BLISS RATING: ★★★★+
“Thank you for being my family.” – Quote from Let Free The Curse Of Taekwondo
This is a story of pain. Sometime unimaginable and incalculable pain. Pain that for both these protagonists centered and defined their lives. Additionally, it presents, whether we like it or not, the ugly side of culture. The side of culture we accept as parenting, even though it is abusive, reprehensible, and evil.
No one starts out to be such but acceptance of the nonsensical notion of making your children fit to some type of conformity is so strong that reasoning and common sense and standards of decency are thrown out the window. All to make your kid stronger; only in the end to make them weaker internally and vulnerable to doubt as to who they are.
Lee Do Hoe (Kim Nu Rim) is a son of a man who runs a Taekwondo gym. He is emotionally and physically abusive towards Do Hoe. Over the years, Do Hoe has shut down his emotions. All except one – hate. His father takes in a student, mainly for disciplinary reasons. Sin Ju Yeong (Lee Seon) is the opposite of Do Hoe. Whereas Do Hoe is dark and broody and despises Taekwondo, Ju Yeong is joyful and effervescent and loves Taekwondo. Ju Yeong hides his own abused past in just the opposite direction of Do Hoe.
Breaking down the barriers and walls between them, they fall in love. Even at this early age, they make dreams of being together and escaping both their pasts and their present conditions. Unfortunately, reality, albeit a painful one, sets in, where Ju Yeong’s parents take him away and Do Hoe folds onto himself as he feels he is the cause of his departure.
Interestingly, Ju Yeong over the years remains at Do Hoe’s father’s side, even though he had also been abusive towards him as well. The reasoning and logic behind this relationship is as complex as life itself. Perhaps it was a combination of having a feeling that it was somehow home and represented some stability in his life coupled with the fact that maybe he was hoping that Do Hoe would return. When it looked like Do Hoe was not going to return, the father asked Ju Yeong to operate the gym.
Unfortunately, the father is killed in a car accident. Who should return rather grudgingly, after more than 12 years of absence, is Do Hoe for his father’s funeral. Now a successful businessman but a man lost into his own world of bitterness and pain. By his side, surprisingly is a person who bullied him in school, Ha Hyeon Ho (Jang Yeon Woo). He is his lawyer and confident.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? While this is an astonishingly brilliantly acted series, one is more soulful than all the rest. And that is Jang Yeon Woo as Ha Hyeon Ho. His reason for staying by Do Hoe’s side is perplexing yet ironically clear. He was deeply in love with him from school days and remains so to the present. While Do Hoe treated him as he does anyone else – merely like a piece of furniture. He had learned a long time ago to turn off his emotions and feel nothing for Hyeon Ho even though he knows how he felt about him. His performance is simply outstanding. He tries but fails to not show his love towards Do Hoe. He tries but fails to be dispassionate towards the budding relationship between Do Hoe and Ju Yeong but fails. The complexity of his role is multilevel as he has to be both confident, companion, lawyer, but never friend or ever considered lover to Do Hoe. An unenviable role with a rather painful existence which he displayed with complete commitment.
When Do Hoe returns for his father’s funeral, he is a changed person. He is so deeply wounded by his father’s abuse that he shut himself off from the world. He wants no reminders of his past life. And took great lengths to divorce himself from his past. So much so that he committed both unethical and illegal acts to do so. His pain was that unbearable for him. And as hard as he tried to shove Ju Jeong away, he just could not. Ju Yeong could still reach him and their bond of love was just too strong. Despite his own pain and trauma, he could still understand Do Hoe’s and his pain.
This is a story of lost souls. Astonishingly sad and told in muted tones filmed in dark hues as if to signify the total depression of the two of them. There are magical scenes in this series that will make you weep. Not from sadness but from remembrance. Remembrances of the happier times they had together. While there is a sense of joy and contentment in the end, it is still a rather tempered and pensive moment. Both are damaged but are finding solace and comfort with each other and honestly, they are the only two for whom that could happen to. They shared enough to understand each other and fell deeply in love with each other early and so their journey is just for them to travel on.
Their journey is worth watching with them.
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