That Winter, the Wind Blows

That Winter the Wind Blows. KTV love story melodrama. 16 episodes. Early Spring 2013.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Story: This is the 2006 Korean movie 'Love Me Not' remade into a TV drama with a different cast, wherein a young heiress discovers that everyone around her is trying to take advantage of her newfound wealth. She's at a disadvantage in her fending for herself though, because she happens to be blind, suicidal, and has a brain tumor!. Yep!!! This would be a little hard to swallow if this weren't Korean melodrama, but it is, so you're just going to have to roll with it!

A con man with low morals and gambling debts quickly shows up to scheme the blind woman out of her money; he was (SPOILERS) friends with her actual long lost brother (who's now dead), so he assumes her brother's identity and gets to work trying to steal a fortune. The con man soon finds his new found "sister" is somewhat of a kindred spirit though, and he begins to pity her and quickly regrets what he's doing. Slowly but surely, he begins to truly want to care for her as the oppa she's always been missing, and then ultimately, he starts to fall in love with her.

If you've been around the block with these shows, you know where all this is headed; Can con man become a decent guy? Can blind woman find her reason to keep on living, if she doesn't die outright anyway? Can these two help each other heal over time, and perhaps eventually be together and find love and live happily ever after? Blah, blah, blah!

This particular series is primarily a simple slow burn romantic/tragic melodrama when you get down to it. I typically don't like these shows very much because they're usually relentlessly bleak and somber, and they're often quite boring to boot as a result. To be fair, I personally prefer romantic K-dramas that are more lighthearted & fun, or completely outrageous. This show plays it straight with its story for the most part, and although it tries to avoid being too tedious, it can be VERY slow moving at times (especially down the stretch).

The reasons for the two leads to fall in love are a bit sketchy, and, their love sometimes lead to being borderline creepy in an incestuous way. I've seen this semi-incest theme in a number of K-dramas over the years, and it never fails to rub me the wrong way. There's always some out/excuse/reason so that it's not actually incest, but it frequently comes across as just being plain "icky"!

Jo In-Sung plays the con man. He's got a nice charisma to him, and, he does pretty decent work here in the role he's given. Song Hye-Kyo plays the female lead. She's solid too (as usual), and she gets bonus points for having to portray a blind woman week after week. There's nothing wrong with either of their performances, but it's hard to really like either of their characters in the long run because of the nature of this show and the characters themselves. There's a few other primary supporting roles, the most prominent being the blind woman's caretaker/stepmother, and the mob henchman who the con man has to pay back. There's also your two secondary young pretty characters (played by Kim Bum & Eun-ji from APink ) who aren't really all that essential to the main plot in the scheme of things; they get the job done well enough in their subordinate parts, and they're arguably more likable than anybody else in this show by default.

There are some problems that hold this show back from being just better than average IMO. It has some really bad pacing issues as it progresses, and, several of the story lines & relationships don't really make a whole lot of sense as the plot unfolds, such as (SUPER SPOILERS): A) Evil stepmother actually truly loves blind girl and will be sad if she ever has to leave her? Wait! What?; B) Con man's gangster friend must kill con man if he doesn't pay off his debt by an exact date?...why?...his death would clearly benefit no one because you can't collect debts from a dead guy; the only reason this story angle exists is to serve as a contrivance for the con man to have a "made up" reason to face his own mortality (i.e. so he can supposedly better identify with the dying blind/tumor girl he's in love with); C) Can you operate on the blind/tumor girl or not?...make up your mind will you!; D) The con man's gangster friend also has stomach cancer and he's dying too, but he sort of wants to reconcile with the con man (or maybe kill him) over something that happened to a girl they both loved when they were younger?...why?...is any of this back story nonsense really necessary?; and on and on it goes.

This show is not overly terrible, and there are several things to like throughout, but I can't really recommend it as being anything more than just barely OK. It screamed to be only 10-12 episodes long (even though I realize that is unrealistic in this genre), and, it just hammers you with so much nonstop agony & misery that the central love story ultimately gets lost along the way. This mix of love, life, and loss should never be as difficult or complex (and depressing) as these shows tend to try to make you believe it is, and, the more these shows try to convince you otherwise, the worse things will inevitably get. There's a fine line between an epic sad love story saga versus an unenjoyable & overwrought emotional tale that's not all that coherent or cohesive. This is a perfect example of a show that is equal parts both!

Summary: Skip this show and watch the movie 'Love Me Not' instead; you won't miss anything and you'll save yourself 14 hours.

Bottom Line: 6 out of 10 stars.