[Drama special review] Like Otters

by Dramaddictally

KBS drama special Like Otters follows two high school seniors on their journey from loneliness and abuse to closeness and freedom. It’s a reminder that movement may be better than stasis, even when the destination isn’t clear — especially if you have a hand to hold while you’re adrift.

 
EPISODE 1 REVIEW

KIM JAE-YOUNG (Shin Eun-soo) and SEO WOO-GYU (Kim Jae-won) are nineteen-year-old high school classmates who don’t get to know each other until the night they meet in a police station. Woo-gyu is there to pick up his mother, a shopkeeper, who has drunkenly beaten up a customer. Jae-young is there to pick up the bloody-nosed customer — the man her older sister is about to have a baby with.

We learn through clipped dialogue that Woo-gyu’s mother is an alcoholic who wishes her son was never born. His father left her when she was pregnant and she blames Woo-gyu for how her life turned out. She beat up Jae-young’s sister’s boyfriend while he was buying condoms from her store because he triggered a reminder of Woo-gyu’s father — that liar who said they’d raise their baby together and then left her.

We also learn that Jae-young’s sister’s boyfriend is a long-time cheater. This isn’t the first time he’s been caught buying condoms or going out with someone else. Jae-young’s sister has already attempted suicide, while pregnant, because her parents disapprove of the boyfriend. The suicide attempt left her and the baby unwell, and Jae-young doesn’t want to stress her more by telling her what the baby’s father is up to. In fact, the family is so worried about stressing her now, they have allowed the boyfriend to move in with them, forcing Jae-young to sleep in the living room.

All of this backstory is conveyed in under five minutes, in a drama that is sparse and tight with a single aim. Its one-hour story is carried by the two young leads who convey the pain of these characters’ home lives — and the reprieve they feel with each other — with everyone else existing as part of the atmosphere around them. With so little time, this simple execution allows a well-told story that doesn’t get muddled down trying to do too much.

The heart of the drama is how these two long-abused young people draw closer to each other, until they find the will to escape. There are a series of scenes that peg the exact moments when Jae-young and Woo-gyu start to take interest in one another, then feel tender toward each other, and finally start to see each other as a mirror, a harbor, and a means of support.

After their encounter at the police station, they start to pay attention to each other in the classroom. Jae-young is a small-time thug, selling cigarettes, liquor, and other items minors aren’t allowed to buy through a well-organized system of transfers that occur in lockers. Woo-gyu switches seats with her one day and takes the rap for some cigarettes found in her desk.

After Woo-gyu covers for her, and is sentenced to community service duties at the school, Jae-young apologizes for how rude she was the night at the police station. She impresses on him the idea that if she hurt him, it’s only right to apologize. We can see the surprise and softening on his face, as he’s been hurt his whole life by his mother and would never expect an apology.

Woo-gyu’s interest in Jae-young starts long before her interest starts in him. But when her regular supplier stops selling her illegal goods, she goes to Woo-gyu’s mother’s store (where he runs the register) and suggests they go into business together. If he sells her soju and cigarettes, he can get a small cut of her profits from resale.

At first he’s opposed to the idea, but then he thinks about her reason for doing it. Jae-young wants to leave her family and is saving her money to live independently. Her apology to him, coupled with this hopeful idea of freedom, makes him change his mind.

The drama’s overall theme comes in a line when Woo-gyu asks Jae-young what she will do when she moves out of her family home. She doesn’t know. She says instead, “Not having a dream doesn’t mean I want to stay where I am.” It’s a powerful idea that guides the movement in the rest of the drama as the two gather strength from each other in their desire to run away — and their fear of actually doing it.

There’s a beautiful scene — the moment where Jae-young starts to feel something for Woo-gyu — where she first sees where he lives. He and his mother share one room, attached to the shop they run. Woo-gyu moves around the room, trying to make it nice for Jae-young — putting away the hanging laundry and opening up a small table for them to eat at. It’s a hot day and he plugs in a small fan and aims it at Jae-young. The whole time they eat, the fan is blowing only on her.

Jae-young has been feeling guilty because of Woo-gyu’s community service, but in this scene her guilt turns to something else. The small acts of kindness get to her. She’s not used to being treated this way — not even by her boyfriend, who barely pays attention to her.

We feel her start to move closer to Woo-gyu emotionally, and in the following scene, where they share with each other everything we learned in the drama’s opening sequence, Jae-young sees her reflection in Woo-gyu. What they have in common is their pain, and their total lack of anyone else to share it with.

The drama’s title relates to a scene when the two are in class watching a film about sea otters. The film’s narrator explains that in order not to drift away while sleeping in the sea, otters hold hands with a friend. “In the rough and dangerous sea, they are the only support for each other.” Jae-young says it’s strange because if the wave is strong, they’ll drift away anyway. Woo-gyu responds that they’ll be less afraid — even if they drift away, they won’t be alone.

With that, our two little otters decide to go at life with their newfound philosophy. Even when a few major upsets threaten to tear them apart, they hold tight to each other’s hands, and drift away from their circumstances together. They may not know where they’re headed, but it’s certainly better than where they’ve been.

This is a bittersweet drama, with dark vibes and a sometimes gritty feel. With the exception of the school scenes, the drama was shot at night, giving us glimpses of an urban nocturne that doesn’t seem fit for kids.

But that is exactly the point. The world these kids inhabit is not pretty. This isn’t a story about teenage angst, but about abuse. Neither of the lead characters has a place to go to feel safe. When Jae-young says to Woo-gyu, “you felt like a place dedicated to me, where only I could enter,” we understand that even as they drift away with no destination, they’ve found in each other a sense of home.

 
RELATED POSTS

• Stain (Drama special review)
• Traces of Love (Drama special review)
• Crevasse (Drama special review)
• Big Data Romance (Drama special review)
• Shin Eun-soo