When life gives you tangerines, the new k-drama that is blowing up on social media for its ability to “make people cry” is much more than that.
It is becoming increasingly popular, beloved by young people (and others), and clearing the way for a new way of experiencing music, film, and literature.
What am I talking about? Of K-pop culture, of course!
While it is true that for decades Korea-and perhaps Asia in general-has been fascinated by the West, today we can see a certain reversal. South Korean culture is increasingly flooding into the bedrooms of many European teenagers, who are going crazy for the popular music of South Korea and beyond: Korean books, movies, and TV series are becoming increasingly popular, thanks in part to the great resonance that social networks such as Tik Tok have among the younger generation.
We all know the great success that the Squid Game, the South Korean television series written, directed, and conceived by Hwang Dong-hyuk and distributed worldwide on Netflix from September 17, 2021 to June 27, 2025, for a total of three seasons; it is safe to say that countless steps forward have been taken from here.
If Squid Game can indeed be framed within a structured thematic paradigm that has been enjoying so much success in recent years, namely that of the survival game, in which deep social injustices and inequalities emerge by exploring the theme of capitalism within the South Korean economy, there are several “k” products launched on the platforms that are worth watching and remembering.
Among them it is fair to mention the very recent mini-series (that is how it is called on Netflix, although it is a good 16 episodes of almost an hour each) When Life Gives You Tangerines, defined by Wired “the bittersweet tale of our existence.”
By Lim (or Im) Sang-choon, author of. Fight For My Way e When the Camellia Blooms, it is no exaggeration to call When Life Gives You Tangerines a masterpiece with a romantic, harsh, intimate, courageous, moving and realistically fantastic flavor of recent times.
Although the story revolves around two young lovers and their life together from very young to old (in the wake of the TV series This is Us by Dan Fogelman – NBC) I do not think it is incorrect to say that the real stars of this k-drama are the women, particularly the haenyeo (underwater shellfish fishermen) from theJeju Island, with its sea and waves that create and destroy at the same time.
The series is set in the 1960s and tells the story of Ae-sun (played by IU – Lee Ji-eun), a young girl who dreams of becoming a poet despite the economic and social difficulties in which her family finds itself. Next to her, all along, there is Gwan-sik (Park Bo-gum), a loyal and loving boy, his steel axe, who supports her at all times. Ae-sun’s mother, Gwang-Rye (Yum Hye-Ran), is a haenyeo and portrays the values of sacrifice and resilience that animate this series, whose poetic, sharp and realistic storytelling, with top-notch production and Kim Won-suk’s understated but effective direction, ensures a tale capable of exploring love, family values and the struggle for one’s future in a rollercoaster of emotions, awareness and regrets, in a picture that represents nothing more than the extraordinary play of parts that is human existence.
The cultural vantage point offered to us by the eyes of South Korean actors and directors on the dramatic existentialist experience allows us to take a journey that is not only emotional and intimate, but also spiritual, allowing us to discover new approaches to life that, perhaps, are not so distant from our own being.
