Review of What Comes After Love / 사랑 후에 오는 것들

If you’ve been hanging around my blog for a while, you’re probably in the know that I’ve been raving about Korean dramas lately. If you’re new here though—welcome! Take a look around while you’re here.

As I just mentioned, I was having a moment after I came back from South Korea. I lived in Busan over the summer on an intensive immersion language program, which meant I was living and breathing Korean every single day. I had a Korean language partner, and a Korean roommate that wasn’t fluent in English conversation.

So when I came back to the United States, I wasn’t ready to give up the aspects of Korea I had left behind. I turned to Korean dramas and movies to fill the gap of the loss of Korean language and culture, and it’s been curbing the desire to go back (with no money or funding) that I’ve been feeling.

I watched What Comes After Love while waiting for the next episodes of Dear Hyeri to come out. I had no idea when I was starting the show what it was about really, nor that it was only five episodes. I was both pleasantly surprised and shocked by that, as I wasn’t ready to commit to another 16 episode drama right then and there.

Here’s my review of the show! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction, as I have a habit of doing that.

A Japanese man and Korean woman cross paths after breaking up years prior.

This is a series that moves between past and present, and I described it to someone I was talking to as a form of visual poetry. I really liked this show a lot, to be upfront, and thought that the visuals presented throughout it were spectacular. It unfolded a lot like a movie throughout the course of its run time.

Anyways, I’ll go in chronological order of the plot for the sake of this review. Several years prior to the present moment, Hong left behind her family in South Korea in order to try something new in Japan. She was young and had just graduated from her college, and they didn’t want her to go.

But she did go to Japan, and along the way she works at a restaurant. In Japan she continues to study, but something magical happens to her when she’s there: she falls in love.

She met a man named Jungo, who is Japanese, and sparks seemed to fly between the two. However, no matter how in love they seem, Hong becomes upset at the fact that Jungo isn’t able to show up when she needs him to. This is what ultimately leads to their ending, and she heads back to Korea.

Years later, she’s in a happy relationship with a Korean man and works within a publishing company. Her life is about to change when the Japanese author she’s told to pick up from the airport turns out to be Jungo.

After five years, he wrote a novel based on the feelings he had towards their relationship, and now Hong is supposed to serve as his translator, as she is one of the best in-house when it comes to Japanese. This leads to some awkward moments when they have to talk about the book’s inspiration for sure.

Things get even rockier when Hong’s boyfriend notices what’s going down, and Hong has to make a decision for herself, as she also is very much conflicted by what’s going on during this press tour.

This show is only six episodes, and it cuts out a lot of the fluff that we see in other dramas. I think it works in the show’s favor to keep those cinematic elements, and keeps us focused on the important details that matter. There are no side plots, just focusing on this former couple’s past and present.

Overall Thoughts

This is a show that is quite focused, and it gets the job done. I could see people wanting to watch a longer drama than this one, but it’s fine the way it is to me. In fact, the shortness and brevity of it reminded me of a cherry blossom’s life—short, but beautiful.

I will have to admit, I wasn’t surprised by the ending. You can kind of guess one of two different endings for this show and probably be spot-on with the money when it comes to how it’ll unfold.

That said, I did enjoy this show a lot. It was filmed rather beautifully, the actors had chemistry, and the storyline was believable and interesting. The cross-country element was unique in a way that I liked it a lot, even though it’s not a new cocnept.

Go watch this one if you’re interested! I think you might definitely find it worth it, and you can binge watch the show in a weekend if you wanted to.

Follow me below on Instagram and Goodreads for more.