★★★★☆
The 2019 Korean drama starring Han Ji-Min
as Kim Hye-Ja, Kim Hye-Ja as Kim Hye-Ja, Nam Joo-Hyuk as Lee Joon-Ha, Seon
Ho-Jun as Kim Young-Soo, and Ahn Nae-Sang as Lee Dae-Sang. It was directed by
Kim Suk-Yoon and written by Lee Nam-Kyu and Kim Soo-Jin. 12 epsiodes, 75
minutes each. Also known as Dazzling,
or The Light in Your Eyes.
Brief synopsis: Kim Hye-Ja, a young woman
in 2019, has a secret—she has a hidden watch that can turn back time. The only
catch is that using the watch has a price. Every time she uses it she gives up
minutes of her life. After her dad gets into a fatal accident, Hye-Ja uses the
watch again and again until she can save her father. When she wakes up the next
morning, however, she finds that she has aged into a 70 year-old woman! And all
of this happens just as she was managing to spark a relationship with the
neighborhood cutie Lee Joon-Ha…
The whole drama is about seeing the world
from the perspective of another person. It’s about recognizing the struggles
that individual people face and the emotions associated with that. The drama is
also strongly characterized by one of the biggest plot twists I’ve personally ever
seen in a drama. The artistic personality of the drama throws a dynamic plot
twist so close to the ending. The audience experiences a complete paradigm
shift. As much as I wish I could hate it, it’s one heck of a move! But then we
see the drama for what it really is.
Hye-Ja’s mother says in episode 2 “What
parent in the world looks at their child objectively?” The drama has a whole
has a lot to say about parenting. Although we’d like to think that parents know
everything and can solve every problem, the truth is that parents are people
too. Hye-Ja’s mother can support Hye-Ja in her transformation whole-heartedly,
but her father is thrown off his guard and simply doesn’t know how to handle
it. And of course, after we get that paradigm shift in episode 11, we learn
that there’s a whole other way to look at parenting, particularly from the eyes
of Hye-Ja’s father.
One of the other lines that hit me was in
episode 3. After Kim Young-Soo suggests that they break Hye-Ja’s door down,
Hye-Ja’s mother says “Oh, sure. Talking is easy. Is she not coming out because
the door is stuck?” Sometimes the problem we see is not the real problem that a
person is dealing with. Just as Hye-Ja’s mother realized that the shut door was
not the real problem, a person’s struggle may be deeper than what we can fix
superficially. When that happens, there’s a lot more trust and patience involved
in resolving that struggle.
How the drama portrays all of that
struggling could be considered one of the drama’s weaknesses. So much of this
drama is watching the characters suffer through things beyond their control. It’s
a lot of ups and downs, mostly downs, right on to the finale. It’s something of
a cyclic spiral. One that’s depressing beyond expectations.
The story doesn’t make logical sense. That’s
okay; few stories do. The real kicker is that when we finally reach the finale, we realize that what we’ve been
watching all up to that point is not the reality that we thought it was.
Radiant is a lot more artistic than I previously anticipated. I thought we’d
be seeing something like Howl’s Moving
Castle, but that’s not it at all! There is so much more focus on how other
people see the world, the struggles they face, and the relationships they make.
And it’s so emotional! Anyways, it’s not a quirky fantasy-romance just to pass
the time. If you turn this one on, prepare to give it the respect it deserves
as a work of cinematic art. 4.5/5 stars!
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