I really enjoy these short KBS Drama Specials in between waiting for new episodes of current longer dramas I am watching. I usually don't mention end spoilers in my reviews but this time I will do so. I'd like to describe my own personal feelings about the overall theme of this drama special You Are Closer Than I Think (late 2017) and that necessitates including my feelings about the conclusion of the story. If I were you I would watch the one hour drama special first, embedded on this page, and afterwards read the review. You may agree with me, or you may not, but that is what keeps audiences worldwide interested in these compelling Korean television dramas: everyone has different reactions to them. Currently when you compare the views worldwide from YouTube and other sources this drama special has been watched over 3 million times, not even including South Korea! That's pretty impressive.

 

The Story:

A beautiful, mysterious bride named Lee Seo Yeon (Kim So Eun, Liar Game, Our Gab Soon, Boys Over Flowers) disappears on the day of her wedding to a DJ named Choi Ujin (Lee Sang Yeob, Miss Ripley, Midas, While You Were Sleeping). When she doesn't show up for the wedding processional Ujin goes running to find her and discovers her wedding dress laying on a chair in the waiting room. She leaves a message to him that she has gone on their honeymoon to Morocco alone, and doesn't tell him why she abandoned him. He is heartbroken.

 

Ujin, who is also the owner of a Late Night Book Store, begins a search to discover the reason why Seo Yeon left him in the lurch. His best friend Jung Soon Taek (Dong Ha, 3 Days, Beautiful Mind) sympathizes with him and tries to help him. Meanwhile, Ujin becomes consumed with his happy memories of when he met Seo Yeon over the internet via social media and then finally face to face in his bookstore. He remembers happy conversations they had and their growing intimacy.

 

Then one day he spies a woman (Lim Hwa Young, Signal, Yong Pal) on the street who reminds him a lot of his beloved Seo Yeon. She runs away from him, looking upset. Ultimately he discovers that this woman is also named Seo Yeon! Then a picture of his beloved Seo Yeon and a strange, tall, handsome man gets uploaded to Ujin’s podcast. He discovers that this man is a professional photographer named Ha Do Young (Kwak Hee Sung, Hyde Jekyll and I, Neighborhood Watch) and that he had been familiar with both these women, the Seo Yeon he had grown to love, and the secretive Seo Yeon who keeps running away from him when he happens to spy her following him.

Actor Nam Goong Min (My Dearest) Plays A Cameo Role
As A Doctor, Above. Actor Taecyeon Also Has A Cameo
 

In flashbacks we discover that the two women were friends and that the woman Ujin had grown to love was actually named Hong Taera. The woman he had been intrigued with on social media was actually Seo Yeon. When they had been chatting online and decided to meet in person for the first time the real Seo Yeon got nervous and asked her best friend Taera to go in her place, to check to see what kind of a man he was in real life. Taera had agreed but wasn't prepared to fall in love with Ujin herself! This of course complicated the friendship between the two women, with Seo Yeon hurt that Ujin had ultimately fallen in love with her best friend once they had met in person.

So the necessary confrontations have to occur between these four people, Taera and Seo Yeon, Ujin with both women, Seo Yeon with photographer Do Young, who as it turned out has always loved her.

 

Now, to me, this one hour special brings up great points about the dangers of falling in love over the internet just because you have similar tastes in anything, whether it's books, or films, or food, or the arts, or politics, or travel, etc. I think the only sympathetic victim here is the lead male character Ujin. He was lied to by BOTH of the women. However, I think a truly smart man would want to have NOTHING to do with either of these women, but would go out and find someone else to love who doesn't have a pattern of lying. The photographer too could have found someone a lot better than the real Seo Yeon.

It's also a good story to show an audience that true love HAS to include physical attraction between the two people. Simply "meeting" over social media alone can be quite dangerous to someone's mental health. Folks can say anything with the anonymity of the WWW to cloak their true natures. That's why the dating sites all come with their own dangers as well.

Those are my feelings about this story. You are free to have your own. :)

Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HOME TO REVIEWS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~