First Love Again Review – Wish Gone Wrong

‘First Love Again’ has got an interesting story, let’s give it that – Yeon Seok, a slave in the Joeseon period, feeds a starving forest fairy, who then grants him a wish to have a happily-ever-after with the woman he loves. Unfortunately for Yeon Seon, his lady-love dies before their romance can bloom, so the fairy helps him wait agelessly for her to be born again. Three hundred years later, when Seon’s ‘soulmate’ appears as a young man in present day Korea, he doesn’t know if he should still pursue the person of his dreams.

This is really the story of a fairy not doing a good job of fulfilling a wish. However, funnily, the actor playing the fairy is the nicest thing about this series – she is spunky, funny, practical and immortal. What’s not to like? Well, for starters, the rest of the cast is pretty mediocre. Fortunately, the comedy in this 6 episodes long series is quite good – it’s almost like Japanese manga like – cute and exaggerated. However, the most crucial theme – romance – feels lacking.

Actor Jin Gun who plays protagonist Yeon Seok, a popular author in modern day Korean, neither exudes the nerdy persona of a writer, nor the suave charm of a romantic lead. His onscreen chemistry with Jeon Chnag Ha who plays the beautiful Ha Yeon/David is pretty lukewarm. In the actors’ defense – the script is too contrived and doesn’t give their love story much scope for growth.

Despite being a very short mini-series, I lost interest after the first three episodes and simply forgot about following up with the rest. I finished all episodes much later, in a belated effort to see what happens and if things get interesting… but they really don’t. There’s just another contrived pointless twist after the other and a cliche ending. But at least it wasn’t preachy, emotional or tragic in any way. ‘First Love Again’ could have been so much more, but it fails to live up to its potential.

It’s a 5/10 from me.