[Drama] When Life Gives You Tangerines

[Editor's Note] 2025년 3월에 공개된 넷플릭스 드라마 〈폭싹 속았수다〉가 한국을 비롯해 전 세계적으로 인기를 끌고 있다 한다. 외국의 시청자들도 자기 나라 언어로 더빙되었거나 자막으로 표시된 화제의 신작 K드라마를 보았을 것이다.

오래 전부터 Tistory 블로그를 통해 법적인 관점에서의 영화/드라마의 감상평을 올려 왔던 만큼 차제에 외국인들에 대해서도 원산지 법학자가 보는 시각을 설명하고 싶은 생각이 들었다.

그래서 며칠 전 다른 Tistory 블로그 'Law in Show & Movie'에 올렸던 글을 영어로 옮겨 이곳에도 올리고자 한다.

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In March 2025, Netflix released a new Korean drama called "When Life Gives You Tangerines" (in Korean, 폭싹 속았수다), which has been making waves both in Korea and around the world.[1]
Just as the title of the drama is a Jeju dialect phrase meaning “thank you for your hard work,” the show is set on Jeju Island, and almost every episode shows the island's beaches, oreums (meaning small volcanic mountains), dolharbang (meaning stone statue of old man), and yellow rape flowers and buckwheat fields.

 

* A few years ago, the window of the domestic flight at Jeju Airport had a sign that said "You've done good job today". Source: Chosun Ilbo, March 25, 2025.

 

The 16-episode drama, which Netflix released over a four-week period, is available not through ground broadcast TV or cable TV, but directly through OTT. The drama was filmed in four seasons at various locations across the country including Jeju Island. And above all, it attracted attention because it was a drama about a love story for life between a man and a woman, and family relationships spanning three generations, with no triggering elements such as cheating and fraud, unfaithful affairs, birth secrets, or conspiracies.

After Bae Yong-joon and Choi Ji-woo, the protagonists of “Winter Sonata” (in Korean, 겨울연가), which sparked a K-drama and Hallyu craze overseas, there are talks that this drama will be the next generation of Park Bo-gum and IU (real name Lee Ji-eun). 

 

* The male and female protagonists' school uniform and gym clothes shown by the Netflix poster are getting attention from overseas audiences.

 

Plot outline

The timeline doesn't progress in lineal order, instead jumping back and forth between what's happening today and what happened in the past in a non-chronological mannor, so it's easy to get confused if you don't pay attention to the date display in the bottom right corner of the screen. This is especially true because the lead actress, IU has the look and personality of young Ae-soon, but also plays Geum-myeong, Ae-soon's daughter, in her 20s.

 

To give away the plot here would be a spoiler as it was recently released, so I'll just list the episode titles by episode. Although the story spans three generations, the story is episodic, so you don't have to follow the storyline as much as you would in a typical grand drama. And Netflix has a brief synopsis of each episode.

In addition, there are many video clips on YouTube and social media that summarize the story by episode. For example, Tistory's “Jamie's Bed Story,” which I referenced when writing this article, explains the story in detail.
Since it has been released worldwide on Netflix, the subtitles are in English and the episode titles are also in English. In some cases, the English subtitles are easy to understand because the original is in the Jeju dialect.

 

* The stills herefrom are captured from the Netflix screen.

 

When Life Gives You Tangerines[2] (폭싹 속았수다)

Episode 1   Spring in a Heartbeat (호로록 봄)

Episode 2   Sassy First Love (요망진 첫사랑)

Episode 3   Yesterday Was Your Spring (그들의 봄은...  )

Episode 4   The Blazing Summer Sunshine (꽈랑꽈랑 여름)

 

Episode 5   A Midsummer Night's Full Nets (한여름 밤의 만선)

Episode 6   Life Goes On and On (살면 살아진다)

Episode 7   A Fruitful Fall (자락자락 가을)

Episode 8   The Moon Wanes, Yet the Young Heart Remains (변하느니 달이요, 마음이야 늙겠는가)

 

* In episode 8, Ae-soon, a high school girl, submitted a poem about Jeju at the 1967 Halla Spring Writing Contest held at the old Jeju Governor's Office in Jeju-si.

 

Episode  9   The Wind Goes Whoosh, My Heart Goes Boo-Hoo (바람은 왱왱왱 마음은 잉잉잉)

Episode 10  The Storm Sweeps My Heart, the Love Rocks My Heart (품안의 바람 품 안의 사랑)

Episode 11   My Love by My Side (내 사랑 내 곁에)

Episode 12   A Glistening Winter (펠롱펠롱 겨울)

 

Episode 13   Such an Uneven Love (그추룩 짝사랑)

Episode 14   Spread Your Wings and Fly (훨훨 날라, 훨훨 나라보켜)

Episode 15   A Spring Every Day (만날, 봄)

Episode 16   Here's to All You've Been Through (폭싹 속았수다)

 

Watching points

In principle, my movie/drama review on this blog is written from a legal perspective. But as a reporter from a daily newspaper pointed out, there is no need for legal criticism because this drama about Jeju Island is characterized by harmlessness that does not harm anyone.

 

However, there is one thing to make a legal comment. The question is whether it is legally valid for Gwan-sik and Ae-soon, who are minor or underage, to run away to Busan and pretend to be newlyweds.

According to the Civil Act of Korea, men and women over the age of 18 can marry, but minors need the consent of their parents or legal guardians. Perhaps Gwan-sik and Ae-soon's marriage report was not accepted by the district office because they were under the age of marriage and lacked the said consent form. In fact, Gwan-sik was chased to Busan by his Mother, and they were punished by their school teachers. As a result, Gwan-sik was suspended for weeks, while Ae-soon was expelled from the school.

 

* Gwan-sik and Ae-soon pretended to be newlyweds and got aboard a passenger ship to Busan.

 

The 16-episode drama is first and foremost a solid and cohesive story.

Although viewers have different feelings for the actors, and the back-and-forth timeline is confusing, it seems to be a far cry from the clichéd story of the so-called “dragon rising from the stream” (개천에서 용 났다는 진부한 성공담).

 

First of all, the male and father figures represented by Yang Gwan-sik are so idealized and sometimes unrealistic that they seem to be in a fantasy tale. Where is such a perfect guy like him on earth?

 

The only male character of the Yang family before marriage, Gwan-sik, played by Park Bo-gum in his youth and Park Hae-joon in his middle age, is a highly diligent and sincere man. He has a crush on his neighbor Ae-soon, and once told her that his future dream is to be a “first lady.” But he is not very bright, and he is single-mindedly focused on Ae-soon. When Ae-soon was forced to go to a factory in Busan to make money, he didn't hesitate to run away with her.

As far as Ae-soon was concerned, he would not obey his grandmother and mother, who were very patriarchal at the time. He lived his life only for Ae-soon, and when their first daughter, Geum-myeong, was born, he lived his life for his daughter, who looked like her mother. He had chronic problems of knees due to the hard work on squid boats for life, and eventually he died of bone cancer and kidney disorder at the age of 56.

 

The drama's title, “When Life Gives You Tangerines”(In Korean, 폭싹 속았수다), was the title of a poem Ae-soon dedicated to her husband who passed away before tangerine juice was made. Although there were many male characters in the popular Korean drama series, Gwan-sik is perhaps the best and perfect husband.

 

In contrast to him is Geum-myeong's first love, Park Yeong-bum. They became a campus couple as freshmen when he took her picture at Seoul National University's entrance ceremony. However, he was unable to convince his mother, who wouldn't approve of Geum-myeong, and tries to be a good man to his girlfriend,  and at the same time, a good son for his mother.

He couldn't take sides and losed them both. Yeong-bum was indecisive even though he was faced with several crises, such as both parents' meeting before marriage, the ceremonial dress arrangements at the hanbok house, and the newlywed house preparations. Even when she lived in poor neighborhood on a hill called Daldongne, he was a law student who only talks about how it is a “bad neighborhood” that cannot fix streetlights in time, but he could not come up with a realistic solution.

Therefore, Geum-myeong recalled that her father's turn to the women-only table to give his peas to Geum-myeong was a “revolution” against his grandmother and mother.

 

* Father took Geum-myeong burnt-out from job in Seoul to a boat to see the sun rising over the sea.

 

Meanwhile, the central characters of the drama, Ae-soon and Geum-myeong, are both similar and different.

Ae-soon, who was expelled from school and became a mother at the age of 18, is determined to let Geum-myeong live her life as she pleases, despite the disapproval of her grandmother-in-law. Her grandmother-in-law told her to get rid of her daughter's tricycle, saying it's not good for a girl. But she insisted on keeping it for her daughter. Otherwise, Geum-myeong will stay in a kitchen.

Gwan-sik also supported Ae-soon, agreeing with her that their daughter shouldn't prepare the table, rather can overturn the table. When Gwan-sik got injured while fishing, and left the boat, Ae-soon visited her grandmother only to weep. Her grandmother felt sorry for Ae-soon, who lost her parents early in life, and gave her a secret savings bankbook enough to buy Gwan-sik a small squid boat.

 

Geum-myeong grew up to be a smart and assertive woman. Because she has lived her life as she pleases, she whines at the slightest difficulty and says, “I'm so annoying.” But she knows how her parents raised her, and used to send a third of her earnings to her father by means of illegal tutoring, which was banned by the Chun Doo-hwan regime. Even when she wanted to study further in Japan, she felt a heavy sense of responsibility, knowing that her parents sold their house to pay for her education.

 

* A girl from Jeju becomes a SNU student and realizes her mother's unfulfilled dream.

 

This drama is set in the fictional fishing port of Dodong-ri near Jeju City, but human relationships are vividly intertwined, for better or for worse, even in these narrow confines. For example, when Gwan-sik got aboard a passenger ship to Seoul as a swimming specialist, Ae-soon was relunctant to introduce herself as a bride candidate for a rich Dodong-ri man named Bu Sang-gil. When Ae-soon ran away from the tea room, and chased after the ship with Gwan-shik aboard. At that time, Gwan-sik saw Ae-soon crying  on the pier, and jumped off the ship to swim to Ae-soon.

 

As a result, Bu Sang-gil treated Yang Gwan-sik badly while he hired Gwan-sik to work on his fishing boat. Later, he lost to Ae-soon in the election for the head of the Dodong-ri fishing cooperative despite spending a handsome amount of money. However, the enemy is said to meet at the narrow bridge. Likewise, Sang-gil's daughter, Hyun-sook, got married with Gwan-sik and Ae-soon's son, Eun-myeong.

 

Ae-soon is upright and sincere, so she has a lifelong relationship with her good aunts. Also, Gwan-sik's kindness and generosity helped him in difficult times. For example, he saves an actress who despaired of the failure of movie casting and came to Dodong-ri in order to throw herself into the sea. At that time, Gwan-sil helped her without saying a word. This time when Gwan-sik's new restaurant was troubled with few visitors, the actress celeb willingly took a promotional video to show that Gwan-sik=cooked dishes are delicious.

 

* After opening a restaurant in a remote location, Gwan-sik wonders how to attract customers.

* A popular actress voluntarily shoots a promotional video for Gwan-sik's restaurant.

 

The drama is not limited to the local confines of Jeju-do, but extended to show how the big and small events of Korea's tumultuous times in the 1990s and 2000s have affected Gwan-sik's family and other people. For example, the Korea's hosting of 1988 Olympic Games and the implementation of pay-as-you-throw garbage bags, the beginning of the IMF Crisis and the gold collection campaign for the Nation, the Credit Card crash, the 2002 World Cup, and the declaration of Jeju as a free investment zone made the family laugh and cry.

The drama also shows how Gwan-sik's family members were able to keep up with the times, such as when Geum-myeong broke off her engagement after making wedding invitation cards ready to send, and could find a new relationship, and when Geum-myeong lost her job due to the prevailing corporate restructuring, and finally turned to online education business success.

 

Another reason why the drama has touched audiences at home and abroad is because the characters' actions convey cinematic metaphors in a subtle way. For example, in the poor neighborhood on a hill, where Geum-myeong once lived, the night lights around Namsan Tower looked like a big Christmas tree, even in the harsh reality. The movie Ghost, which was shown at the theater where Geum-myeong worked part-time, became a clue that connects Geum-myeong to Park Chung-seop, the painter who painted the movie signs of the theater.

 

Also, when Park Chung-seop spotted Geum-myeong on a bus on the day he was discharged from the army and frantically chased the bus as it left the bus stop. Soon afterm he joined a group of ardent fans chasing Seo Tae-ji's car in the streets, which proved hilarious because of their unconditional fandom. As a result, Geum-myeong and Chung-seop, who met at the beginning of the IMF Crisis, ended up getting together at the end of the IMF-implemented austerity program.

 

* She agreed on his description of Namsan night view as the biggest Christmas tree in town.

 

Truly, the drama resonates with older viewers because it uses pop songs and trendy songs as BGM to remind them of personal events related to the songs. Gwan-sik and Ae-soon couldn't help but sing along when they heard Kim Kwang-seok sing "A Story of an Old Couple in Their 60s" (어느 60대 노부부 이야기).

And when the elderly Ae-soon says to herself, "My children will come to my funeral and reminisce about their mom's life, and she didn't live her life in vain," it's something we want to hear too. [3]

 

This drama gave me a lot to think about, such as gender sensitivity, which recently makes an issue in Korean society, a warning against favoritism and indifference to children, and the need for scenic tourism that provides exotic and interesting sights.

By the time I finished watching the last episode, I was eager to see more of this kind of movies and dramas, so that they can continue to raise people's awareness of Korea's unique culture and traditions, rather than just being a temporary Hallyu craze.

 

* Gwan-sik and Ae-soon walked along a buckwheat field with a beautiful paradise-like view.

Note

1] According to press reports, this Jeju-based Korean drama is Netflix's most-watched non-English-language TV series globally. The Netflix Top Ten shows that "When Life Gives You Tangerines" debuted at No. 4 overall in non-English in its first week since its March 7 premiere, moved to No. 3 in week two, No. 1 in week three, dropped to No. 3 in week four when the final episode was released, and returned to No. 1 in week five. As of week 5, the show was No. 1 in each of five Asian countries - South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam - and in the top 10 in 40 countries around the world. 

 

2] The title of the drama is a Jeju dialect phrase that means you've done a good job in English, not that you've been fooled in terms of the standard language of Seoul. However, Netflix interpreted it as “Gojin Gamrae” (고진감래/苦盡甘來), which means that after tasting bitterness, you will see sweetness, thus borrowing the English proverb “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. Then, they thought of the citrus fruits, tangerine or mandarine orange, that are common in Jeju Island and changed lemon to tangerine, and titled it ‘When Life Gives You Tangerines’. The title is a kind of metaphor. In both Korean and English, it is very nice and witty in stimulating people's curiosity.

 

3] If you're looking for religious significance in this drama, Gwan-sik's grandmother was a Jeju shaman who worships the dragon god (용왕신/龍王神) under the sea. Given that Yang Geum-myeong's wedding ceremony took place in a Catholic church, you can only guess that there is a Christian(s) among the bride and groom .

However, the title of this drama represents the poem which Ae-soon wrote for the deceased Gwan-sik, so it is in the same vein of New Hymn 384 (나의 갈길 다 가도록). It's a faith that "Jesus guides my way . . . whatever I encounter, I'm sure everything goes well (무슨 일을 만나든지 만사형통하리라). Just as Gwan-sik wholeheartedly loved Ae-sun and Geum-myeong all his life, we can also receive such praise from the Lord if we fully trust and follow Jesus Christ.