“My Holo Love” (나 홀로 그대)

By Jae-Ha Kim
jaehakim.com
March 25, 2020

☆☆☆☆
Go Nan-do / Holo (played by Yoon Hyun-min)
Han So-yeon (played by Ko Sung-hee)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

“My Holo Love” is a pleasant, but silly, series about a lonely woman who falls in love with a handsome and kind hologram. Plot twist: the hologram is modeled on Nan-do, the real-life, aloof genius who shares his creation’s good looks … but not his gentle mannerisms.

Sung-hee suffers from prosopagnosia (or face blindness) and is unable to distinguish between the faces of even those close to her. A childhood trauma resulted in this malady, which she keeps a secret from everyone. Her work colleagues think she’s a snob when, in reality, she keeps her distance because she doesn’t want to mistakenly call one person by another’s name. Although suspicious of Holo — who can only be seen when wearing special spectacles — she grows to find his companionship as something she cannot live without.

There are parallels to “Absolute Boyfriend,” the odd 2019 series about a woman falling in love with her robot (Yeon Jin-Goo). But like that series, what “My Holo Love” gets across is that people are lonely and long for companionship. Nan-do was capable of showing love and affection, but his childhood scars made him wary of letting his guard down.

The ending to this series was concise, sweet and provided a happy ending that made as much sense as anything else.

Airdates: Netflix released all 12 episodes — each ranging from 49- to 57-minutes long — on February 7, 2020.

Actors: Over the past month, I saw a slew of K-Dramas that starred either Yoon (“Tunnel“) or Ko (“Suits“; and be sure to check out her chilling performance in “Call Me Mother.”). Both are versatile and probably too talented for this fluffy series. But that said, “My Holo Love” was still fun to watch.

Spoiler Alert: Nan-do grew up thinking that his brilliant mother had committed suicide. In reality, she was killed by the evil chaebol who wanted the technology she had been working on to create a hologram friend for Nan-do. The murderer spends most of this series stopping at nothing to get Holo away from Nan-d0 and So-yeon. As happens in many K-Dramas, there is a back story that shows the two had known each other since their childhood. Once neighbors, Nan-do played at So-yeon’s house while his mom worked long hours as a computer programmer. Her mom (played the brilliant Lee Jeong-Eun of “Parasite” and “When the Camellia Blooms” fame) fed him and looked over him. But when the trio are reunited some two decades later, neither remembers the other.

Shout out to Hwang Chan-sung (2PM’s Chansung), who plays the chaebol’s son, Baek Chan-sung, with just the right amount of mystery. At first doing everything in his power to please his father, he ends up helping Nan-do, mainly because he has fallen in love with Nan-do’s defacto sister (played by Choi Yeo-jin).

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