“When My Love Blooms” (화양연화 – 삶이 꽃이 되는 순간)

By Jae-Ha Kim
jaehakim.com
October 28, 2022

Han Jae-hyun (played by Yoo Ji-tae)
Yoon Ji-soo (played by Lee Bo-young)
Jae-hyun (younger version played Park Jin-young)
Ji-soo (younger version played by Jeon So-nee)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

“When My Love Blooms” started off so strong and promising that I had high hopes for this series. You usually can’t go wrong with Yoo Ji-tae and Lee Bo-young in the lead roles. But while the actors did a great job of embodying their complicated roles, I ended up not appreciating either character very much.

The series unfolds with storytelling from two perspectives: that of current-day Jae-hyun and Ji-soo, and their younger and more idealistic college selves (played effectively by Park Jin-young and Jeon So-nee) who believed they could change the world.

Flash forward: Jae-hyun has just been released from prison, not for his work as a political activist, but as a patsy for his arrogant and immoral chaebol father-in-law. Meanwhile, his wife has been cheating on him while he took the fall for her father. Not that he really cares. They have a son together, who he loves — but Jae-hyun also recognizes that his child is a bully at school.

Ji-soo is a divorced mother who never graduated from college, despite her father’s high ranking as a prosecutor. He didn’t approve of her relationship with Jae-hyun during their school days and did everything possible to break them up. Because she decided to pursue music instead of law, he viewed Ji-soo as a failure. Her father literally beat the spirit out of young Ji-soo, who grew up to lack confidence in herself.

The series doesn’t get into why Ji-soo divorced her husband, who is seen in flashbacks as caring and loving. But my guess is his slap-happy mother had a lot to do with it. His mother tells her son that in order for him to gain full custody of their child, Ji-soo needs to be caught with another man or having gone bankrupt. I understand the financial aspect, since Ji-soo relinquished alimony and child support in exchange for full custody. But what does it matter if she dates? She’s a single woman.

Of course, when she reunites with Jae-hyun, who is married, things get messy, especially when there is video evidence of them sharing a kiss that she initiated.

Though Ji-soo is written as a sympathetic character, I found her annoyingly simple-minded. She was willing to go to jail to pay for her altruistically-driven crimes, even when the option was there to not be imprisoned. And later when she became a mother, she chose not to accept financial assistance from her lawyer husband. How does that benefit her son, to have a mother who can barely make ends meet? (By the way, she met her future ex-husband when he worked as her pro bono attorney.)

She’s also proudly foolish. When Jae-hyun’s wife humiliates her at a fancy shindig, ruining an expensive gown the hostess forced upon her, Ji-soo insists on paying for it, even though she doesn’t have the money to do so. This is the person Ji-soo is — well intentioned, but too prideful for her own good.

This becomes especially problematic where it comes to advocating for her son. When the school notifies her that her normally passive and academically-gifted son struck another student, she gets down on her knees and apologizes on his behalf without even asking him what had happened. Why does she automatically believe what the school says? When her son is reticent to tell her what is going on at school, she doesn’t dig any further to get to the truth. Ji-soo is bullied by the other wealthy mothers at the school. Does it not occur to her that perhaps her child is being bullied by his wealthy and entitled classmates who view him as less than for being poor?

In Eps. 5 and 6, her ex husband becomes suspicious of what is happening at school. He tells his son to confide in him if anything bad is going on, because he has more power than the boy’s mother. This is also true. A Gangnam lawyer will get the principal’s attention more than a single mom who’s working multiple part-time jobs to pay the bills.

Ji-soo and Jae-hyun didn’t marry their partners because they were in love with them. Rather, they gave in because their partners were in love with them. And while the showrunners did their best to vilify the spouses, at least the latter married because they were truly in love. As flawed as they were, they did everything in their power to hold their respective marriages together.

Being poor or in a loveless marriage doesn’t absolve someone from cheating on their spouse. And in Jae-hyun’s case, his wife’s affair had preceded his own. That would’ve given him grounds to legally separate and divorce, before pursuing Ji-soo again.

This K-drama had some really strong moments, but was bogged down by too much redundant melodrama that ruined what could have been a touching love story.

Airdates: Sixteen hour-long episodes aired on tvN from April 25 to June 14, 2020.

Spoiler Alert: Jae-hyun’s father was framed for a disaster and made into the fall guy. Ostracized at work and blamed for something he didn’t do, he ended up dying by suicide. Jae-hyun vowed to take down the people responsible for doing this: his chaebol father-in-law.

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