Can This Love Be Translated: Episodes 1-12 (Series Review)
by SailorJumun
In rom-com Can This Love Be Translated, we follow the scripted romance between two foreigners traveling to various locations. When, in fact, the real romance is happening behind the scenes, between the female star and her interpreter. And though they speak the same language, they discover that there are other communication barriers they’ll have to overcome.
NOTE: This review contains major spoilers, so proceed with caution.
SERIES REVIEW
I jumped into this drama fairly blind, only knowing the basic premise mentioned above. Watching the premiere, it seemed like we would get exactly that. Unknown actress CHA MU-HEE (Go Yoon-jung) meets the multilingual interpreter JOO HO-JIN (Kim Sun-ho) on a Tokyo trip, and though she’s charmed, she doesn’t expect to see him again. She goes on to film a horror movie and has an unfortunate on-set accident that puts her in a coma. Six months later, she wakes up to find that her movie and her zombie performance has gone viral.
From here, Mu-hee’s entire life changes. She’s suddenly a beloved superstar, being dragged left and right to international talk shows. In one of these interviews, she’s pleasantly surprised that it’s Ho-jin who’s translating for her. They catch up afterwards, having the same rapport (with her nervously blurting things out and him answering in a straightforward, sharp tone). She learns that he actually visited her in the hospital a few times and, hopeful, she asks if he might have feelings. And he very clearly enunciates, “I will never ask you out.” He’s happy to root for her, but he still has feelings for someone else.
Despite the rejection, Mu-hee is loving her newfound fame. Then… things take a dark turn. She starts hallucinating her iconic zombie character, Do Ra-mi. At first, the figure only appears briefly. But eventually, Do Ra-mi starts approaching Mu-hee and even talking to her — coldly saying that she doesn’t deserve this happiness. On one occasion, on the red carpet in Japan, an episode makes her faint. Luckily, someone is there to catch her: the charismatic Japanese actor HIRO KUROSAWA (Sota Fukushi).
At this point, Mu-hee is terrified of Do Ra-mi, and she has Ho-jin accompany her to the doctor to translate. She just wants to solve her condition with medicine, but she’s coaxed into explaining her past trauma. Apparently, long before her on-set accident, she experienced another accident that killed her parents. She claims that she doesn’t remember what happened, but the Do Ra-mi hallucination tells us that she’s lying.
Later, Mu-hee is asked to join a new reality travel series called Romantic Trip. The producers have already cast Hiro as the male lead, and they’d love to pair Japan’s romance prince with Korea’s horror queen. And surprise, surprise, they want Ho-jin to come along as an interpreter to bridge the gap. Mu-hee is reluctant to work with Ho-jin again, embarrassed that he knows about her mental health issues. But ultimately, she figures it’ll be nice to have someone who understands what she’s going through.
The cast and crew set off to Canada for the first leg of their trip. They start shooting and, right off the bat, the language barrier proves to be difficult. Hiro doesn’t particularly like Mu-hee (he’s creeped out by her zombie image), and he doesn’t hide it. Ho-jin ends up doing a lot of filtering so as not to hurt Mu-hee’s feelings.
Ho-jin is glad to provide Mu-hee some comfort, but the main reason he joined the show was to avoid his problem at home. Because not only is his first love SHIN JI-SUN (Lee Yi-dam) getting married, but she’s marrying his older half-brother NA JIN-SUK (Sung Joon). His problem ends up following him, as Ji-sun comes aboard to replace a PD. He’s annoyed to hear that Ji-sun came because she and his bro are fighting again; he’s always having to act as the middle man.
Though the second female lead has been thrown into the mix, I like that it doesn’t affect Ho-jin much. All this time, he’s been getting to know Mu-hee — her fears, her insecurities — and it’s clear that he’s now falling for her. At the same time, Hiro is also warming up to Mu-hee. His scenes are great, especially when he’s bickering with his manager (Hyunri) over his feelings for “the zombie.” But I will say that it feels like Hiro is in a completely different drama. Maybe because the humor clashes with the more serious scenes.
The overall feel of the Canada trip is bright and optimistic. Filming goes smoothly, our characters get to witness sights like the Northern Lights, and other characters get to some unexpected bonding time. For one, Ji-sun breaks up with Jin-suk and finds solace with Mu-hee’s manager KIM YONG-WOO (Choi Woo-sung). She and Ho-jin also have a healthy conversation, where Ho-jin reveals he saw her relationship with his brother as a constant. Keeping his world stable and safe. Then Mu-hee came in and shook his world, letting the light come through the cracks.
At the end of the trip, however, the magic fades and reality kicks in. Mu-hee is still dealing with her Do Ra-mi hallucinations, making her indecisive on whether or not to pursue Ho-jin. The constant back-and-forth has worn on Ho-jin, and he thinks that they should end things before they even start. They return to Korea separately, but of course, keep running into each other and falling into the same back-and-forth. But when an article goes out about Mu-hee’s estranged family, something shifts. The stress is too much for her, and she invites the Do Ra-mi persona to take over.
Go Yoon-jung truly impresses as she goes from the sweet and reserved Mu-hee to the harsh and reckless Do Ra-mi. She prances around, doing all the things she’d normally be afraid to do, like telling off her family. And, uh… like breaking into Ho-jin’s place to seduce him, lol. But Do Ra-mi’s real goal is to scare Ho-jin and push him away. For that night, at least, it works.
Mu-hee wakes up as herself again, with no memory of what happened. At first, Ho-jin thinks that she’s messing with him, but he comes to realize that Do Ra-mi is a real personality, separate from her. And now the personality has officially been unleashed, coming alive whenever Mu-hee unintentionally summons her.
The personality goes as far as flying over to Italy early, for the next leg of the show’s trip. (It’s actually quite terrifying — imagine blinking and finding yourself in a completely different country.) Every night, Do Ra-mi takes over, and every night, Ho-jin has to play babysitter and watch over her. Do Ra-mi taunts him that she’ll only disappear when Mu-hee is able to be happy.
Compared to the Canada trip, the Italy trip is more weighty and poignant. Do Ra-mi tells Ho-jin that the reason she appears every night is because Mu-hee misses him. After all, Ho-jin and the joy he brings Mu-hee is her biggest delusion. And we finally find out why: Mu-hee’s mother had killed her father and tried to kill her. Because of this, and because of the way her remaining family has treated her, she believes that she’s unlovable. Ho-jin hugs Do Ra-mi, essentially hugging the part of Mu-hee that hates herself. With that… Do Ra-mi finally says her goodbyes and disappears.
Romantic Trip has their last day of filming, ending on Hiro confessing his feelings to Mu-hee. Ho-jin translates, and it very much sounds like he’s the one confessing. It shakes Mu-hee, but she pulls herself together enough to respond in English, “I like you too.” It’s a nice bookend to the onscreen relationship. Mu-hee and Hiro have improved in their conversations (Hiro even learned some Korean), but it’s only ever been surface-level. More importantly, Hiro has caught on to the fact that Mu-hee already has her heart set on their interpreter. He finds her by herself crying, and he encourages her to go.
Mu-hee’s memories as Do Ra-mi come flooding in, and she’s overwhelmed to realize that Ho-jin was with her the whole time. She calls him out to meet her, and she voices her fear of him knowing all of her. He tries to explain how he feels, but she’s not understanding. He then outright says that he’s trying to confess, and when that doesn’t click, he just kisses her.
The ending is a bit of a blur, as everything is tied together. Mu-hee and Ho-jin are finally, finally a couple. Ji-sun and Yong-woo are a couple and traveling to Europe for work. And Hiro, not wanting to have any more regrets, starts going after the projects he was reluctant on. Then, out of nowhere, we get one more twist. Mu-hee’s family reveals that her parents are actually alive.
Mu-hee is shocked to learn that her mom wasn’t married to her dad, and that she tried to poison him when he wouldn’t stay with her. Mu-hee is shown a picture of her mom, and suddenly it all makes sense. Her mom looked exactly as she does now… or more accurately, she looked exactly like Do Ra-mi. So it was her mom’s image haunting her all this time, not necessarily the zombie character.
Mu-hee wants to find her mom and confront her past, and while we do see her leave, we don’t get to see the actual confrontation. She merely comes back, to Ho-jin’s waiting arms, and settles into her happily ever after.
And there we have it. I really enjoyed the show, and the usual colorful energy that the Hong Sisters always bring. The whole traveling aspect was refreshing, the visuals breathtaking. Similarly, the main couple’s communication was also refreshing. Both Mu-hee and Ho-jin seemed to have their own languages, which they were constantly trying to decipher, while they also shared a language that only they understood. They weirdly clicked. But when they didn’t click… my god, it was frustrating. I knew why they were acting the way they were, but it didn’t make all that back-and-forth any easier.
The mental health storyline was unexpected but certainly welcome. I just wish the show went all in when it came to treatment and recovery. We saw Mu-hee visit a psychiatrist maybe two or three times, and we saw her work through her past… But then it just ended. The Do Ra-mi personality supposedly disappeared, and Mu-hee supposedly had a confrontation (that wasn’t even onscreen!). After all that build-up, after all that focus on Do Ra-mi, I needed more. As lovely as it was, it’s not enough to have Do Ra-mi as a device for the love interest to read and translate.
But that’s just me. I can get very picky when it comes to dramas and how they handle mental health issues. Overall, as a straight-up rom-com, Can This Love Be Translated still checked a lot of boxes. It had plenty of pretty scenery, pretty people, pretty everything. So yeah, at the end of the day, I’d say it was a journey well-spent.
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