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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "My Love from the Star" Episode 13

I suppose Song-I's reaction to the fact that Min-joon has superpowers was probably inevitable. Song-I's a loud forceful woman and has consistently been one throughout the entire drama- so of course she's going to try to bully more information out of Min-joon. Give an inch, take an ebb or so they say- although maybe if you give a mouse a cookie would be a more modern reference? The analogy, at least, is probably more relevant.

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Bear in mind that for the most part we know exactly as much about Song-I as Min-joon does, given that we were all introduced to the character at the same time. So it comes off as reckless on his part to share anything important with her. Song-I is emboldened by anything that indicates a person is paying attention to her. The reactions aren't always positive ones, but Min-joon knows that all too well, given the flashback sequence we get here. The theme of his ignoring long-term problems isn't going away.

Speaking of which, the murder plotline is still going on. Thankfully, it's a lot less explicit than usual. I quite like the paranoid crazy version of Jae-kyoung, just sitting in his office stewing over his options losing his mind because he promised to go, like, an entire episode without trying to kill anybody. Oh, if only the murder plotline as a whole were better constructed- then this could actually be a pretty fun character moment.

At least Song-I and Min-joon get plenty of instances like this. What makes this romance compelling is not the outrageous Superman-esque rescue sequences from impossible dangers, but those little moments where they try to help each other without really expecting anything in return, just because they want to help each other. The entire cliff sequence is an important one to consider in this respect. The magic simply doesn't work if a person's trying to summon it.

This is a strong episode production wise, but writing from a personal standpoint, I still have issues with the way the drama has been building itself up that makes it difficult to take a lot of the narrative seriously. The cliffhanger is a prime example- if something actually goes wrong here the actors' union is going to be really mad. Those kinds of accidents shouldn't be possible in this day and age. Yes, here I am more worried about the in-universe media reaction than how this event will actually affect the story. That's how warped trying to process this drama can be sometimes.

Review by William Schwartz

"My Love from the Star" is directed by Chang Tae-you, written by Park Ji-eun and features Jun Ji-hyun, Kim Soo-hyun, Park Hae-jin and Yoo In-na.

 

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