A Love Other Than Yours Seo Kang-jun and Ahn Eun-jin depicted the realistic love of a couple together for 10 years, marking the start of a "realistic romantic melodrama."
On the 12th, the 1st episode of KBS 2TV's new Saturday-Sunday miniseries A Love Other Than Yours (directed by Hwang Seung-gi and Lee Ga-ram, written by Yoo Soo-ji) depicted how the 10-year relationship of Nam Gung-ho (Seo Kang-jun) and Lee Mi-do (Ahn Eun-jin), who first met at 7, went through turbulent adolescence together, passed through being male friend and female friend, and became lovers at 26, came to an end.
The long-time couple's quick back-and-forth, who knew each other's tastes, living habits and even small habits inside out, produced laughter. From comfortable daily life where they naturally do laundry, cleaning and dishes together to scenes where, despite having no intimate moments for six months because of busy work, they still remain each other's strongest supporters, the familiarity of real-life dating was fully captured.
But as their wedding approached, the two began to move at slightly different paces. Unlike Nam Gung-ho, who worked at a stable large company that provided the four major social insurances and whose abilities were recognized at work, the reality for film director Lee Mi-do was not easy. After being removed from a hard-won film due to conflict with leading actress Song Hae-na (Song Ji-woo) and then taking on directing an adult film, her path was drifting further from her dream.
While Nam Gung-ho wanted to start a new second act of life through marriage, Lee Mi-do was afraid of abandoning the dream she had not yet properly achieved and beginning another life. Eventually, the miserable reality she had wanted to hide was exposed to Nam Gung-ho, and an uncontrollable clash of emotions erupted between them.
Words from Nam Gung-ho born of worry and hurt struck Lee Mi-do at her most painful spot, and Lee Mi-do also voiced the feelings she had been holding back. Nam Gung-ho thought that responsibility — working hard at a company for life even if it was not passionate and trying not to deviate from the set path — was also a form of love, but to Lee Mi-do, his full-speed running for her began to feel like obligation and liability.
In the end, Lee Mi-do declared their breakup, saying, "Because of you, I'm beginning to hate myself more and more." It was not because love was gone but because the way they loved each other made them suffer, and they put a period on 10 years of dating. What made it more heartbreaking was the late revelation that Nam Gung-ho had been secretly preparing a proposal for Lee Mi-do that day.
But 10 years of love did not end with a single word of goodbye. The morning after they broke up, Nam Gung-ho, half asleep, called Lee Mi-do's wake-up call, and Lee Mi-do, out of habit, gave their private morning greeting, "Allahu. I love you. Jjongjjong." Only then did the two realize they had broken up the day before, and they screamed at the same time.
Although love was over, the daily routines ingrained over 10 years could not be erased overnight. The couple's 'bittersweet morning call ending' heightened curiosity about a realistic melodrama that would continue even after the breakup.
A new relationship that would shake the two people's futures also appeared. Nam Gung-ho first met the bold junior Park Soo-a (Jo Aram), who immediately pinpointed the product problem he had been worried about at work, and Lee Mi-do had an antagonistic first meeting with production company's legal representative Han Tae-seung (Lee Joo-an) to negotiate her withdrawal from the film.
The moment Nam Gung-ho and Lee Mi-do, who had only looked at each other for 10 years, broke up, 'another you' — Park Soo-a and Han Tae-seung — appeared before both of them. Attention is focused on what changes they will bring to the couple's relationship.
The epilogue revealed the moment Nam Gung-ho and Lee Mi-do progressed from friends to lovers. It was Nam Gung-ho who held onto Lee Mi-do, who feared losing even friendship after becoming lovers and then breaking up. On the day it first snowed, Nam Gung-ho confessed, "The clichéd sequence of dating and breaking up will not happen to us," and the love that began then ended before the 10th first-snow anniversary after they had celebrated nine first-snow anniversaries together.
The promise of the past that seemed eternal and the present breakup crossed, leaving a deep aftertaste on their 10-year relationship. The question of whether Nam Gung-ho and Lee Mi-do's love is truly over or whether they will begin another form of relationship after the breakup raised anticipation for the next episode.
[photo] KBS, UNI CHEM
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