[HanCinema's Drama review] "The Full Sun" Episode 10

Yeong-won is, at this point, running into bad information about Se-ro practically by accident. It's difficult to take her new discoveries seriously from a perspective of storyline mechanics. The woman is quite literally discovering new information just from being in the right place at the right time. Well, maybe it would be more accurate to say the wrong place at the wrong time, given that Yeong-won isn't exactly thrilled by the discoveries.

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"The Full Sun" is making a point of sticking to the harsh emotional cruelty of these discoveries. To some extent, Se-ro's devious position as a con artist is exposed, and Yeong-won is simultaneously left feeling betrayed and ambivalent. Yet for all Se-ro's flaws, the man is still a clear improvement over her actual family. The man's at least capable of feeling something in his heart aside from generic hate.

In many ways I want to dislike the plot of "The Full Sun"- certainly there's just enough goofiness here to be distracting. But the tone is so well established that I can't bring myself to regard the drama cynically. The chords of the piano music in the score feel so perfectly timed, I find myself moving on the same emotional wavelength that Yeong-won is. I feel in control, but know in reality that fate is forcing the story to move along its own trajectory.

The result is a drama that, visually and musically, is sad and plaintive, and provides a very good argument for the viewer to get sleepy. I don't mean that it's boring, exactly- "The Full Sun" makes me want to go to sleep because it increasingly feels that the dreamworld is the only place where a happy ending is possible. The lack of action in this episode is the single greatest high point. It allows for an interpretation of events where feelings are the main obstacle- and feelings really are a big enough problem on their own that I just don't want to see the big picture.

Is forgiveness actually possible here? Even ignoring the bigger conflict, could Se-ro and Yeong-won reconcile their differences? The answer is probably no, but the chance that they might is so overwhelmingly temping, that that mere hope overshadows everything else. Se-ro and Yeong-won too so clearly want to believe that this could happen, that it's extremely easy to sympathize with the high and low points of the situation. Hope is the watchword of "The Full Sun", and there's always just enough of it to worth hanging around a little bit longer.

Review by William Schwartz

"The Full Sun" is directed by Bae Kyeong-soo, Kim Jung-hyun-III, written by Heo Seong-hye and features Yoon Kye-sang, Han Ji-hye and Cho Jin-woong.