In Times Like This, We Need Some 'Gentle' Storytelling

“Navillera” is a powerful K-drama about how it's never too late to pursue your dreams. Also, "Encounter" is reviewed.

On February 28, many of us watched as the President of the United States (Donald Trump) and his Vice President (JD Vance) led a confrontational meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. They didn’t appreciate his choice of clothing, his refusal to bow down to Russia, or seemingly anything else about him. Trump and Vance didn’t even appreciate that Zelensky was speaking English to accommodate the only language they could understand.

Three days later, the Trump administration said they would no longer be sending military aid to Ukraine. Two days after that, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the U.S. was suspending the sharing of intelligence with the country.

Meanwhile, as of today, Trump has agreed to delay tariffs on Mexico, but continues to attack Canada. (Canada, of all countries!) Yay, I guess.

I’m also stressed out right now about a work project that has turned out to be more difficult to navigate the anticipated. (Haha, it happens!) But do you know what? I find comfort watching entertainment that makes me think and feel emotions that I may tried to squirrel away for whatever reason.

How about you? What form of self-care are you relying on to get through tough days?

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° “Encounter” ☆☆½
° “Navillera” ☆☆☆

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“Navillera”

나빌레라
☆☆☆☆
Lee Chae-Rok (played by Song Kang)
Shim Deok-Chul (played by Park In-Hwan)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

“Navillera” isn’t your standard K-Drama love story. Rather, the focus is on working hard to realize the dreams that went unfulfilled, no matter how old you are.

For septuagenarian Shim Deok-Chul, his unfulfilled dream is ballet. As a child, he had wanted to take lessons, but his father stopped him for a variety of reasons. There was the lack of money. But there was (and still is) also the prejudice against men who participated in the artform. For many close-minded people who fear the unknown, dancing isn’t a masculine hobby to take up.

This adverse reaction is reinforced by those Deok-Chul loves the most: his wife, Hae-Nam (Na Kyung-Ja), and their three children. They are incredulous (and quite rude) about his desire to study dance, which is why he had tried to keep his lessons a secret. His entire nosy neighborhood has something to say about his ballet lessons, and none of the comments are supportive. Rather, they wonder if he’s unhinged.

When Deok-Chul meets Chae-Rok – a young ballerino, who is tasked with teaching the eager old man – he is as happy as the young man is annoyed. Chae-Rok is positive his geriatric student won’t last long. As he begrudgingly accepts the old man’s determination and relatively quick grasp of the basic skills, the two begin to bond as friends and as family.

Though the series starts off depicting Hae-Nam and the adult children as unlikeable, the screenwriters did a good job of showing why they were behaving this way and what it would take for them to open up to their dad’s love for ballet.

As for Chae-Rok, he had to raise himself after his mother died and his father was sent to prison. He works multiple part-time jobs to pay for his rent and expenses. Something I didn’t understand was why his instructor kept telling him to quit working and concentrate more on practicing ballet. How? Chae-Rok wasn’t a trust fund baby. His parents hadn’t been rich. Without his own steady flow of income – modest though it might be – how would he survive in an expensive city like Seoul?

A good majority of Korean dramas end with a flash forward in the series finale. Most don’t do a great job of it, tacking on a clumsy few minutes that do little to enhance the series. But here, it was sweetly done. There are no cloying miracles. “Navillera” ends in a satisfying way that will touch your heart.

Airdates: Twelve hour-long episodes aired on tvN from March 22 to April 27, 2021. (I watched this on Netflix.)

Meta Moment: Park In-Hwan is reunited with his “Miss Granny” co-star Na Kyung-Ja.

Spoiler Alert: I’m not sure this is much of a spoiler, since Deok-Chul’s forgetfulness hints at what will be a major plot point. He has Alzheimer’s and knows he is losing his memory.

One of the most heartbreaking scenes was in Episode 3 when Hae-Nam finds Deok-Chul’s ballet clothes. She tells him to age gracefully by taking hikes and stop embarrassing their children. She takes a pair of scissors to his workout clothes and ruins them all. Aside from the monetary waste (ballet clothes are expensive), it broke his heart to find that his soul mate refused to support him. Meanwhile, his children think he owes them the duty of showing a respectable facade – even if he was unhappy – because they grew up poor (though that was no fault of his).

Eventually, Hae-Nam comes around. When their eldest son verbally lashes out at his father, she takes him to task. Deok-Chul worked hard every single day and never expected to be lauded for his sacrifices. But she was appalled that their own children would look down on them, because they hadn’t had more money to spend on them.

The series finale was bittersweet. Set three years after the main storyline, Deok-Chul has lost most of his memory. Rather than moving into a nursing home as he had planned (because he didn’t want his family to watch as his memory further deteriorated), he remained in his own house. His youngest daughter and her husband moved in next door. They had been unable to have children. After grieving for this aspect of her life, she told her father that maybe her purpose wasn’t to be a mom, but to be a better daughter to help take care of him.

© 2025 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved

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“Encounter”

남자친구
☆☆½
Cha Soo-Hyun (played by Song Hye-Kyo)
Kim Jin-Hyuk (played by Park Bo-Gum)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

“Encounter” is a treat for the eyes. Besides the obvious attractiveness of lead actors Song Hye-Kyo and Park Bo-Gum, the scenery — especially in Havana, Cuba — is a lush, welcome guest star.

Unfortunately, by the time the credits have rolled, I realized that most of the series was much ado about nothing.

In a nice K-Drama role reversal, we have a rich and powerful older businesswoman who has a romance with a younger man. The two meet cute in Havana, where she was robbed and had to rely on the kindness of a stranger. Jin-Hyuk was that stranger. Free from the prying eyes of the media that is obsessed with her unaging beauty, divorce, her father’s political career and her ex-mother-in-law (who is a chaebol), Soo-Hyun enjoys spending time with the young man, who has no idea that she’s famous.

Back in the real world (Seoul), she learns that Jin-Hyuk has just been hired to work in her hotel’s public relations department. She had hoped that their innocent Cuban flirtation was something she could look back on as almost a dream, rather than a reality. But now here he is — with a fresh haircut and nice suit — looking at her with those puppy eyes.

As much as I love me some Park Bo-Gum, I found him a bit too wide-eyed and bushy-tailed in the earlier episodes and his cute behavior bordered on cloying. The script kept referring to him to as a mere child, which made me laugh. He wasn’t a new college graduate, but a man who had already served his mandatory military duty and was a year or two shy of turning 30. Even with her staid clothing and her hair cut into a bob for this role as a no-nonsense businesswoman, Song Hye-Kyo didn’t appear that much older than her love interest.

But this is sexism at work, where viewers have grown accustomed to seeing 25-year-old women paired up with men in their late 30s or mid 40s. In “My Secret, Terrius,” the leading man was 41 and the leading lady was 27 at the time of filming. So Ji-Sub played a spy. Jung In-Sun was a widow and mother of 5-year-old twins.

Had the genders been reversed in “Encounter,” the age difference wouldn’t have even been an issue. But when the woman is a few years older than the man, the horrors!

“Encounter” — the English title for this series — is much more fitting than the Korean title of “남자친구,” which literally translates into boyfriend. It is their small encounters (eating ramen together at a rest stop, looking at street art installations) that set the tone of this series, more so than any romantic overtures.

As much as I was rooting for this pair, I found their romance to be sweet, but tepid at best. Her best friend/personal assistant and his family friend (the owner of a small eat-in whelk shop) were the livelier couple that I was rooting for.

As good of a person as Jin-Hyuk was written to be, I did not appreciate him going against Soo-Hyun’s decisions under the cloak of knowing what’s best for her. She had specific reasons for her choices — and to undermine her decisions was not an admirable side of him. In fact, I got sick of the men in general telling each other to disregard her words, because they knew what was best for her.

Eff off! Even if she had made the wrong choices, she would’ve come to terms with what she needed to do to make things right again.

Airdates: Sixteen episodes — averaging about 60-minutes each — aired November 28, 2018 to January 24, 2019 on tvN. (I watched this on Viki.)

Spoiler Alert: Soo-Hyun’s ex-husband — Jung Woo-Seok (played by Jang Seung-Jo) — is made out to be a philandering jerk. But by Episode 7, it becomes clear that he had never cheated on her. He loved her enough to set her free from his controlling mother, and the only way he could think of accomplishing this was to fabricate an affair and then ask Soo-Hyun to divorce him. He knew that his mother couldn’t place the blame on Soo-Hyun for his infidelity. But because it’s a K-Drama, the mother made her sign a contract that stipulated that she would still be required to attend the important family holidays. I’m not sure why Woo-Seok didn’t confide in Soo-Hyun that he was doing this. But I felt bad for his character, who throughout the series did things to to his own detriment that would benefit Soo-Hyun. But again, here’s a case of a decent guy who won’t accept no for an answer. She’s just not that into you, Woo-Seok.

In Episode 13, Jin-Hyuk’s mother has reached her breaking point. Tired of hearing snide remarks from neighbors who imply that her son got his nice job because he’s dating the CEO, his mom meets with Soo-Hyun and begs her to break up with him. The mom tells her that they lead a simple life and she doesn’t want her son dragged into the media just because of who he is dating. Knowing what a complicated mess her personal life is, Soo-Hyun agrees.

In the finale, Soo-Hyun and Jin-Hyuk reunite. After a year of dating, she suggests they take a trip to Santiage, Chile. He asks if they could take that trip after … marrying. Looks like everybody gets their happy ending after all!

© 2025 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved

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