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myromancedramas · 2 years

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ONCE UPON A SMALL TOWN (2022)

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consumeronionbulletin · 2 years

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Once Upon a Small Town (2022)

It's hard to dislike this show, even if it's the TV equivalent of a giant fluffy bag of cotton candy. It's short, sweet, safe, and uses a bunch of familiar tropes. It feels like Hometown Cha x 3 only with a smaller budget, and way more farm animals.

There's a meet cute, followed by a long lost Childhood Connection, with both leads having an Orphan Family Story, as well as a Double Love Triangle with a Surprise Ex-Girlfriend. The writing feels lazy, but they manage to do just enough work that it doesn't feel like pandering. You know from the beginning that the OTP will make it okay, and that the love pentagram will be complete, with everyone important paired off just in time for the last episode.

The Performances

Park Soo-young (aka "Joy") as Ahn Ja-young. Park Soo-young has an entire career as part of a K-pop group (which I know nothing about), but she's started to branch out into acting. She's pretty good in this. I think it helps that this is a small series with no one there to outshine her, but she's onscreen with kids, and animals, and (despite the cliche) she isn't completely upstaged. I even felt genuine feels a couple of times from her performance.

Chu Young-woo as Han Ji-yul. The other lead is also a very young actor, but kept enough of my interest that I never got bored with him. Again, it helped that his character was a bit of a stoic, but he was obviously trying his best and had a few good moments, especially the episode with the Old Man and the 30-year-old Bull. I wouldn't say his chemistry was off the charts, but this was basically the Korean equivalent of a Lifetime Movie, so it didn't have to be.

Park Ye-ni as Young-Sook. I picked this show up because I enjoyed watching her play a side character in You Are My Spring. The writers didn't give her much to work with until the end, but she did a good job with it and was able to bring out a few good moments in the last 3-4 episodes when they gave her something to do. Still funny and fun to watch.

Baek Seong-cheol as Lee Sang-hyeon. Normally, this character is the boring third wheel, and his/her job is to help the OTP figure out their feelings and then disappear. One of the smarter things the writers did was to make this character be a childhood friend who is a pretty decent guy. Instead of just getting dumped on, he was helpful and supportive of Ahn Ja-young. He just wanted something that she didn't. The downside to this choice is that it can make all of the characters seem indecisive and wishy-washy, but the acting (especially from Baek Seong-cheol) was good enough that you felt like you understood and respected the characters instead.

Everyone else. The Auntie brigade was fun. The small town cops were okay. The little kiddos were largely okay, and even good in a few places. All of the side characters (including Old Guy With 30-year-old Bull) were good. The actor who played the ex-girlfriend was very new but didn't mess things up. So there's no big complaints.

TL; DR:

It's a cute show that you can just put on with dinner or in the background and not worry about it. It knows what it's trying to do, and it manages to accomplish most of those goals without screwing up. If you like fluffy romance stories, you'll probably enjoy this.

#my kdrama notes #once upon a small town #accidental country diary #more love triangles

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myromancedramas · 2 years

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