It’s review time! I’m really glad to go back to my list and watch some older dramas that I’ve really been looking forward to watching. This series has also been on my list for a while and I’m glad I finally got around to watching it!
Again, I went into it without knowing any details about the story, and I let myself be surprised. I’ve been kind of looking forward to writing this review because I have several things to say about it and I just love how going back to some more older dramas always feels refreshing. For some reason I find it easier to write reviews for these kind of series than for more hyped and intense series (referring directly to Crash Landing on You & It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, for which it took me more than a day to finish my final reviews). Even though this series is also 16 episodes each with a length of a little over an hour, it still felt ‘easier’ to watch than when I’m watching something on Netflix.
Let’s start! I really wanted to watch this as soon as I saw the main leads and the teasers/trailers that I saw looked cute.
The Third Charm (2018)
It still turned out quite different from what I’d expected. I’ll first give a general overview of the three parts the series is divided in, before going into more details.
The Third Charm depicts the 12-year love story between On Joon Young (played by Seo Kang Joon) and Lee Young Jae (played by Esom/Lee So Young). What’s interesting from the start in this love story is that these two are complete opposites: Joon Young is a classic nerd (even in appearance), who is really picky in everything he eats and does. He always organizes all his stuff neatly, he can’t eat spicy food, is afraid of heights and gets drunk really easily. He prefers to live by the rules. Young Jae, on the other hand, is a free spirit. She lost her parents and lives with her older brother. She can’t afford to go to college so she works part-time in a hairsalon – her dream is to become a professional famous hair designer. She loves the spontaneous, and is actually quite jealous of college friends who are able to play around and hang out whenever they want since they have no trouble paying for their tuition, or their parents pay it for them. Young Jae loves spicy food, especially when she’s upset, and she’s just really playful.
The story starts in 2006, when both of them are 20 years old. Joon Young and Young Jae meet for the first time in the subway when they’re both on their way to a college entrance exam – Young Jae calls out a pervert for feeling up a woman and drags him with her to the police office. Joon Young, who actually wants to get away as soon as she starts meddling because he doesn’t like to get involved in other people’s business, ends up still going to the police station as well since he took some evidence pictures. In the end, they both barely make it in time for their respective exams, but Young Jae is too distracted that she’s not able to concentrate and fails – she’s not allowed to enter the hairdresser’s school. So she keeps working part-time at the hairsalon.
The Third Charm: Episode 16 (final) » Dramabeans Korean Drama Recaps
One time, some of her friends who are in college, together with one snooty girl, invite her to a blind date with some college guys because their last participant couldn’t make it. Coincidentally, this blind date is with Joon Young and three of this friends. When everyone chooses partners to go their separate ways, Joon Young is forced to stay behind to wait for the girl who’s late. When this turns out to be Young Jae, they have a surprisingly fun ‘date’ at the amusement park, but at the same time he allows Young Jae to bulldozer all over him. He’s forced into rollercoasters, forced to eat extremely spicy tteokbokki, and ends up participating in a beer drinking contest, which he wins after getting completely wasted. Joon Young is under the impression that Young Jae is a college student as well, because she doesn’t tell him otherwise. After getting her number through his friends, he’s able to find the hairsalon she works at and they meet a couple of times and eventually kiss.
On their official ‘1st day of dating’, Joon Young invites Young Jae to a party but this party is ruined when the snooty girl humiliates Young Jae publicly and tells everyone that she’s not a college students and that she’s from a poor family etc. etc. Young Jae is really embarrassed by this and leaves. After that, she seems to have disappeared. When Joon Young finally tracks her down, she is really cold to him and says that she doesn’t want to be with him, breaking his heart.
Then, the series skips to 7 years later, New Year’s Eve 2013, when they’re both 27. They meet again. Joon Young is now a police officer, something that Young Jae told him he’d never be when they first met. He has always held a grudge against Young Jae for breaking his heart, but finds himself back at the beginning when they meet again and they start dating pretty soon after. Despite their different personalities, you can see how much they adore each other. They will visit each other at work, bring each other food, sneak kisses in-between conversations, etcetera. Ultimately, they do break up again, and I will talk about this later, but I think it’s fair to say that it also had to do with several love rivals and the realization that maybe they really were too different and they wanted different things in life. Young Jae probably felt that Joon Young would have to sacrifice some things he’d like just to go along with what she’d want, and she couldn’t do that to him. Anyways, they break up.
Seo Kang Joon (서강준)
Then, instead of a time jump like the previous one, this time we follow Joon Young through another 5 years of time. After his breakup with Young Jae, he quits his job at the police station and travels to Portugal. First it seems like a break, a holiday to clear his mind, see the world and figure out what he does next, but it turns out to be quite an emotionally draining journey. He doesn’t speak the language, he walks until his feet start bleeding and he feels really alone. Then, one night, when he’s exhausted, he comes across a small restaurant and when he tastes the food, he makes a decision: he’ll become a chef. He applies for culinary school in Lisbon, and studies to become a chef. After five years, he decides to come back to Korea to start his own restaurant there. Not long after he starts his business, he meets Young Jae again when she visits his restaurant with her husband. They meet again when they’re both 32. But Young Jae has changed. Joon Young has moved on, is even about to get married himself, but Young Jae is very quiet and even seems sad.
Okay, so I’ll keep it at that for the three parts. So the series at first starts with Joon Young and Young Jae meeting again in 2013, then it goes back to show the whole 2006 flashback, and then it resumes the story from when they meet again in 2013. After that, we follow them through their relationship at 27 and then we follow Joon Young through his 5 years in Portugal. Young Jae’s story is revealed in bits and pieces in the last couples of episodes.
Okay, so, let’s go back to the circumstances regarding their first breakup in 2006. When Young Jae disappears after being humiliated by the snooty girl, that’s actually not the only reason she breaks up with Joon Young. We later find out that, on that same day as the party, Young Jae’s brother was in a very serious accident. He worked as a construction worker and fell down a 4-story building. He becomes paralyzed from the waist down, he can’t ever walk again. Facing this new situation of having to care for her brother, Young Jae is even more confronted with the fact that she can’t do whatever she wants, she can’t live carefree like her college friends. Now she has to work twice as hard to also take care of her brother. She snaps at Joon Young because of this reason – she doesn’t have time to date or frolic around anymore. Joon Young always thought that somehow it was his fault, that he’d made her angry, even after looking for her and telling her that he didn’t care she wasn’t in college. When they meet again in 2013 and she tells him the reason had nothing to do with him, he’s even more confused. I believe he ends up hearing the story via her brother. After that he
Kim Yoon Hye (김윤혜)
Then, instead of a time jump like the previous one, this time we follow Joon Young through another 5 years of time. After his breakup with Young Jae, he quits his job at the police station and travels to Portugal. First it seems like a break, a holiday to clear his mind, see the world and figure out what he does next, but it turns out to be quite an emotionally draining journey. He doesn’t speak the language, he walks until his feet start bleeding and he feels really alone. Then, one night, when he’s exhausted, he comes across a small restaurant and when he tastes the food, he makes a decision: he’ll become a chef. He applies for culinary school in Lisbon, and studies to become a chef. After five years, he decides to come back to Korea to start his own restaurant there. Not long after he starts his business, he meets Young Jae again when she visits his restaurant with her husband. They meet again when they’re both 32. But Young Jae has changed. Joon Young has moved on, is even about to get married himself, but Young Jae is very quiet and even seems sad.
Okay, so I’ll keep it at that for the three parts. So the series at first starts with Joon Young and Young Jae meeting again in 2013, then it goes back to show the whole 2006 flashback, and then it resumes the story from when they meet again in 2013. After that, we follow them through their relationship at 27 and then we follow Joon Young through his 5 years in Portugal. Young Jae’s story is revealed in bits and pieces in the last couples of episodes.
Okay, so, let’s go back to the circumstances regarding their first breakup in 2006. When Young Jae disappears after being humiliated by the snooty girl, that’s actually not the only reason she breaks up with Joon Young. We later find out that, on that same day as the party, Young Jae’s brother was in a very serious accident. He worked as a construction worker and fell down a 4-story building. He becomes paralyzed from the waist down, he can’t ever walk again. Facing this new situation of having to care for her brother, Young Jae is even more confronted with the fact that she can’t do whatever she wants, she can’t live carefree like her college friends. Now she has to work twice as hard to also take care of her brother. She snaps at Joon Young because of this reason – she doesn’t have time to date or frolic around anymore. Joon Young always thought that somehow it was his fault, that he’d made her angry, even after looking for her and telling her that he didn’t care she wasn’t in college. When they meet again in 2013 and she tells him the reason had nothing to do with him, he’s even more confused. I believe he ends up hearing the story via her brother. After that he
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