My Love From the Star: Alien Romance At It’s Funniest

Image Source: Soompi.com

It’s been a while since I reviewed a K-Drama as I’ve been busy catching up on the anime scene but this show is one of the only K-Dramas I’ve watched twice so it definitely deserves a mention here.  I should preface this by saying I’m not the hugest fan of alien anything. I find the whole genre falls either into the hokey or the ultra scary horror camps and as a result I avoided this show for a long while.  This was a mistake.

The concept basically is that an alien marooned in South Korea ends up entangled in the slapstick misadventures of a the country’s top actress. Of course, it stays true to most K-Drama tropes. There are chaebols (rich heirs to massive fortunes), chaste romance, and a simmering slow burn of romance between the characters that is as frustrating as it is endlessly enticing.

What it does better than most K-Dramas is provide a flawed and often unintentionally hilarious female lead, brilliantly acted by Jun Ji-hyun (aka Gianna Jun). Her character, Cheon Song-yi, is both wily when it comes to sniffing out those who genuinely care about her, but zany enough to get herself stuck in a sleeping bag. A woman who is both larger than life in certain moments, and then deeply vulnerable and relateable just a scene later. You empathize with her despite her flaws (which are plentiful), or maybe because she is so flawed in the first place. Often, K-Drama female leads are the blushing and inherently virtuous to the extreme.  Song-yi continually makes selfish, crazy, missteps and rather than being bolstered by her crack squad of goofy support characters, finds herself the unintended victim of their ineptitude more often than not. The end result is a pleasing combination of both genuine humanity, and potential for real growth that the ending will definitely satisfy.

The alien angle works surprisingly well, and I say that begrudgingly as someone biased against such tropes. And like a good K-Drama it does not skimp on the love triangles, the heart ache and the poignant often adorable chemistry between the two leads who are most definitely an example of the the phrase “opposites attract.”

High art it is not, but for a relaxing, enjoyable love story with an amazing cast and a deliciously evil villain you can’t go wrong with My Love from the Star.

You can watch the whole show on the Viki app for free (with ads)!