Welcome to Samdal-ri is the typical Korean rom-com that you won’t regret watching. Nothing extraordinary in the storyline yet it’s beautiful.
What makes Korean rom-coms special is the way they tell stories – without overdramatising it but still when it comes to emotions, they do not compromise on it. They give you stories that are fully baked. There is humour, there is romance, there are other characters involved, there are backstories, there is present and then there is future. If everything comes together well, it gives you a web series that’s worth your time.
What makes Samdal-ri worth watching is the way this love story between Jo Young-pil and cho Sam-dal is woven. When the series begins, we see a couple who have broken up early in their age but as the story progresses, we see how they have always been together even when they were apart. They have always been so much in love that every single person in Jeju wants to either see them together or don’t want them to see each other – just to avoid reliving those painful memories. In the entire story, we get to see how both Jo Young-pil and Cho Sam-dal have been staying away from each other to protect each others’ families. The twist that separates them is heartbreaking too. It’s so heartbreaking that you don’t question a thing. You just hope that the couple somehow reunite in the future.
Another storyline that keeps you hooked is of Cho Sam-dal’s mother. The actress, Kim Mi-kyung has played Go Mi-ja so well that she actually becomes the soft-hearted mother who can go to any length for her kids but is as tough as a coconut on the outside. When she loses her temper, you cannot help but worry about anyone who is on the receiving end, then may it be her daughters or son-in-law.
To put it in short, Welcome to Samdal-ri is a story of separation and reconciliation and everything that the couple and people in their lives go through due to one unfortunate event. The way this accident changes their lives forever is something all of us have experienced sometime in our lives. Loss changes all the characters in these series. While some learn to live with it, others spend the rest of their lives getting bitter.
But as they say, all’s well that ends well. The only thing that I did not like is how everything in the end suddenly gets a goody goody resolution. Most of the web series waste episodes explaining the parts of the stories that are absolutely unnecessary and when the end approaches, they quickly wrap it up.
Still, it is a web series K-Drama fans can easily binge on the weekends.
P.S: Welcome to Samdal-ri is not available in English. The original language is Korean. You can watch it with English subtitles.
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