Usually when we refer to a piece of entertainment that has a “slice of life” theme, that’s usually a euphemism for “no plot.” There have been plenty of films that have simply shown a day or a year in the life of its characters, and they have been fine. But would you sit through an entire 12-episode series like that?
Opening Shot: A group of seniors write poems while “Yesterday” plays on a boom box. “Just write what you want to say,” says an instructor.
The Gist: One of the seniors coloring and writing poems is Ae-sun (Moon So-ri), who thinks back to her early 1960s childhood and thinks, “I had no idea back then that I’d ever turn 70.” But then, as now, her thoughts turn to her mom.
On Jeju Island in 1960, Ae-sun (Kim Tae-yeon) was a precocious grade schooler, whose mother Jeon Gwang-rye (Yum Hye-ran) worked hard as a haeneyo, who dove for abalones to sell on the open market. She would hang on the rocky shore with her mother and the other haeneyo women, plus Gwan-sik (Lee Cheon-mu), the son of a fishmonger. Ae-sun is currently living with the family her mother works for, but she’s convinced to bring Ae-sun back home. Reading the poem about how abalones have affected their family life convinces her that her “little rascal” deserves a better life than she has.
She tries to convince Ae-sun to leave the island when she dies, because the life of a haeneyo is not one she wants for her daughter. She is surprised the poem is the runner-up in the school poetry contest, and then is surprised that Ae-sun is only vice president of the class, despite getting more votes. She goes to visit the school and the teacher informs her that the boy who got the second-most votes needed a win — in other words, he has an influential father, so he wins the election.
Ae-sun’s mother tragically dies about a year later, leaving Ae-sun and her siblings to live with Gwan-sik and his family. By the time they are teenagers in the late 1960s, Ae-sun (IU) and Gwan-sik (Park Bo-gum) are selling fish and cabbages side by side at the town’s market, and has earned the nickname “Steelheart.” He does all the selling while Ae-sun reads, and both of them listen to radio broadcasts about the cultural revolution on the South Korean mainland. Eventually, their relationship will go beyond just being friends.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Given the period drama style of the series, When Life Gives You Tangerines resembles romantic K-dramas like Mr. Sunshine.
Our Take: Written by Lim Sang-choon, When Life Gives You Tangerines is about as pure a romantic series as you can get from South Korea. It essentially tells the story of Ae-sun’s unlikely adventurous life over six decades, mostly spent by the side of Gwan-sik. Lessons learned, places visited, things experienced, loves gained and lost.
There will be a certain segment of this show’s audience, ones that are diehards for romantic K-dramas, that will really fall for this show, given the sprawling storytelling, the performance of IU (the K-pop star’s given name is Lee Ji-eun) as the young-woman version of Ae-sun, and the lingering shots of the Korean countryside by director Kim Won-seok.
But those of us who aren’t diehards aren’t sure if they can sit through 12 episodes of a conflict-light slice-of-life story. At a certain point, we get the feeling that this show would have been better told in less episodes, or better yet, a long-ish feature film. Both would be able to capture the epic nature of Ae-sun’s life while moving things along faster.
Yes, this is our ironically roundabout way of saying that the first episode’s pacing was snail-like. We were surprised at how very little in the way of plot was in the first episode, despite the narrative in it spanning seven years and the unexpected death of Ae-sun’s mother.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: We see Ae-sun and Gwan-sik, dressed to go somewhere formal, running down a street, grabbing each other’s hands.
Sleeper Star: Yum Hye-Ran is tough but vulnerable as Ae-sun’s mother.
Most Pilot-y Line: The time stamps are shown in the corner as digital numbers, as if imprinted in the corner of a photograph from a 1990s camera. Strange choice.
Our Call: STREAM IT. There’s nothing inherently wrong with When Life Gives You Tangerines, but your enjoyment of the series will fully depend on your tolerance of shows that are more dependent on slice-of-life stories than plot and conflict.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.