Crash Landing on You: A delicious mixture of cheese, chicken, chilling adventure with a cherry on top!
So…still listening to Business Wars. Currently the war of interest is Netflix v. Blockbuster. It’s funny, sneaky, and sometimes slimy. But most of all, it makes me incredibly grateful that we have Netflix, and not Blockbuster, in the age of this pandemic. Can you imagine having to go pick out and pick up the movie you want to watch within the next three days based on cassette availability? I shudder at the thought!
I know most of us have been binge watching Netflix and all the other streaming channels, more now than ever. But when I look back on 2020, the family favorite show of the year was an unexpected one. Yes, Crash Landing On You.
We all watched it, together. Sometimes curled up under a blanket, sometimes with tissues, sometimes rolling over in laughter, and sometimes jumping up and down, cheering on the sofa (that was mostly Xander).
The Girl with Seven Names
What inspired this choice was our curiosity about Korea. We had been reading the book The Girl with Seven Names, because we were curious about life in North Korea. It is the biography of a North Korean defector’s decade-long journey from North Korea to South Korea. In it you see a glimpse of the dystopian life in North Korea from a child’ perspective. From her teenage years onward, you learn about her slow defection to South Korea. She starts her journey in China (she crossed over the river to China to leave North Korea) and struggles to blend in there. After many obstacles: an unwanted engagement, an escape from a sex trafficking ring, and a terrifying police interrogation, she finds a way of life there, pretending to be a Korean-Chinese. She learns Mandarin. Changes her identity several times to avoid detection. Then, after several years of secrecy, she obtains a fake passport, flies to South Korea, and claims asylum upon entry. The asylum process itself was long and arduous. The South Korean’s had a hard time believing she wasn’t actually Chinese! She makes it through, but misses her family deeply. She then comes up with a dangerous plan involving brokers and smugglers to bring her mother and brother to South Korea. Their passage isn’t as clean cut as hers. It’s horrific, actually. But they do reunify in South Korea. If you want to learn more about her story, you can also watch her Ted Talk here.
The biography was eye-opening and bone-chilling. All the dystopian novels you have read come together into one true story. But I yearned for more North Korean stories on the web, researched other defector stories and still wondered what it actually looked like in North Korea.
Enter Crash Landing on You
After talking about the book incessantly with my college roommate she strongly suggested I watch Crash Landing on You, a Korean drama, on Netflix. I wasn’t sure if we were up for a series with subtitles, but we started watching it this summer when it was way too hot to be outside and the kids were interested too! From the beginning, the beautiful characters, the soft backgrounds and depiction of the demilitarized zone drew us in. The first episode takes place in South Korea, but the next few are mainly in North Korea. Seri, a successful, beautiful, South Korean entrepreneur goes paragliding when the weather takes a Wizard of Oz-like turn and she has a crash landing...in North Korea. The North Korean comrades, including Captain Ri, find her, but then she gets away, and then they find her again. They believe her paragliding accident story (and rule out that she is a spy) and decide it is safer to hide and return her to South Korea than admit she made it inside North Korea on their watch.
Through Seri’s eyes, which are much like ours, we discover the North Korean villages, family life, the morning school day rituals, the military life, the rules, the hierarchy of privilege, and the required worshipping of the Dear Leader. You also see the kimchi cellars, the difference between life in the village and life in the capital (reminiscent of the Hunger Games), and the way the military is always listening. These aspects of the show have been confirmed as an accurate depiction according to many North Korean refugees. The other aspects -- not so much. They are actually quite unrealistic but make the show SO incredibly fun to watch.
You will find politics, scandal, innocent love, unexpected friendships, family deception, slap happy comedy, some certain swooning over Captain Ri, sweat-inducing suspense and then...all of a sudden an action-hero adventure with a bit of cheese, a cherry on top and a lot of fried CHICKEN! It will sometimes feel reminiscent of the love stories and coincidental connections we saw in the show Lost (my all-time favorite show ever). It also has the political corruption and “da-shoom, da-shoom” style action you might find in an older Bollywood film where the bad guy never seems to die, and even some Freaky Friday out of body type experiences for many of the characters when they see and experience the other Korea for the first time.
I loved it. Annika loved it. And surprisingly, the boy who never watches anything except documentaries and “Home Alone” loved it! I adored the love story and soaked in the feeling of traveling to three different countries (South Korea, North Korea and Switzerland). Annika enjoyed the combination of cheese, cherries, chicken and chilling adventure. Xander was jumping up on the couch and rolling in bellyache laughter at all the scenes with the “young comrades,” Captain Ri’s sidekicks and Seri’s caring friends. These comrades bring the slap happy, Home Alone-ish, type comedy to the show.
The music has also stayed with us. Our former piano teacher found the sheet music for the songs and Annika learned to play “The Song for My Brother” on the piano. I tried on the harp, but failed to make it passed the first two lines. We downloaded the soundtrack for dinner music (I am listening to it as I write this). I still dorkily follow the show on Instagram even though I can’t read any of the comments or captions. I know it sounds ridiculous but after binge watching the show, you become so deeply immersed into the story and the characters that you start to miss them after. You might also have a sudden craving to order BCD Tofu house (we did and it was worth it) or pick up some Crack Shack (we didn’t, because it never tastes as good as it looks when they eat it). The only downside to the show is that each episode is over an hour long, but that’s probably why you become so attached as well.
All in all, this was one family Covid cuddle-time experience that we will always remember and is ranked #1 as our favorite family 2020 show.