Kdrama: The Winter, The Wind Blows
Episodes: 16
Aired: February – April 2013
Rating: ★★
Oh Seo, who was abandoned by his mother as a child and was raised by Park Jin Sung’s family, is a notorious gambler in Cheongdam neighborhood. He is heartbroken and doesn’t care about anybody following the death of his first love.
One day, his friend, who has the same name, dies unexpectedly and Seo is thrown in prison. A year later, Seo meets lawyer Jang Sung, who came looking for the deceased Oh Seo, the heir of PL Group. Seo uses this opportunity to con the last remaining heir of the PL Group, Oh Young, to pay his debt when gangster Jo Moo Cheol gives him 3 months to pay or he dies. However, Seo starts falling in love with the blind Oh Young, while pretending to be her deceased brother who was separated from her after their parent’s divorce.

This drama popped up on Netflix one day, and while I found the synopsis to be potentially problematic, I still wanted to try it because the leads were Jo In Sung and Song Hye Ko, whom I both love. TWTWB ended up being an all around mess and not something I would watch again or recommend to others.

The Good:

• If you’re looking for a drama that is filled with melodrama and angst, then this drama definitely delivers on it. Both the main leads are pretty broken due to things in their past, so there are a lot of tears shed and a lot of fights. It honestly reminded me of why I got so into kdramas in the first place.
• There were so many different villains in this drama that the main leads had to struggle against, which honestly the most interesting part of the drama to me. Both of the leads had to be careful with every move they made, especially Young In, because they couldn’t trust most of the people around them. And the surprising thing was that almost all of the villians weren’t evil for the sake of being evil, they did have reasons behind their actions (even if their reasons were dumb).
• I’m not going to lie, Jo In Sung was a huge positive side for me in this drama. He’s acting was really well done, and he had some really attractive outfits.

The Bad:

• There was obviously supposed to be a romance between the leads, but considering Oh Seo was masquerading as Young’s brother I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable with the romantic moments. I kept thinking about what these moments would be like from Young’s perspective, since as far as she is aware, Seo is her brother. It was pretty weird.
• The relationships between the characters were so confusing. The drama focuses too much on the relationship between the leads that all the other relationships fall to the wayside. I did not understand the dynamics of these relationships, and the small glimpses I got into those relationships just confused me further.
• I can’t quite put my finger on it, but honestly, something was not clicking for me in this drama. I found myself not connecting with or caring about the leads. The pacing of the drama was off for me as well. Sometimes it was paced too slowly and moments dragged on longer than they should have, other times the drama seemed to be moving too quickly.
• Song Hye Kyo’s acting was not on par with her other work. There was no nuance to her facial expressions. In fact, the majority of the time her face was blank of any facial expressions, and so I could never truly discern how her character was supposed to be feeling.
• I honestly wasn’t sure how this drama did with the representation of Young’s blindness. I tried doing some research, but couldn’t find anything on whether or not this has been discussed. Personally, I felt a little uncomfortable about the fact that the drama kept emphasizing how much of a deterrent it was for her and her quality of life.

The Ugly:

• I already talked about this a little bit before, but the romantic relationship between Oh Seo and Young was already weird enough, but got worse as Oh Seo forced himself on Young even though she explicitly refused his advances multiple times. The drama was trying to make these non-consensual moments romantic but instead it made me feel super icky. Consent is sexy!!