Love Andante: Episode 1 (First Impressions)

by missvictrix

One can compare Lifetime’s debut drama Love Andante to a Lifetime Original Movie here in the U.S. having a baby with Crash Landing on You. And this mutant baby drama uses the promise of Korean unification to provide grounding for a fluffy, tropey, and rather lame drama. But isn’t that just what I wanted?

Editor’s note: This is an Episode 1 review only. For a place to chat about the entire drama, visit the Drama Hangout.
 
EPISODE 1

I find myself saying this a lot, but a drama’s opening credits are usually a nice clue into what they’re aiming for. It helps me set my expectations correctly. So, the ultra slo-mo intro with our characters staring dreamily at each other while playing their instruments on the beach — that was a pretty accurate sign of the drama we are going to get. Some will roll their eyes. Others will lap it up. As for me, it was somewhere in between.

In order to illustrate the importance of the drama’s setting (the path to reunification), we spend a lot of the drama’s opening with news anchors telling us all about the Peace Village Project. Then, we meet the two comic relief bureaucrats running said village. One is from the north, one from the south, and they are a ridiculous and intentionally comedic pair that smack of comedy duos from the olden days of Hollywood. Their interactions are funny, but mostly their comedy is so overplayed that it’s no longer funny by the end of each scene.

But what is this Peace Village Project, you ask? Well, both the north and the south have agreed to this unification test environment where citizens of both Koreas will peacefully cohabitate for one year. And apparently, this random selection of citizens will tell us/them/everyone whether reunification is truly possible, because everything hinges on the village’s success.

Strangely enough, the news anchor tells us that the inhabitants have been “AI selected.” You would think that means there is a nice selection of everyday people — alas no. From what we see of the inhabitants in Episode 1, the average age is 25, and the average beauty factor is 10/10. Well, expect the northerners are given a more rugged and country look, but this portrayal is an old can of worms for another day, folks.

(It’s also worth noting that the village is rather pathetic — it looks like a cross between the cabin-filled fenced-in summer camp your parents forced you to go to, and an army barracks with a little extra color. Is this intentional or because the drama clearly has a midge-sized budget? I’m not sure.)

Now that we know how crucial this village is, we meet our villagers. The first of note is our hero, the famous and highly annoying pianist IM JOO-HYUNG (Kwon Hyun-bin). His manager’s line upon their arrival tells us everything we need to know: “Are you going to be okay here? Just about everything bothers you.” Indeed, ’tis true, and Joo-hyung is our typical pissy hero who travels with giant framed photos of himself and demands the world meet his every whim. He also travels with a piano (a really crap one for a world class pianist, but we’ll ignore that too), and this will likely become important later, because it looks like music = love in the world of Love Andante.

There are a handful of other South Koreans that move into the village with him, but what we are really waiting for is the bus that’s coming from the north. It breaks down, of course, so our comrades must walk their way to the Peace Village. Notably, this includes our spoiled ice princess HA NA-KYUNG (Song Ji-woo) — the only glamorous one in the lot. She walks all the way in her heels and trench coat.

As it turns out, there are a few important things about Na-kyung that have meaning for our future plot. First, she’s a violinist. Second, she’s the daughter of a high-ranking military commander who (we see via flashback) is colder than she is, and it seems like the fear of him will make her do a lot. Third, she’s just as pissy as Joo-hyung is. So imagine what happens when they are accidentally co-assigned the same house in the village.

Really, it’s an accident — our bumbling bureaucrat duo are horrified to see that the two have been erroneously marked down as a married couple. How no one caught this is beyond me, but it’s necessary for the plot — and as a nice non-subtle chunk of foreshadowing, too.

Here’s what happened: On the night that Na-kyung walked into the village and her assigned house, she didn’t know she walked right into Joo-hyung’s house. He was already semi-unpacked — and hung his Portrait of Me on the wall. Boy gets up to pee in the night, as one does, but then gets roundhouse-kicked in the face when Na-kyung thinks he’s an intruder. So, these two are off to a terrible start.

There is nothing new about this setup, or about their squabbling. But I will say that it’s vaguely enjoyable that they are both annoying and spoiled, so it’s less opposites attract and more of a “likes repel until they don’t” type situation.

Of course, in Episode 1, they are still fighting like cats and dogs, but they agree to cohabitate, because “the reunification depends on the success of the village.” Okay, whatever you say. It’s not like they couldn’t put Na-kyung to cohabitate with one of the posh Seoul girls or anything. Anyway, logic is not at play here, because the drama’s sole interest is in turning this squabbling duo into a musical lovefest. Joo-hyung has already discovered her violin (and was subsequently flustered + terrified of Na-kyung wet in a bathrobe), so it’s off to the races!

Overall I can’t say I’m terribly invested in this relationship (heck, or the drama). Neither are likable, and the character archetypes are so overplayed. I mean, Na-kyung is a little too much a cheap replica of Seo Dan from Crash, and Joo-hyung? He’s just every K-drama hero that starts off pompous and ends up a righteous puddle for his lady.

Perhaps the secondary characters populating the village will offer something new in this overplayed recipe? Alas, right now, the only character I truly like is the other character archetype in town: the comrade NAM GYEON-HO (Ki Hyun-woo). He’s there as Na-kyung’s devoted bodyguard and minion of her father — but you know, there’s something about the secretly-in-love-with-you bodyguard trope that is always fun for me. He doesn’t have much to do yet except follow Na-kyung around in a tank top, but we’ll see.

One final bone to pick is that the drama cuts its final scene abruptly — practically mid sentence — and I personally dislike that as a method to get us to keep watching. The “cliffhanger” is that there is a mandatory party (oxymoron, anyone?) where our couple is being forced to go and perform. They are outraged. In fact, outrage is their predominant emotional state, and maybe that’s why I find them boring.

Either way, the plot must go on, and I expect a music-steered love story here that veers towards the sentimental and over-acted (as opposed to the truly moving *cough* CLOY *cough*). I don’t think I’ll be keeping up with this drama, but I also won’t deny the fact that a part of me wants to watch and enjoy the ridiculousness — and another part of me wants to watch and write an essay comparing this as the poor man’s version of Crash Landing on You. But, with the landslide of new dramas coming this month, I’ll probably resist that temptation.

 
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