Drama Review: That Winter, the Wind Blows (2013)

Grade: B-

Category

Romance melodrama

What it’s about

A con man with a heart of gold pretends to be the long-lost brother of a lonesome chaebol daughter, who just happens to be blind and at the mercy of a group of not particularly trustworthy servants. He hopes to convince her to hand over a huge sum of money so he can pay back gangsters who think he robbed them, but guess what? He falls in love with her instead.

First impression

So far this show is delightfully reminiscent of last year’s Padam, Padam, which I loved: There’s an intense, slightly unhinged male lead, an epic bromance, time spent in prison, and Kim Bum. (It should go without saying that I heartily approve of all of the above.) I can’t wait to watch more of this gorgeously shot, mature drama.

Final verdict

The first half of this show is dark and melancholy and crackling with dangerous, taboo sexual chemistry. Unfortunately the latter portion doesn’t live up to this promising beginning—the story loses steam by episode 8 and it quickly becomes clear that the writer and production team have no idea what to do with all the wonderful toys at their disposal.

There’s a lot to love here: lead actors who are almost painfully beautiful, acting that is uniformly good, and costumes, sets, and scenery that are breathtaking and skillfully showcased with some of the best cinematography of the year. Whenever the story focuses on the relationship of pseudo-siblings Soo and Young, it truly feels like something worth watching. The attraction between these two lost, rudderless souls is palpable, and their tender interactions have an almost sacred quietness about them.

But all this was sabotaged by the drama’s weak link. All the prettiness in the world can’t make up for a script this limp and poorly coordinated. That Winter’s halfhearted plot left questions unanswered (Why did the mom only take her son when she left her husband?), dramatic possibilities unexplored (What makes someone decide to risk a child’s health to keep her from being independent?), and whole characters all but untouched (Soo’s obsessed stalker just gave up on him of her own accord, did she?).

To That Winter’s credit, it tried to establish a group of imperfect but not unforgivable characters. There’s the dishonest caretaker who nonetheless has maternal feelings for her charge, the man torn between the woman he loves and the fiancé who could advance his career, and the grifter who has to decide if he would rather live or let down someone who loves him. The problem here is that the show refuses to acknowledge the unsavory aspects of their stories. Their misdeeds are glossed over, not atoned for, and in the end most everyone is in the exact same position they were in at the beginning, regardless of what they did during the show’s 16 episodes. The only roles that felt even remotely full-bodied were Soo and Young, and even they were never really given proper motivation for most of the things they did.

In the end, That Winter is like a pointillist painting seen from up close—it’s a lovely chaos of colors that never really coalesce into a logical, reasoned whole. It choses an abrupt and oversimplified ending over the possibility of a meaningful resolution with real emotional heft. What might have been a powerful character study of a flawed but functional family of misfits turned out to be nothing more than a music video about pretty people and cherry blossoms.

Extracurricular
This drama was based on the 2006 movie Love Me Not, which is available on Viki. It’s easy to see the DNA the big-screen version shares with That Winter, but Love Me Not is immeasurably seamier and more treacherous. Thanks to its tight focus and darker sensibilities, it sidesteps many of the problems that plague the drama—the show’s half-baked sidekicks are just bit players in the movie, and the brutal aspects of the story awkwardly overlooked by the drama come to full flower in Love Me Not. The movie fails to realize That Winter’s greatest triumph, though: there’s no deliciously forbidden sexual frisson between the leads, who have a much more appropriately brother-sister relationship.

Random thoughts

• Episode 2. Suspenders were an unusual choice for the male lead’s key fashion accessory, but I actually like them—they make him look like a rakish, taciturn lawman from some 1960s Western.

• Episode 3. Jung Eun Ji must have saved the nation in a previous life. First she gets to kiss Seo In Guk, and now Kim Bum? Where do I sign up for that job?

• Episode 3. What’s up with amusement parks always being open in Kdramaland, even in the dead of winter? Do they actually like riding the tea cups in a two inches of snow, or is this a drama-only phenomenon? It seems that Korea's weather is pretty similar to New England, but here amusement parks are usually closed from mid-October until late May.

• Episode 4. There hasn’t been any funny business as of yet, but this show is weirdly sexy. Everything about it is so tactile and intimate...from the way the female lead is always running her hands over things to the dreamy, dreamy closeups of the male lead’s expressive face. Rawr.

• Episode 4. The biggest problem with this show is that its leads are too gorgeous—I keep getting distracted from the plot by plump lips and gracefully sculpted cheekbones. It's amazing what a difference styling can make. This show’s lead actress was also in The World That They Live In, but with short hair and butch clothes she seemed more like a regular person than the renegade Disney princess she comes off as when she’s all dolled up.

• Episode 4. So far, I love this show. It's doing everything right—there’s a compelling storyline that’s constantly developing, explosive chemistry between the leads, a strong supporting cast, and gorgeous cinematography. I hope I don't come to regret starting it before it completes its run, though. It fun not knowing at all how it will turn out, but that will also make the wait between episodes feel like torture.

• Episode 6. If this was 2004, I would swear that this scene about sharing the pill was foreshadowing a finale involving a suicide pact. But what it means in 2013 is the question...

• Episode 6. Hee Sun is so totally my hero. A sassy, safe-cracking florist? Well played, drama.

• Episode 6. Korean dramas really do forbidden love like nobody else. These faux-siblings have the hottest chemistry this side of the boy lovers in School 2013. On the bright side, I bet they actually do hook up by the end of this show.

• Episode 8. As always, everything about this show is so star-dazzled and beautiful that I can barely handle it. However, I've spent my entire life in a winter-prone region and I’ve never once heard of frozen tree branches making any sort of noise, say nothing about this angelic tinkle. Frozen ponds are known to make interesting noises, but the sound is a bit more like a 9-inch Nails song.

• Episode 9. That's some excellent spycraft, folks. Whenever I stalk someone, I always park my bright white motor bike directly in their line of site and giggle while snapping photos of them on my smart phone. Or maybe not.

• Episode 12. So she’s been blind for like 20 years. If nobody else knew about the greenhouse room, why isn’t it all disgusting and cobwebby? There’s a little dust here and there, but nothing worse than starts appearing in my house after a couple of weeks without cleaning. I guess the same house elf that's been applying her tasteful mascara all this time must have been dusting, too. (I assume it was a house elf—I can see, yet still manage to poke myself in the eye every time I try to use mascara.)

• Episode 12. As a show this drama is just okay. But as an OTP it's achingly wonderful. These two are killing me on an almost Coffee Prince-level. They love each other and desperately want to be together, but the obstacles keeping them apart really do seem to be insurmountable. (Which is going to make it all the sweeter when they’re finally surmounted.)

• Episode 13. Having just seen Jo In-Sung in the smutty sageuk Frozen Flower, I have this to report: he may look good in clothes, but he looks even better out of them. 

• Episode 16. For the first time ever, I think this drama might actually have benefitted from some prologue episodes focusing on its characters as children. I would love to have seen Soo’s transition from the orphanage to Jing Sung’s house, and get a glimpse of the thought process that led Secretary Wang to do what she did.

You might also like
Padam Padam, which is extremely similar to That Winter. Only good. (And with a supernatural twist that involves lots of shirtless Kim Bum!)