See
You In My 19th Life 이번 생도 잘 부탁해 tvN (2023) 12 Episodes Reincarnation, Romance Grade: A+ Korean Drama Review by Jill, USA (Some Spoilers)
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I loved this
captivating Korean drama, based on a popular webtoon
by author Lee Hye, See You In My 19th Life
(2023); it reminded me in quality of some classic
Korean dramas of the past twenty years, where sweet
attraction and gentle humor between the two main leads
is the primary focus of the story. I liked that the
male lead character in this drama is a gentlemanly
type throughout, and isn't cruel to the main female
character at all. Very refreshing, for in most Korean
dramas the two main leads don't get along at first and
only slowly warm to each other. It was so
nice to have a break from that over-used formula!
I think the
cinematography and location settings were gorgeous,
like the classic Four Seasons' dramas that began the
worldwide Hallyu Wave two decades ago. Obviously a lot
of thought went into the production end of this drama.
I appreciated all that hard work!
The actors were all
superb, and I must add that I was quite impressed by
the child actors too: they even made me tear up at
times! Amazing work by the whole team! Credit must go
largely to the director Lee Na Jeong, who also
directed the popular Love
Alarm and Oh
My Venus K-dramas.
Our female lead was the
spectacular Shin Hye Sun, who impresses me in every
drama I see her in, especially Angel's
Last Mission: Love and Hymn
Of Death, and the male lead was handsome
Ahn Bo Hyun from Descendants
Of The Sun and Kairos.
Second female lead was pretty Ha Yoon Kyung (Hospital
Playlist, Extraordinary
Attorney Woo), and second male lead was
the intense Ahn Dong Goo (Fix
You, Snowdrop).
This foursome had nice screen chemistry together.
Although I don't personally believe in reincarnation I
will admit that it often provides fiction writers with
opportunities to create fascinating twists and turns
in their stories. I was never once bored watching See
You In My 19th Life. I am sure I will be
revisiting it in the future as well because the
characters were just so likeable. I loved spending
time with them!
The
Story:
Beautiful, gifted Ban Ji Eum (Shin Hye Sun) is a
mysterious young modern woman who has earned a
mechanical engineering degree and who works for a
business conglomerate called MI Group. She loves to
test race cars she has helped design for this
company, but overall she seems like a lonely person
much of the time, quite friendless, and mostly
keeping to herself, never dating. She seems to live
for work. At first ...
However, Ji Eum has a big
secret that she keeps to herself: she knows she has
been reincarnated many times over the past one
thousand years! Each time she is reincarnated she
begins to remember her past lives starting around
the age of eight. These memories haunt her and she
wishes she could forget them. Only one of her past
lives remains cloudy in her memories: her first life
one thousand years earlier, and only in her latest
life, her 19th life, does she slowly begin to recall
details of a tragedy that happened to her in her
first life.
All through the story we are given glimpses of her
past lives and all these experiences give Ji Eum a
wisdom far in advance of her years. As a child in
her present 19th life Ji Eum (Park So Yi) came from
a disastrous family who used her talents as a dancer
to make money which they confiscated from her.
Desperate to escape, she runs away from the abuse
and neglect and ends up at a local small restaurant
run by an affable lady named Kim Ae Gyeong (Cha
Chung Hwa, Crash
Landing On You). The lady is actually
watching Ji Eum dancing on television as the girl
runs into her restaurant all disheveled and asks her
for help. She tells Ae Gyeong that she is the
reincarnation of her deceased uncle (Lee Jae Kyoon)
who had raised her! The woman is shocked but Ji Eum
seems to know details about her early life that she
never shared with anyone. She decides to trust the
little girl and ends up taking her in and raising
her as her own adopted child. The child seems happy
at last but keeps telling her adoptive mother that
she feels the need to find someone from her past
whom she knew she had been close to but whom she had
lost.
In flashbacks to her 18th life we learn that Ji Eum
had been named Yoon Ju Won (Kim Si Ah) and had
fixated on a young boy named Mun Seo Ha (Jeong Hyun
Jun), feeling that she had known him in a past life.
Seo Ha came from a rich family who run the MI Group
conglomerate. His mother (actress Lee Bo Young,
cameo role) is dying and his new friendship with Ju
Won helps him to feel happier despite the upcoming
loss of his mother. His father Mun Jeong Hun (Choi
Jin Ho) had been cheating on his mother with a hussy
named Jang Yeon Ok (Bae Hae Sun) and after Seo Ha's
mother dies the hussy is given control of a large
part of Mi Group. She seems jealous of little Seo
Ha, knowing someday it would be the son who would
control the company. Suddenly one day a truck hits
the car both Ju Won and Seo Ha are driving in, and
Ju Won is killed. Seo Ha is heartbroken to lose his
close friend. He grows up aloof from people, suffers
panic attacks, and is disabled with a chronic
hearing loss from the accident, wearing hearing aids
to help himself cope with life. Could this accident
have been foul play instead, possibly caused by a
member of Seo Ha's own family?
In her adult 19th life Ji
Eum fixates on the grown up Seo Ha, and submits a
resume to work at the hotel Seo Ha runs as part of
his family's MI Group corporation. Seo Ha interviews
her but feels she is over-qualified for the job. Ji
Eum begins to flirt with him and he isn't immune to
her smiles and her advances. She follows him around
the city and even rescues him in the middle of one
of his panic attacks. He eventually hires her at the
hotel and they secretly begin dating.
Finally Ji Eum seems happy: she is now close to the
boy she had loved and lost in her 18th life (and
possibly other past lives as well!). Ji Eum even
strikes up a friendship with a young lady named Yoon
Cho Won (Ha Yoon Kyung, adult; Ki So Yu, child) whom
she recognizes as her younger sister in her past
lives. Cho Won is hired to improve landscaping at
the hotel since she is an expert horticulturist.
It's soon obvious that Cho Won has a crush on Seo
Ha's right hand man, named Ha Do Yun (Ahn Dong Goo),
but he seems to live for work and not romance. Will
Cho Won be able to soften his personality over time
and change his mind about her? Will she ever learn
that this employee Ji Eum is the reincarnation of
the sister she lost in childhood?
The
key to Ji Eum finally obtaining ultimate peace
about her past lives, so that she can be fully
happy in her present day 19th life, seems to
reside in clearing out the cobwebs in her memory
about her 1st life in old Joseon kingdom days.
She is told by a man she calls "Professor", Kang
Min Gi (Lee Chae Min, Crash
Course In Romance) that she must
remember everything on her own, that he had been
there with her in her 1st life and had been part
of the tragedy she suffered back thenbut
he refuses to tell her any specific details of other people involved with
that tragedy.
He also warns her
that if she does remember everything about those
days that she will not remember any of the
people she is close to now in her 19th life:
they had all been there in those tragic days:
Seo Ha, Cho Won, Do Yun. If her memory is fully
restored about her past she will not remember
anyone in her current life. It will be as if she
is a brand new person. Will Ji Eum be able to
risk that stark eventuality, just for her own
peace of mind? What about the feelings of the
people who care about her?
Charming
and sweet and often poignant, See You
In My 19th Life is just my cup
of tea. I was rather sad that the drama
ended at only twelve episodes, instead of
the usual sixteen. I could have enjoyed a
deeper examination of some of Ji Eum's past
lives through her reincarnations, and would
have loved to have seen a double wedding at
the end of the drama. All the actors were
fine, especially the lead actress Shin Hye
Sun; she deserves a Baeksang Award for her
amazing, delightful performance. She's so
versatile. She went from playing a ballet
dancer in Angel's
Last Mission: Love,
to an automobile engineer here! She also
sang beautifully in Hymn
Of Death. Is
there anything she can't do? ;)
Be sure to put this wonderful romantic
drama on your K-drama queue if you haven't
seen it; don't miss it!