Welcome to Kdrama and Ramen

Welcome to my Dear My Friends – Unspoiled Review.  A young writer and translator has spent her life looking after her mother and her mother’s tight-knit group of friends.  Now, as the group approaches their twilight years, she considers turning their lives into a novel.  Proving that age is just a number, these friends are determined to live life to it’s fullest, finding love and fulfillment through their relationships.  

Go Doo Shim as Jang Nan Hee

Jang Nan Hee is Wan’s mother.  She operates her own restaurant and has worked hard her whole life.  As she and her friends grow older, they begin encountering new challenges.  Their minds and bodies have grown weaker and their children have grown up and found their own lives.  During these struggles, they realize that their friends are their greatest assets.  Nan Hee meets a younger man who frequents her restaurant and she wonders if it’s too late for her to find love.  But then a sudden cancer diagnosis causes her to put the rest of her life on hold as she fights the biggest battle of her life.  

Nan Hee has lived her life as a devoted daughter, sister, mother, and friend.  Selflessly, she pours herself out into the lives of those around her.  But sometimes those efforts drive her to be short-tempered and stubborn.  Usually those fits of ill-temper are aimed at her daughter, who gives at good as she gets!  During the course of the drama, we watch Nan Hee learn that we can’t control everything or everyone, and that sometimes we just need to let go and let other’s live their own lives; whether that is her daughter’s love life, her disabled brother’s marriage, or her friend’s dementia.  Go Doo Shim is an amazing actress and she brings such grace and beauty to this role.  I have enjoyed in several roles over the years, but this one gave her a chance to really shine and be the star she deserves to be.

Na Moon Hee as Moon Jung Ah

In the beginning, Moon Jung Ah is the only friend who is still married.  Through the course of the drama, Jung Ah experiences the most change and trauma as she confronts finding out her adopted daughter is being abused by her husband, the death of her elderly mother, and her best friend’s dementia.  She also decides that she wants to divorce her husband, who has taken her for granted through their whole marriage, and live on her own.  Her dream is to die “on the road”.  

Youn Yuh Jung as Oh Choong Nam

Oh Choong Nam is the youngest of the friends.  Due to a huge extended family who weren’t able to take care of themselves, Choong Nam has become very financially savvy. Because of her family demands, she has never graduated from high school or married. In her spare time, she studies for her high school diploma.  She runs her own coffee shop and raises her two nephews.  Her biggest fear is that she will die alone.

♥ Seo Yeon Ha

Wow!  Where do I even begin.  I loved everything about Yeon Ha from the acting, to the character, to the beautiful love story.  Some of my favorite moments were of Yeon Ha and Wan just gazing at each other through their computer screens.  It feels so quietly intimate and the way that they can talk about difficult topics in such a transparent way is engaging.  The depth of Yeon Ha’s love for Wan in spite of his own struggles in life shows commitment and understanding.  I could have watched a whole drama with these two characters as the leads but they made every scene together count.  

♥ Min Ho and Hee Ja

The mother/son relationship between Min Ho and Hee Ja was just so precious.  You could really feel the love between these characters.  While Hee Ja’s other sons were off flaunting their wealth and independence, Min Ho stays by his mom’s side while working hard to support his pregnant wife.  It’s in the quiet moments when he lets her sleep on his shoulder at the movie theater or lies down next to her on the floor that the raw emotion is almost overwhelming. Every scene they had together brought joy to my heart.

Need More Mark Smith

It was so sad to see the photographer, Mark Smith, quietly bow out so early.  Even though his interactions with the group were limited, I enjoyed watching them together and initially thought some deeper friendships might for with time.  It seems a shame to waste such an interesting character when there was still plenty of potential for storyline.  Not that this drama was lacking for interesting characters, but I wouldn’t have minded Mark sticking around awhile.  

Han Dong Jin

Shin Sung Woo did a fine job of acting the role of Han Dong Jin, but I didn’t really like the character.  There wasn’t enough character development for me to feel any real sympathy for him and didn’t feel like his relationship with Wan did anything to further her storyline.  We did get to see Nan Hee beat him up, which was fun, but really the drama would have been fine without him and his cheating.  

There are a lot of storylines to tie up for the end of “Dear My Friends” and they did a pretty thorough job of it. Here is a quick run-through of where everyone is.  Maybe because she is the youngest, Choong Nam’s life is mostly the same.  She is continuing to study and run her coffee shop.  Young Won finds out that Dae Chul has been divorced for years and though he is sick, he is receiving treatment, so she makes plans to go to the US and see him.  Jung Ah and her husband continue to live apart, but they spend most of their time together and have finally found a compromise in their relationship.  Nan Hee finds out that her cancer was not as bad as the doctors had feared.  She is receiving chemo and doing well.  She finally let go of Wan and is allowing her to come and go between Slovinia and Korea.  And since Wan is gone, Nan Hee has started dating Lee Il Woo.  Wan is writing her book, “My Old Friends” and spending time with Yeon Ha.  And while each of those ending are important in themselves, the real finale moment comes as we see the group, finally taking a trip together, driving down the road in an RV.  Coming to a beach, they walk and talk in the sand before taking a seat to enjoy a scenic sunset.  Wan watches them with a smile because she finally understands that they are not “continuously walking toward death”, they are simply “living this moment fiercely and confidently”.