[HanCinema's Drama Review] "The Lover" Episode 5

There's almost something of a recurring trend this episode- mothers. "The Lover" doesn't really have the thematic consistency to properly pull this off, but what do you want, this is mostly just a sketch comedy anyway. The jokes remain fresh, and that's what really matters. They also sometimes veer toward the vaguely gross, but honestly? Until I saw this episode I did not know it was possible to construct a dick in that manner, so points for novelty.

Advertisement

On the deeper level, we see that Do-si and Doo-ri are in fact capable of effectively coordinating to accomplish impressive feats. It's a funny contrast because at pretty much every other time they're just finding dumb excuses to fight over nothing. Variety- now that's a good way to keep character quirks from getting too annoying. Overall this is mainly a credit to the design of the editing, and the way we're always jumping from one couple to the next, although the gags are definitely given appropriate build-up.

At this point it seems like Jin-nyeo is supposed to be the perspective character. And thus, by extension, the Jin-nyeo / Yeong-joon couple is supposed to be the perspective couple. It's an odd fact to take in because her being much older than him seems like it should make the dynamic strange. In actuality, Jung Joon-young does good work coming off as a kind of trophy boyfriend- totally hot, but also really insecure. Mainly because everyone is so much older than he is.

Contrast this to Takuya and Joon-jae, who are about the same age but just hanging around with each other they're able to generally goof around. Well, mostly it's Takuya that's doing the goofing around. Joon-jae just seems like he's constantly getting messed around with mentally, even though these sound effects probably only exist in his imagination. And in ours too, sure.

It's mostly just slice-of-life humor here. The only real long-term consequences we get are courtesy of a rather silly sequence where Hwan-jong makes an intelligent deduction. But rather than seriously consider what Hwan-jong has said Seol-eun instead decides to slowly take off all of her clothes. It's a good thing the partners in these couples have differing temperaments- goodness knows they need to be balanced out somehow. Which again is probably the bigger point of "The Lover"- it's not just about why people live together, it's also about why they would want to.

Review by William Schwartz

"The Lover" is directed by Kim Tae-eun-III, written by Kim Min-seok-II and features Oh Jung-se, Ryu Hyun-kyung, Jung Joon-young, Choi Yeo-jin, Park Jong-hwan, Ha Eun-seol, Terada Takuya and Lee Jae-joon.

Watch on Viki