Review of Way Back Love / 내가 죽기 일주일 전

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

For three years I worked professionally as a film critic, and while going to all of the film festivals and interviewing directors and actors was cool for a while, but I wanted to reclaim my time and watch movies I wanted to watch. Sometimes watching all of the new releases is great, and behind ahead of the curve, but I feel like I was falling so behind on movies I was genuinely excited about.

So I quit and decided to focus on this blog, and fell back more into literary criticism. I also randomly fell into a period of unemployment because of unexpected circumstances, and I took a long and hard look at my finances and realized I had enough to take time off. I did end up doing that, traveled for a bit, applied to jobs, and found myself working on the blog now more than ever.

I am eternally grateful that I was in the financial situation where I was capable of taking time off, and the fact that this blog does make some pennies here and there off of the display ads. It provided the chance for me to breathe when I had worked a lot (I was literally working five jobs in graduate school on top of being a full time student) and refigure out what my life was going to look like once I had a job again.

I also caught up on a ton of Korean dramas during this time. So many that I definitely burned myself out of television. At the time of typing this I’m in a bit of a rut when it comes to television shows, and I’m unable to get past a few episodes. Maybe it’s the seasonal depression, or it’s the fact I watched too much.

Way Back Love was the last show I got through before I fell into this rut. I was able to watch it all the way through pretty easily, splitting it up over the course of a few days.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the intro, as I know this isn’t the main event.

A depressed 24-year-old finds a grim reaper visiting her—but it’s her childhood friend and he’s telling her she’s going to die soon.

This is a show that, throughout its brief six episodes, is going to toggle between the past and the present. We start in the present day, when the female lead, Jeong Hee-wan, is 24 and going through a serious depression. She pretty much camps out inside of her home and doesn’t really go out, nor does she really have any friends (except one, who we see throughout the show).

But one day, she’s visited by a grim reaper, and she’s both shocked and somewhat delighted to see that it’s her old friend Kim Ram-woo. We don’t know how exactly he died so young at the beginning of the series, but with the flashback segments in the past, we can fill in the blanks later.

Ram-woo has become a grim reaper in the afterlife, and he’s been sent to her with a specific purpose. It’s a bit of a sad one, too, as he has to tell her she is going to die within a week. And, unfortunately, from what we can see of Hee-wan, it’s to be expected from her current mental health status.

It’s through the past we learn how we got to the present day. Once, when they were both in school and Ram-woo was alive, Hee-wan was so full of life and vibrant. She had her friend group, and Ram-woo was her first love even. She’s someone who kind of antagonize him in the name of love, but we, as viewers, can become really invested in their love story.

We know how this is going to end, and as we go back and forth from the past to the present, we see how these two had a ripple effect in each other’s lives. As one grim reaper tells Ram-woo: you don’t really want to get the name of someone you know to visit as a grim reaper, as you might become devastated to see who they became in your absence.

And that might be what happens here in this situation, but this is also a show about hope. There are some moments that crank up the tears and waterworks, but it ends on a somewhat accepting note. I’d dare to say it was even beautiful how it ended, as it shows that grief isn’t a linear path for everyone and they need to overcome it in different ways, if at all.

Overall Thoughts

So this is a show I just happened to stumble upon, not long after its release, and decided to give a chance because the synopsis seemed interesting. I will say it’s also the six episode shows that manage to show an incredible amount of storytelling and character building for me.

What Comes After Love is another show that’s six episodes and I thought was really well-written. Way Back Love exceeded my expectations, even if it’s not my favorite Korean drama ever. The acting is good, the dialogue isn’t stiff and delivered well by the actors, and the themes overall appeal to me as someone who can see myself in a situation like the male lead (minus the death of a first love).

I thought this was such a tender and touching show in the end, and I’ve been recommending it to my friends in real life. I think it’s worth a watch if you’re interested in it and want something easy to watch over a weekend or two.

Definitely go see it if you’re interested and have the time!

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