“Twinkling Watermelon” (반짝이는 워터멜론)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
November 30, 2023

☆☆☆☆
Ha Eun-gyeol (played by Ryeoun)
Ha Yi-chan (played by Choi Hyun-wook)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

When my father was near the end of his life, he talked a lot about some of the things he had lived through — trying to protect his younger siblings from the brutalities of the Korean War; working hard and sending all of his money back to his family; studying so hard at night while working full time during the day that he was spitting up blood from fatigue and lack of nutrition.

My brother asked him: If he could go back in time, what would he have changed?

My father smiled and said: “I wouldn’t have changed anything.”

Even though a few different choices would’ve made his life so much easier, the changes also would’ve meant that he wouldn’t have met my mother and they wouldn’t have had us. The end result, he said, was worth all the hardships he had gone through.

When a teenage boy is sent back to an era where his parents are his age in “Twinkling Watermelon,” he has the opportunity to change things for what he thinks will be better. But what he finds is that life is more complicated than that, because if you change A, B and C, the end result isn’t necessarily linear … or better.

This show was one of my Top 13 K-drama picks of 2023 in Teen Vogue, where I wrote:

If you could go back in time and make your parents’ lives better, would you? Eun-gyeol (Ryeoun) doesn’t exactly make this choice. Rather, he’s mysteriously thrust into a bygone era where he meets his high school-age parents. There, he hatches a plan to protect his teenage father (Choi Hyun-wook) from an accident that will result in his becoming deaf. K-dramas are quite prolific when it comes to dealing with time travel fantasies.

While Twinkling Watermelon doesn’t offer a wholly new concept, the intergenerational story arcs are well crafted and make viewers laugh, as well as tear up. As Eun-gyeol ponders whether his interference will help his family – or result in his never being born – we cheer him on as he processes what it means to be a family, warts and all.

As the only hearing member of his family, Eun-gyeol grew up preternaturally mature, handling his parents’ work-related conversations and breaking up with girls on behalf of his lothario brother. He grows up hearing how his parents are looked down upon because of their disability and he is aware that society treats them as less than because they are different from the majority of other families.

Eun-gyeol is a top student in high school and his parents have hopes that he’ll go to medical school one day and become a doctor. But he also is a talented musician — something he keeps secret from his parents. Why? Perhaps out of guilt that he enjoys something that his family cannot.

He’s invited to join a band with older musicians, but when his father finds out and forbids it — telling him to elevate his life with his studies — Eun-gyeol is furious. While Eun-gyeol is a responsible teen, he’s still a kid.

In fit of anger, he enters a mysterious music shop where he sells his guitar. But when he walks out of the shop, he finds that he has somehow been transported back to 1995 — years before he was ever born.

There, he meets his father Yi-chan (Choi Hyun-wook), who is nothing like he is as an adult. Teenage Yi-chan gets horrible grades in school and decides to form a band to impress a popular girl at a neighboring school. Se-gyeong (Seol In-ah) is a cello prodigy who has boys clamoring for her attention.

Seriously worried that his father may fall in love with someone other than Cheong-ah (Shin Eun-soo) — his deaf mother — Eun-gyeol takes on a matchmaker role with the goal of solidifying his parents’ relationship.

There is a subplot about Cheong-ah’s abusive stepmother, who happens to run the school they attend. But what I didn’t understand was why her father didn’t do much to stop his second wife from abusing his child. He wasn’t aware? Perhaps? But why was he so clueless? Yes, I understand he’s a chaebol who travels a lot. But every single adult in that household — including him — failed the girl.

Also, during flashbacks, we see Cheong-ah’s mother literally being driven away from home, but we get no explanation as to why she was forced to leave. Was this a case of a divorce? Did the stepmother fabricate a lie to wedge herself in between the then-married couple? As with a few other loose ends, we’ll never know, which is unfortunate.

But overall, the series is a well-rounded production that will leave viewers engaged and rooting for Eun-gyeol to make things right. And I really appreciated that this K-drama depicted that despite what our children may think about us, we had very different lives when we were younger. A lot of kids would be surprised at exactly what their mothers and fathers were up to at their age…

Airdates: Sixteen episodes, each airing for a little over an hour, aired on tvN from September 25 through November 14, 2023. I watched this on Viki.

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