this year might be song kang year. after love alarm2, he started in navillera and later he would be in a drama with han so hee. i do like him as he always takes different roles each time he was in a drama. he doesn't limit himself to only romantic drama, but also some scary role in sweet home and now a ballerina. i do hope he would be an antagonist someday.. anyway, some people say navillera is underrated and it is a good drama, so let's see how it goes.
cast: song kang, park in hwan, na moon hee, hong seung hee
genre: life story drama, inspirational story
shim deok chul (park in hwan) is a retiree in his 70th. he's saying goodbye to his friends one by one. one of his friend told him that he regretted not pursuing his dreams while he still had his health. this friend ended up taking his life, sending quite a shock to deok chul's life. he then decided to pursue his childhood dream when he was lee chae rok (song kang) dancing ballet in a studio. chae rok himself is a 23 year old ballerino who's struggled financially and still tried to make himself known in ballet world. he also had a dark past, with his dad was in jail because his dad assaulted his soccer club players while he was a coach there. he was in a slump when he met deok chul, but it was about to change.
deok chul appealed to ki seung joo (kim tae hoon), chae rok's teacher. but seung joo refused, stating that deok chul was simply too old to learn ballet. however, he decided to accept deok chul and made him chae rok's manager and in return, chae rok was the one who will teach deok chul ballet. chae rok didn't agree at all at first, but watching how determined deok chul was, he changed his mind slowly and started to help deok chul learning ballet.
those two started to build stronger bond when deok chul helped chae rok faced his old friend, yang ho beom (kim kwon). ho beom had been assaulting him since he hated chae rok because of his father. ho beom was in chae rok's dad' soccer club and he thought he had a good future as a soccer player when chae rok's father was put in jail. later he became no one since he had knee injury and he kept resenting chae rok and his dad for his fate. however, chae rok stated that his fate was his own, and not chae rok's or his dad's. he stated that ho beom could make turn in his life just chae rok did. meanwhile, chae rok and his dad's relationship was not that good either. his dad didn't tell him when he was released from prison and after being released he instantly went to the suburb to work without meeting chae rok at all. however, as chae rok started to become closer to deok chul, his relationship with his dad was getting better as well.
meanwhile, deok chul has been keeping his ballet learning a secret from his family. starting off as a poor family, deok chul has been working hard for years as postman. throughout the episodes, we saw how shim sung san (jung hae kyun), his first son, had to skip school because they couldn't pay the school fee just in time. for a fourth grader, it was such a big burden that made his mom heartbroken. later we also saw that sung san gave up baseball because he didn't want to burden his parents with baseball necessities like shoes and gloves that required extra money. however, choi hae nam (na moon hee), deok chul's wife was grateful that he managed to land stable job in some office and even managed to get high ranking in his company. however, after his success, he seemed to see others lowly, thus later made hae nam scolded him when sung san was in altercation with deok chul. shim seung suk (kim soo jin), deok chul's daughter, was struggling financially as well. her husband, young il, was struggling politician. he didn't win several elections because of his education background. they also didn't have any children. later seung suk told hae nam that they were going to give up trying to conceive.
meanwhile, shim sung gwan (jo bok rae) was deok chul's third children, second son. he quit his job as surgeon as he couldn't face another life lost on his surgery table. he was struggling as well as sung san kept criticizing his choice to pursue his dream to be a film director and not continuing his job as surgeon. there was shim eun ho (hong sung hee), deok chul's granddaughter, sung san's daughter. she was graduated and accepted as intern. fate made her met with chae rok. she became intern and got placed in chae rok's part time job cafe. both of them involved in several arguments before getting closer and became friends because of deok chul. however, she was struggling in her job as she didn't want to disappoint her father. but the job wasn't the right one for her.
later, hae nam found out about deok chul learning ballet and told sung san. sung san was furious and told deok chul to quit as it might bring shame to the family. up until these days, ballet is still deemed to be suitable for female, and male dancers are still rare due to the shaming culture. sung gwan was the only one supporting deok chul. the other one was kim ae ran (shin eun jung), sung san's wife. she supported deok chul because deok chul understood her when she was in depression after giving birth to eun ho. she had to quit her job and stayed with eun ho by herself meanwhile sung san was in the office, being late because of his overtime. deok chul also supported her when she announced that she was going to work again since eun ho was an adult herself. sung suk was no choice but to agree with deok chul as it might affected yong il's image. however, yong il himself was not completely against the idea of deok chul learning ballet. however, after watching how sad deok chul was when he gave up the ballet for awhile, hae nam decided that she was going to support deok chul and even scolded sung san.
both deok chul and chae rok helped each other. even when chae rok was injured because of ho beom, deok chul kept by his side and helped him recover. but there was a sad truth behind deok chul's intention to learn ballet. he was suffering from alzheimer. he found out about it the day he saw chae rok in the ballet studio. watching chae rok doing ballet brought back his past memories that started to fade away. and being chae rok's manager, he decided to do his best and he took notes of everything. from his schedule to his dancing routine. at first chae rok thought that deok chul was being diligent, but later he found out that it wasn't the case. he couldn't decide whether or not telling deok chul's family, but when deok chul's condition was getting worse, he had no choice but to tell sung gwan. both of them keeping their eyes on deok chul, and keeping the condition hidden from other family member. but one day deok chul was missing and everyone couldn't find him. sung gwan told sung san and sung suk about deok chul's condition and was surprised when hae nam told him that she already knew, hence all the mackerel fish dishes lately. chae rok also told eun ho. together, the family decided to support deok chul and took care of him even though deok chul was thinking of going to nursery home, but his family stopped him as they wanted to take care of him.
at the end, sung san quit his job and decided to think about his dream. sung suk and yong il moved to stay close to deok chul and took care of their parents/parent in law, while yong il got back to college. sung gwan made his first documentary film about deok chul learning ballet. chae rok himself managed to recover, practiced hard for the competition and won. meanwhile, deok chul, despite his alzheimer, managed to do ballet on stage in a duo with chae rok. both of them managed to soar high. oh, i also forgot to mention that ho beom managed to get into soccer club, and chae rok's relationship with his father was getting better even though they kept living apart. eun ho also quit her job and worked in a radio station instead and she loved it.
what i like:
- can we give applause for all the actors and actresses in this drama? they were all impressive. even though i was not a fan of eun ho at first, but later she was okay. also sung gwan was a bit cold at first, but later he was getting better.
- there are a lot of life inspiring stories in this drama. if you're quite crybaby, prepare a lot of tissue as there are a lot of heartbreaking scenes in this drama. and the stories are natural..
- through this drama we can learn that your gender, your age, your condition is not an obstacle for you reaching your dream. as long as you're persistent and not giving up, you can reach your dream. however, in this drama deok chul was quite reasonable about this condition. he knew that in his late age his body wouldn't as flexible as chae rok, so he didn't dream much. as long as he could present a simple ballet performance on stage, it would be enough for him. so i guess, make a reachable dream and be persistent about it.
what i don't like:
- only 12 episodes! can we see more? but then the story would seem unnatural.. oh well..
rating: 9.5/10
binge worthy: yes
recommended for: song kang's fans, those who like inspirational stories and wouldn't mind crying a bit
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