The Sweet and Sour K-Drama “When Life Gives You Tangerines” Measures Life in Four Seasons of Love
One of the joys of stories like this is how it unfolds like the pages of a book; every episode is a chapter, revealing deeper meaning to scenes you previously thought were simple.
Tomas Kauer - Las Vegas Syndicated News 
Thirty-four million one hundred eighty-six thousand six hundred ninety-eight minutes is another way of saying 65 years. Over that time span, Ae-sun and Gwan-sik find more than a million ways to express their adoration, but they rarely say the words. Instead, little by little, with acts of care, loyalty, and fierce protection, they weather all four seasons of their lives. Together.
In the old world, a tangerine represented luck. To receive one conveyed a blessing of good fortune, but in the new Netflix drama, tangerines are synonymous with making lemonade. IU, the pop idol and leading actress here, says the English title is about using the sourest tangerines life hurls at you to make a warm and soothing tea. Her character, Ae-sun, isn’t an easy person. She’s a brilliant girl trapped on 1960s Jeju Island in South Korea. Her mother, portrayed by the magnificent and sob-inducing Yeom Hye-ran, says, “It’s better to be born a cow than to be born a woman in Jeju.” Meaning, women are nothing more than beasts of burden, like a cow or a water buffalo, perpetually made to carry the heaviest burdens.
This applies to Jeju’s iconic haenyeo, women divers who harvest abalone and seaweed from the ocean floor. They are the breadwinners, and yet they never earn parity. Every turn of events in the first 4 episodes of “When Life Gives You Tangerines” illustrates this fact. Ironically, IU’s Ae-sun is more like a fox—bright and excitable—but Park Bo-gum’s Gwan-sik resembles an ox—steadfast and strong. While As-sun rants, fights, and cries at the injustices in life, Gwan-sik is the quiet nurturer. He puts her shoes on for her, sells her cabbages at the market, and smoothes her hair.
As a K-drama or Korean drama fan, I hadn’t seen them in roles like these (and I’ve watched them take on an array of characters). When the screeners for “Tangerines” landed in my inbox, I’d just started a rewatch of IU’s popular love & ghosts story, “Hotel del Luna.” Next on my list was “Hello Monster,” the love & psychopaths series that made Park a sought-after actor by the industry and the fans. They’re both the kind of artists who disappear into their characters, seamlessly integrating into the story they’re telling and pulling you into the world with them. They come through again in this series by director Kim Won-seok (“Signal” “My Mister”) and writer Lim Sang-choon (“Fight My Way” “When the Camellia Blooms”), but IU and Park aren’t alone in their roles. Veteran actors Moon So-ri (older Ae-Sun) and Park Hae-joon (older Gwan-sik) join them in taking their characters through the full cycle of life.
“When Life Gives You Tangerines” can’t be bothered with genres. It isn’t a melodrama or a comedy, a slice-of-life or a character study, a romance or a mystery. It’s a culmination of those things. Painful when life is, filled with funny situations, immersed in day-to-day living, romantic because of their unending kind of love, and mysterious because we’re never sure what’s coming their way. Another mystery arises in the narrator’s identity, but I won’t spoil that for you.
“Their spring wasn’t a season to foster dreams, but to break them.”
With a hefty budget and a stellar cast shooting on location, the series is as wistful as it is sumptuously shot and lit. Early on, there’s a scene when a constellation in the night sky becomes the yellow helmets of the haenyeo divers bobbing in the sea. So pretty. The night scenes are crisp and detailed, painted in a golden glow. While the comedic scenes spin the camera in angles that heighten the foolishness of it all.
If you’ve never watched a K-drama outside of “Squid Game” be prepared for a slower pace. One of the joys of stories like this is how it unfolds like the pages of a book; every episode is a chapter, revealing deeper meaning to scenes you previously thought were simple. Our Stalwart and Sassy Couple has a long way to go. The Korean title for the series is “Pokssak Sogatsuda,” a phrase that means “You’ve worked hard” in the Jeju dialect. The labors Ae-sun and Gwan-sik endure are bittersweet. I cried as much as I giggled, and I hope it’s the same for you. The series will launch with 4 out of 16 episodes on Friday, March 7, but Director Kim and Writer Lim have already dealt out a full deck of emotions—I shudder in both fear and anticipation of what they’re going to do to us next. The only thing left to say is: Bring it on. I’m hoping these tangerines are lucky.
Four episodes screened for review. Now on Netflix.
