K-drama midseason recap: Reflection of You – dull Netflix romance can’t do justice to artful metaphors
- The Korean drama series starts off with an intriguing mystery, but soon gets bogged down with a meandering storyline
- The lack of chemistry between the tortured artists at the centre of the story only adds to the feeling of a wasted plot premise
This article contains spoilers.
Art and romance have long been great bedfellows, but despite featuring plenty of both, the brooding K-drama Reflection of You has been curiously bereft of either emotion, and of any beauty.
The tone is one of anguished romance and the three main leads are all tormented artists to varying degrees, but nothing feels right in this plodding melodrama that has grown more leaden and meandering with each episode.
When the series started, we were presented with an intriguing mystery. Successful artist and family woman Jeong Hee-joo (Go Hyun-jung) has her stable life turned upside down when Gu Hae-won (Shin Hyun-been), a figure from her past, re-enters her life. Hae-won’s actions, which begin with a slap to Hee-joo’s daughter’s face, are aggressive and hint at some bad blood in their shared history.
We soon learn that Hae-won was Hee-joo’s art tutor and, of course, there was a man. Seo Woo-jae (Kim jae-young) was engaged to Hae-won but had eyes for Hee-joo, who he also tutored. Hazy flashbacks of Hee-joo and Woo-jae in idyllic green hills in Ireland allow us to fill in the rest.