This show ought to be right up your alley if:
(a) stories set in the 1930s are your kind of thing,
(b) you like the idea of Sohn Ho Jun getting to play romantic lead (if you’ve seen him in Go Back Couple, you’ll know he does lovely bedroomy eyes 😍), &/or
(c) you find Jo Bo Ah cute and charming,
..because this little drama special serves up all of that, and more – in just 1 hour and 5 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this little show, and I hope you guys will like it too.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
It’s the year 1937, and more young people are looking to marry for love.
Soo Ji (Jo Bo Ah), a girl from the countryside with city girl aspirations, joins the marriage agency run by Joo Oh (Sohn Ho Jun), in the hope of finding a good love match.
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS
Here are a handful of things to know, that I think will help you maximize your enjoyment of this little show:
1. Soo Ji can be played a bit OTT, especially in the beginning of our story. A slightly campy lens helps a lot.
2. Our story is lighthearted, and regularly serves up spots of funny.
3. Sometimes logic is stretched. Thinking of our story as a turn-of-the-century fairytale helps.
4. Show doesn’t delve too deeply into this, but it does make reference to painful events in history, specifically, the deployment of comfort women during the war. This juxtaposition of such a somber topic with our central love story might feel uncomfortable for some viewers.
STUFF I LIKED
Personally, these are the things that I enjoyed the most, during my watch:
1. For a little drama special like this, I’m quite impressed that the sets and costumes feel of similar quality to full-length dramas set in the same time period.
2. It really feels like we cover a lot of ground, even though Show only has a little over an hour of screen time to tell its story. I liked this. Everything felt quite nicely fleshed out, despite Show’s short running time.
3. Both our leads are likable and well-delivered, and our OTP shares good chemistry.
The OTT treatment of our female lead is dialed down by the second half of our story, and Jo Bo Ah’s natural charm comes through a lot more.
Also, Sohn Ho Jun looks dapper, and his leading man’s wistful looks at Soo Ji, while she’s clueless about how she’s making his heart flutter, are very endearing.
THOUGHTS ON THE ENDING [SPOILERS]
Of course I fully expected Soo Ji and Joo Oh to fall in love, but given that this is set in the 1930s, and so much was uncertain at the time, I wasn’t actually sure that this pair of lovebirds would get a happy ending.
I guess that did do good things for the dramatic tension in our story, because I was legit afraid that Soo Ji really would end up being shipped off as a comfort woman.
Ack. 😧 Given that this was a very real event in Korea’s history, this possibility cast a distinct shadow over my watch, as I wondered about Soo Ji’s fate.
I appreciate the significance of Soo Ji choosing to take up the supposed posting to Manchuria, instead of meeting her Japanese suitor Yuto (Kwon Soo Hyun) again, for marriage talks.
Clearly, she’s fallen enough for Joo Oh, to find the idea of marrying someone else, a distasteful and unappealing fate, even though, as a Japanese, Yuto represents security and safety.
I was really quite worried about whether Joo Oh would be able to rescue Soo Ji and the other girls from the train, since they’d already boarded, been locked in, and were being guarded by Japanese soldiers.
But, thanks to drama magic and Show’s light touch, Joo Oh manages to rescue Soo Ji with the help of his father, and all’s well that ends well – at least, for this group of young ladies.
Soo Ji ends up going back to her hometown and reconciles with her father, with father and daughter even starting to run a small business together.
We finish our story with Soo Ji confessing her feelings for Joo Oh, and as we leave our pair of lovebirds smiling shy, bashful, very endearing smiles at each other, I’d like to think that they do get a happy ever after together, despite the turbulent times they live in. ❤️
THE FINAL VERDICT:
Feels like a full story despite being so compact. Enjoyable and sweet, with lashings of funny.
FINAL GRADE: B++
TEASER:
WHERE TO WATCH:
Thought this guy was second best actor after Kin Mi Kyung in Go Back Couple. Will check this out.
Sohn Ho Jun is so underrated! I hope you’ll enjoy this one too, BE! 😃
In re my other discussions with you about Shin Se Kyung, Sohn Ho Jun, who is not all that famous, would be an actor whom I consider adult enough to be her male lead. And at the same time he could do all the non macho things that directors want to see in her leading men these days. And if she were allowed to be as funny as she is capable of being, she could make him blush and stammer as well without him ever losing that essential core of himself. And he is a handsome enough guy to play leading man roles.
I did enjoy it, albeit it was a bit foreshortened at the end. But one thing that struck me was there was a kind of 30s nostalgia going on in the show that seemed odd to me, not bad, but just strange. Here in the US, no one I have ever heard of had a feeling of nostalgia for the 1930s. When folks do things about the 30s here, it’s a whole lot about the dust bowl, starving moms, scrawny kids, machine gun gangsters robbing banks, and abject poverty.
@kfangurl – this sounds right up my alley. Since its 5:30 in the morning here, I think I’ll have a cup of tea and cue this up to watch in peace and quiet.
@Beez I hope you ended up enjoying it like I did! 😃
@kfangurl – I keep falling asleep on it! A few times! That doesn’t mean it’s not interesting. It just means that I was watching during a time when my body just couldn’t hold up. I also noticed things in your recap of Dr. Romantic where I’m like “I must’ve totally been snoozing because I missed that scene!” Frustrating because I’m don’t want to try to find the spots that I missed. But since Let Us Meet is so short, I’ll definitely find time to go back. I’ll probably start it from the beginning because I can’t remember anything about it at all which means I’m drifting off early.
@kfangurl – I started it again last night. I remember getting to the part where the ML realizes that his father’s concerns are true regarding single girls being taken and … 💤 😴 I’ll pick it up from there tonight. *clunk’s self”
@kfangurl – I finally finished it and I felt disappointed. I really like to watch shows set in this time period but I just didn’t care about the characters, and I really didn’t like that the ending seemed so frivolous given the subject matter. The idea that the girls could beat all those soldiers felt like a comedy. Now had it only been 2-4 soldiers, then I might’ve gone along with it and even laughed and cheered them. I don’t know, but I strongly disliked this as much as I intensely liked If We Were A Season. (Which I watched immediately after finishing Let Us Meet.) And If We Were a Season had the type of ending that I hate where it’s open ended and you have to decide on your own what happened next and still I liked it.
I guess I’ll finish reading your recap for both shows. I always stop when it starts to get into the spoilers.
This sounds really cute and like something I would enjoy 🙂
Yes it is cute! Do give it a try, Kay! I found it surprisingly enjoyable, for such a little show! 😃
I really loved this one. Was kinda stuck in a rut. So when I saw you had given good reviews for this one, watched it and now back here to tell my thanks. Was a great Friday watch after a hectic week. Thank you kfangurl for these hidden gem recommendations 💎.
Loved the costumes, the setting, the period sets, the leads (first time watching them), the light hearted story and the happy ending. Worth my 60 minutes 🙂 Happy way to start my weekend 🙂
Hi Vaish, I’m so pleased that you checked this out and ended up loving it!! 😃 It really is quite a little gem, isn’t it? Thanks for trusting my recommendation enough to give this one a chance! If you’d like to see more of Sohn Ho Jun, I really loved Go Back Couple. It starts out a little childish in the bickery vibe between the OTP, but works out to be very lovely and heartwarming in the end. I hope you’ll give it a try! ❤️