I felt they did an amazing job coming up with a solution to this and yes... giving us all the happy ending we wanted and needed.

Gah, I loved this one so much. So much.  Everything about it.

Not that I know, but just from other books I've read about North Korea, I do feel they painted a much rosier picture about life there than I would have imagined.  But I have learned that there was a writer on the show that has defected from there and so I would hope that he had a lot of input and made things be fairly accurate. I think there's going to be a q and a with him on something and hopefully I can catch that and see what he has to see about it all. So fascinating.

Anyway. It's on Netflix... so, if you have ever wondered about watching a kdrama... just... watch it. Just jump in and watch it.


Here's a very short trailer:





And the (one of them) song: