Slow burn dark under rated romance is not my favourite genre. However this one is so good that I nearly dont care whether this story will end as sad ending or not (spoiler alert, it does not have sad ending).
The story focus on Kim Woojoo (Lee Sung Kyung) who is the female lead character with two siblings older and younger, they are abandoned by their father who remarried while their mom went to live country side after the incident. Her father principally remarried with his mistress and hismistress kicked the siblings out of their house without warning. In parallel Han Dong Jin (Kim Young Kwang) who is the son of his father mistress, targeted for revenge by Kim Woojoo, in which throughout the process both of them fell in love and create a whole new level of complexity of emotion. Han Dong Jin in the process, who used to be loner given his mother has given him a lot of trouble from one marriange to another, get his life turned upside down by Sim Woojo.
For sure, Kim Young Kwang and Lee Sung Kyung in this series able to delivered one of master piece acting, excellent micro expression and masterly pause. There are a lot of room for unforgettable high emotion scenes and frames from the story, I have prepared that Kim Young Kwang and Lee Sung Kyung would not be able to dig deeper in the characters, but I am pleasantly surprised that both of them are equally skilled in leveraging many of the method acting techniques that resulted in beautiful emptional frames and scenes. There is one scene where Kim Young Kwang need to deliver highly charged with tears scene, you can literally see his trembled lips in addition to tears, which you do not see easily delivered. I have seen Kim Young Kwang in Somebody and The Secret Life of my Secretary, but it is not at the level of acting as in this series. It is by far his best performance to date. Lee Sung Kyung acting which is very different than her acting in Sh**ting stars which is light comedy (in which as versatile as she is, she delivered well all of those comedic timing). Sung Joon and Kim Ya-Won acting as second male and female also truly excellent in some of the dramatic scenes. Sung Joon has a classic second male lead with easy going and sad looking character with rich background, not difficult to carry, however he has given his twist that add strength to the easy going Yoon Joon character. Shim Hye Seong character is also played well by Kim Ya Won, there is comedic timing but also desperation and the timing to shift from one to another in successive frame is not easy to play well, she did it with forte so much you want to cringe in some of the scene. Kim Hee-Jung taut acting as scorned wife also noteworthy, it plays contrast to antagonistic character of Nam Gi-Ae’s Ma Hee Ja, which is a difficult character to play.
As a bonus, the location scout is very succeful in selecting beautiful location, some of them classic ones but still they are working well. It is then set beautifully in the frame, Lee Kwang Young PD has great eyes to deliver beautiful cinematographythat are feast to our eyes. Lastly, this is one series with great OSTs sung by the like of Wonstein and O.When added the joy of watching and listening Call It Love.
If you dont like slow burn underrated romance and will be very selective to choose, this one should still be part of your list. Like me, you will finish and want to wish Lee Sung Kyung and Kim Young Kwang sucess in their future given the superb performance they deliver in Call It Love.
