Can This Love Be Translated: Episode 1 (First Impressions)
by Dramaddictally
The new Hong sisters’ rom-com, Can This Love Be Translated, just dropped on Netflix with a multilingual story that spans Korea and Japan, giving us warm landscapes, heated arguments, and a set-to-sparkle romance between a feisty actress and a reserved translator. The setup moves fast to pull these characters together — while it also pulls me toward the next episode.
Editor’s note: This is a first impressions post only. To chat about the entire drama, visit the Drama Hangout post and stay tuned for our series review.
EPISODE 1
We open in the present, where actress CHA MU-HEE (Go Youn-jung) is being filmed at a European castle. She’s wearing an earpiece so that, somewhere in a studio, her translator, JOO HO-JIN (Kim Sun-ho), can tell her what’s being said by her Japanese co-star (Sota Fukushi).
Actually, filming has wrapped, but during the shoot her co-star has become smitten. He confesses to Mu-hee, who stares blankly, waiting to hear what’s been said. But Ho-jin hesitates. When he finally says, “I really like you, Cha Mu-hee,” I get the feeling that those are some words he’s been wanting to say himself, and now he’s left to say them on someone else’s behalf.
From there, we jump back in time to learn how our two leads met in the first place. It happened in Japan, when Ho-jin was there on business — since he speaks at least six languages that we’ve heard so far and is a much-in-demand interpreter. Mu-hee was there on a different kind of business: tracking down the woman who her ex-boyfriend left her for.
In a restaurant, where Mu-hee’s ex-beau worked as a chef, she sits at the counter, where Ho-jin is seated beside her. Mu-hee believes the restaurant’s owner is the woman she’s looking for, and she speaks confrontational messages into her translator app, prepared to hold it up for her competition to hear, before begging her boyfriend to take her back.
At first, she doesn’t realize that Ho-jin can understand every word she’s saying. But when an Italian family nearby has a medical crisis, and he swoops into action to get an ambulance, she realizes he’s multilingual and gets the idea to ask him for help.
Ho-jin doesn’t want to get involved in a messy romantic quarrel, but Mu-hee’s emotional display wins him over. And so, he helps her translate her inquiries to the young and good-looking owner, only to realize it’s the wrong woman. The person she’s looking for is actually older, more tired-looking, and currently seven-months pregnant.
A mess of realizations cross Mu-hee’s face as she thinks about the fact that her boyfriend only broke up with her three months ago. Now, she’s not begging for him back, but she’s super angry and storms out. The pregnant woman tells Ho-jin that, actually, the baby’s father is not Mu-hee’s ex. However, she’s been “relying on his kindness” to help her out anyway.
When Ho-jin catches up with Mu-hee outside, he relays the message and tells her that there was no real betrayal, so if she continues with her angry actions, then she becomes the bad guy. He refuses to translate further, but again, Mu-hee’s upset convinces him back inside. During the conversation, they learn that the ex was in fact seeing both women simultaneously, but also, the Japanese woman knew him first. In fact, they had dated when they were younger — and he left her for Mu-hee.
Both women are angry at this point, but as she gets mocked for chasing her love to Japan, Mu-hee becomes humiliated and starts to cry. Ho-jin pulls her into a hug to hide her face, and then translates to the other woman that she’s mistaken about Mu-hee’s intentions. Really, he lies, they’re a couple, traveling together, and Mu-hee only wanted to be polite. Now, this woman has been rude, and so, they’re leaving. But then, on the way out, Mu-hee flips off the Japanese woman, since she has no idea what’s just been said — which I guess defeats his lie about her intended politeness.
After this, Ho-jin is taken with Mu-hee and, through circumstance, they end up spending the rest of the day sightseeing together. She learns that he’s still stuck on a romantic disappointment from his past, which occurred on the very same island where they’re sitting. And he learns that Mu-hee is a struggling actress who doesn’t think she’ll ever make it. He has faith that she will, which cheers her out of her funk about her ex.
Later, as Ho-jin and Mu-hee are lost looking for a restaurant, Ho-jin learns that the woman he’s still pining over is actually there on that island right now too. Mu-hee tells him to go to her, or else he’ll keep regretting it. He hesitates, but then runs to the dock, leaving Mu-hee on her own.
And then we get an abrupt change in place and time, where Mu-hee is filming a horror movie. During a stunt, the wires break and she crashes to the pavement believing she’s about to die. Six months later, she wakes from a coma and learns that during her sleep, the movie was a global hit, and she has fans worldwide that were waiting for her to wake up. As the news of her recovery travels, we see that Ho-jin is one of those fans.
That was quite a speedy setup, giving us the backstory and jetting us back to the beginning of Episode 1. From here, we can imagine how she ends up at that castle, with Ho-jin as her translator, but I have no idea what has occurred between them personally since then. Rather than plot questions, their entanglement is the thing that’s hooking me toward the next episode.
While I feel like Kim Sun-ho is playing a character we’ve seen him play before, and the story seems like the type to take the easy way out (like, throwing an interesting argument between women off filter in order for the male lead to pretend he’s the boyfriend), I also think it’s the major selling point with this story. It moves fast, it’s got beautiful shots, the characters are likable, they’ve got a subtle spark between ‘em — it’s got all the fixings to be a heartwarmer. Plus, who doesn’t want to hear Kim Sun-ho speak Italian? I know I’ll be sticking around for at least that much.
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