Dinner Mate: Magic in the Ordinary
There are many good KDramas out there. Some of them, especially the hugely popular ones like Descendants of the Sun, Goblin: The Lonely and Great God, Mr. Sunshine, and the recent hit, Crash Landing On You, are epic stories of love set against a backdrop of war, historical upheavals, differences in political ideologies, and even differences in lifetimes. Against these settings, the emotions that fuel their romances become tied with the over-arching story that goes on around the protagonists. Often, the romance that happens in the story is almost as epic, and is the kind that demands great sacrifice, and it makes for a highly compelling and often unforgettable drama.
And then there are those that deal with the ordinary lives of ordinary people, and the magic that can sometimes happen in the mundane, ordinary things. To me, that was what “Dinner Mate” was like.
There was nothing special about the main characters of the story. They were neither born into wealthy families nor occupying a position of power. They didn’t play pivotal roles that could change the course of history. Woo Do-hee and Kim Hae-kyung were both regular people. The kind that one can bump into in one’s workplace, on the street, in the subway, at a restaurant. Their joys and heartaches were the kind that most people go through; there was nothing extraordinary about them.
And yet the way their story unfolds, in its seeming ordinariness, in itself becomes extraordinary. Two strangers who both suffered heartbreak, meeting each other by chance, and pursuing that meeting through dinners and conversations without any further commitment between them except the promise of companionship over meals. Both afraid of being hurt again, yet finding themselves drawn to each other, somehow. No names shared, no other information that would reveal their identities to the other.
Yet the friendship and intimacy that is borne of their shared meals turn into love, despite not knowing each other’s names. It only goes to show that what’s important is the real person behind the name and not the name itself. You can know the other’s name and be in a relationship that spans years, which was how it was for Kim Hae-kyung and Woo Do-Hee before they met each other, yet never truly know the other. And yet you can meet a perfect stranger and suddenly find that connection that makes you feel as if you’ve known each other all your lives, and the love that you found so elusive is right there with this person, just waiting for the perfect time in your lives.
There are so many things that I wish I could change with the way the drama unfolded. There are so many sub-plots and arcs I would take out if I could. And I would remove some secondary characters while expand the roles of the others. Yet what I would never change and probably would even expound on is the relationship of Kim Hae-kyung and Woo Do-hee. Their romance may not have been as epic as that of other KDrama couples, but to me, it’s just as beautiful, even more so than the others. It was simple and yet there was so much emotional depth to it. It was sincere. It was genuine. It was relatable. It was real.
Dinner Mate was far from perfect. It could have been so much more, but despite the flaws in the storytelling I found myself loving it. I know it’s because of Kim Hae-kyung and Woo Do-hee, more than anything else. They were the saving grace of a drama that, at times, didn’t seem to know which direction it wanted to take (is this a romcom or a straight makjang?) and whose story it wanted to tell (Yes, writer-nim, I know Lee Ji-hoon was a wonderful actor, but this wasn’t supposed to be Jung Jae-hyuk’s story of redemption and mental recovery. Nor was it supposed to be the chronicle of Jin No-eul’s journey into emotional maturity and business entrepreneurship.). I would give credit to Song Seung Heon and Seo Ji Hye, whose sincere acting and electrifying chemistry made me believe in the love between Kim Hae-kyung and Woo Do-hee.
There will be many other KDramas in the future, but Dinner Mate will remain in my list of favorites. It will be one of those dramas that I will go back and watch again.
