Drama Review - Twinkling Watermelon
Korean Drama ·
Twinkling Watermelon is a 2023 Korean drama starring Ryeoun, Choi Hyun Wook, Seol In Ah, and Shin Eun Soo. It aired on tvN in the latter half of 2023. The show tells the story of Ha Eun Gyeol, who is a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), and he is the only one in his family of four who can hear. As a result, this family has a lot more struggles and difficulties than a regular family. From a young age, Eun Gyeol started learning the guitar and loving rock music, although he is slightly guilty of the fact that he is doing something his family cannot. This continues through his teen years, where he is secretly part of a band, but he is still conflicted on whether he should continue doing music. However, one day, Eun Gyeol is suddenly transported back in time to 1995, and he runs into his 18-year-old father Ha Yi Chan. Here, he cannot believe that his father can speak and that his father is interested in a cellist named Se Kyeong. Furthermore, he doesn’t even appear to know Eun Gyeol’s mother, Cheong Ah, yet! There is yet even more complication, as Se Kyeong is interfering in ways she shouldn’t be in the first place. However, these four people eventually find each other, and from there, a bond starts to form. Twinkling Watermelon follows this group of people as they journey through the last of their teen years together, forming a band and facing challenges as they come along, all while Ha Eun Gyeol needs to find a way to set up his parents together.
I’ll start off by saying that I was very pleasantly surprised by Twinkling Watermelon. I had actually heard about this drama when it came out, but back then I had just brushed it off as another cliche time-travel youth Kdrama, genres that I don’t usually enjoy. However, the day before my two most important finals came up for the Fall 2023 semester, I randomly stumbled across a clip of this drama, and I was intrigued. The characters in the drama looked fun, and things were actually happening. So, being bored from studying for the past few hours, I randomly decided to watch one episode on a whim. Big mistake. One episode became two episodes, which turned into three more. In fact, I remember when I finished watching the fifth episode and glanced at the time, it was 12:30am. I had a final in less than 8 hours. Realizing that, I panicked, did some stress studying, then went to sleep. I then proceeded to finish the drama over the next three days, two of which I had finals to take. Needless to say, I really enjoyed this drama, and I am definitely getting back into watching Korean dramas after this.
I think one of the bigger reasons why I was able to enjoy Twinkling Watermelon, even though it is technically a youth drama, is because a lot of the high school elements that are present in other youth dramas don’t appear in this drama. For example, because of the direction that this drama goes, there is not a big focus on high school, grades, or getting into college. There is also not as much focus on romance and random jealous people. Rather, the drama explores other aspects of youth, such as the energy and certain liveliness that only high schoolers have. It also contains a lot of the themes that I usually like in dramas, such as a good family relationship and good friendships. The drama depicts characters that are just so passionate, energetic, and fun, keeping me engaged with everything that they do. I love that they have hobbies and things that they care about, and that they work so hard with their youthfulness to get towards that goal. Furthermore, especially with Korean rom-coms, I feel like many of them lose their comedic counterparts, but that is not the case with Twinkling Watermelon. This drama was actually really funny, and it worked really well. The drama perfectly blended romance, emotion, and humor, and I would frequently find myself crying and laughing many times within the same episode. Since the style of this drama is very upbeat and fast, there are many exaggerated emotions, expressions, and speeches, which suits the drama’s style really well. However, this doesn’t stop the drama from being very delicate in terms of emotions and being very empathetic. I also loved how Twinking Watermelon had a progressive take on disabilities. I think disabilities are things that are often overlooked in dramas, but I thought it was nice that this drama was able to bring more attention to this issue and help people be more aware of disabilities so that they are not inadvertently insensitive to people with them.
The characters in Twinkling Watermelon are quite simple, and the acting was really well done. The highlight for me was definitely Shin Eun Soo as Cheong Ah. Because Cheong Ah cannot hear or speak, she has been looked down upon her whole life. And coupled with the fact that she went through a particularly rough childhood, it is so heartwarming for me to see her grow throughout the drama, standing up for herself and finding beauty in pain. In fact, I would say the drama is worth watching just to see Cheong Ah smile or laugh. Every time she did, it just made the drama that much brighter and heartening for me.
Of course, the other characters don’t disappoint as well. Choi Hyun Wook was a perfect choice for playing Ha Yi Chan, as his ability to act with high energy and spirit shone again here. Ryeoun, who played Ha Eun Gyeol, was so funny with his extreme expressions and reactions to things. And Seol In Ah, who played Choi Se Kyeong, was also brilliant, able to convey all the thoughts and emotions of her complicated character. I loved how each character was able to grow and learn a lot from others, and how everyone depended on each other and trusted each other in the drama.
The romance was also fairly well done, although I thought it was a bit forced. It didn’t develop very naturally, and people just liked each other and got together for no good reason. It also irked me a lot that Enu Gyeol decided to pursue a romance with someone that he thinks is over 50 years old. If I traveled back in time, I could never fall for anyone, as they would all be so much older in my mind. This was really weird to me, but it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. However, after this, the romance progressed very naturally, and I loved seeing the characters fall for each other and depend more on each other. Small spoilers, but when Ha Yi Chan sang a song to Cheong Ah, I was crying. The music is also very fitting for this type of drama. Since one of the main themes of this drama is about a band, this drama contains a lot of upbeat music. Songs like HIGHER or SHINING really make me feel the cheerful and optimistic feelings the drama is trying to convey. The more delicate emotional songs are also not bad and played at the right moments. My favorite one was About loneliness by Aalia.
However, as much as I loved this drama, I do have some of my own critiques about it. For example, I felt that the drama lacked direction. In the beginning, the drama focused a lot on family and the struggles that the family goes through as a result of the mom, dad, and brother being deaf. However, this just fizzled away as the drama progressed, and the ending of the drama had nothing to do with the parents and the struggles shown at the beginning of the drama. Some other events that happened near the start of the drama were ignored at the end as well, and it just didn’t feel complete. It was as if a hole was never filled in the drama, and it seemed like it was written by two disconnected writers. Furthermore, I feel like the pacing of the drama was also a bit off, in the fact that I felt the drama “led” its viewers along. While watching the drama, there are things and events that I knew had to happen in the drama, and I would be anticipating those moments, but they would happen several episodes later. At this point, my initial excitement for that moment would be diminished, and I was just happy that it finally happened (and slightly angry that it didn’t happen sooner). For example, I think they made the introduction of the drama a little too long; the drama was too slow to enter the main plot of going back in time. However, in the grand scheme of things, it was fine and didn’t matter all that much. There was also one moment in the drama where I thought a problem was created out of thin air, which irked me, but luckily it didn’t last too long.
A quote from this drama that I would like to end with is “Life doesn’t shine when all the conditions are met. It shines in little moments. Then you experience happiness when all those moments are gathered.” I think this is particularly true in my life right now, as I am pretty happy and satisfied with my life. There is no big moment that happens where I become really happy; rather, I am being fulfilled by smaller things in life, such as taking walks, reading books, or helping my mom with the backyard. These are things that all bring a small amount of happiness to my life, and even though each individual event cannot make me as happy as, for example, a 5-week trip to Europe, these moments collected together give my life a lot of meaning and things to look forward to.
Twinkling Watermelon was such a relaxing and engaging show for me to watch, and it has since turned into a comfort drama for me. I frequently find myself revisiting cute moments in the drama or moments that I really enjoyed. I would definitely recommend Twinkling Watermelon to anyone who wants to start a new Korean drama; I think it’s hard to go wrong with this one.
My Rating: 9/10