If the movies Back to the Future and CODA had a baby, the result would the 2023 Kdrama, Twinkling Watermelon. The show borrows elements from both movies to bring forth an original story filled with hope, laughter, music, heartbreak, and redemption.
- Series Title: Twinkling Watermelon (Korean: 반짝이는 워터멜론)
- Starring: Ryeoun, Choi Hyun-wook, Seol In-ah and Shin Eun-soo
- Written by: Jin Soo-wa
- Directed by: Son Jeong-hyeon and Yoo Beom-sang
- Network: tvN
- Where to watch in the US: Viki
- Premier Date: September 25, 2023
- # of episodes: 16
- KafeNook Rating: 4.8 sips
Twinkling Watermelon — !! Spoilers Ahead!!
After watching Twinkling Watermelon, I feel like my heart is a watermelon that has been smashed into a million pieces by the late comedian Gallagher. One by one, I’m still picking pieces up off the floor. I loved both of the movies CODA (Children of Deaf Adults), starring Emily Jones as Ruby, and the original Back to the Future with Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly. I never imagined the two storylines could be grafted together in such a way to create an amazing new story. Huge kudos to writer, Jin Soo-wa, and directors, Son Jeong-hyeon and Yoo Beom-sang, who had the vision to create this fabulous series.
Ryeoun is perfectly cast as Ha Eun-gyeol, a person who wears his emotions on his sleeve. In 2023, he is mature in a lot of ways given his role as the voice for his deaf family. However, he is still an eighteen-year-old kid who makes choices that goes against his father’s wishes. When he travels to 1995, he meets his immature, teenage dad and in a reversal of roles, becomes the mature, over-protective one.
Not to be outdone, Choi Hyun-wook as Ha Yi-chan is incredible. (Week Hero Class 1 is now on my watchlist solely because of him.) He brings an amazing energy and vibrancy to the character of Yi-chan, while at the same time, presenting a quiet, retrospective side. I loved every scene with young Yi-chan and almost didn’t want the drama to return to the future knowing he wouldn’t be there. (How great that they found a way to plop young Yi-chan in the future for one last heart-to-heart with his son!)
A CODA Travels Back to 1995
Eighteen-year-old Eun-gyeol (Ryeoun) is the only hearing person in his family of four. It’s a burden he has endured his entire life. Given the opportunity to learn guitar and join a band, he hides this part of his life from his family – especially his father, Ha Yi-chan (Choi Won-young of Heirs/Inheritors who has a knack for playing awesome dads!). Ha Yi-chan wants his son to go to college, something he was not able to do. During Eun-gyeol’s first gig with the band, his father shows up and the two argue. Frustrated and upset, Eun-gyeol finds himself in front of the Viva La Vida music store where he sells his guitar. But this is not just any music store. As Eun-gyeol exits, he discovers he is back in 1995. There he comes face to face with his eighteen-year-old father (Choi Hyun-wook) and to his surprise, Yi-chan is not deaf.
Being in the past may give Eun-gyeol the opportunity save his father from the accident that caused his hearing loss. The problem is, his arrival there has already changed events and not for the better. Yi-chan is supposed to meet Eun-gyeol’s mom, Yoon Cheong-ah (Shin Eun-soo), the deaf daughter of the chairman of Jinseong Musical Instruments and fall in love with her. Instead, he likes cello goddess, Choi Se-kyung (Business Proposal’s Seol In-ah), a popular student at the Arts Highschool Cheong-ah goes to. To impress Se-kyung, Yi-chan tells her his band will play a song of her choosing at an upcoming competition. But Yi-chan doesn’t have a band and he can’t even play an instrument.
Hoping to set things right, Eun-gyeol agrees to help Yi-chan form a band and learn guitar, all the while trying to turn his father’s affections toward Cheong-ah. At the same time, he will do anything to prevent his father’s accident – even if he doesn’t know when or where the accident will happen. To complicate matters, he has his own growing feelings for cello goddess Se-kyung, who is twenty years his senior back in 2023.
Father and Son
The heart of this series is the relationship between Eun-gyeol and his eighteen-year-old father Yi-chan. Whenever they are together, whether it’s playing music, fighting, laughing, crying, writing songs, vying for the same girl, or having a heart-to-heart chat, these two characters alone make the drama worth watching.
Eun-gyeol is shocked by everything about loud, immature Yi-chan who is far from the man he knows in the future. Not only is Yi-chan able to hear, but he loves music, is a terrible student, and he has friends! What surprises Eun-gyeol the most is Yi-chan’s zest for life. As he tells, Eun-gyeol, he wants to shine! Knowing the difficult life his father faces in the future, Eun-gyeol decides to help him do just that. Yi-chan’s initial animosity toward Eun-gyeol turns to friendship as they play in the band, dubbed Watermelon Sugar, and he receives tutoring from Eun-gyeol. Even when they are at odds as they fight over Se-kyung’s affections, it’s clear that they care about each other.
Eun-gyeol is the caring person he is, in large part because he was raised by wonderful father. Because of his father’s example, he is able to show young Yi-chan his love and support. Yi-chan recognizes this, saying in the message on the cassette tape that Eun-gyeol has been like the father to him that he never had. When he questions if he would even be a good father, Eun-gyeol tells him he will be a great father. It’s a lovely father/son circle. How much of being a father did Yi-chan learn from his son who learned it from his father?
Twinkling Romances
While Eun-gyeol and Yi-chan have the best relationship in the drama, it is not the only great relationship represented. Teenage Yi-chan and Cheong-ah are adorably cute together. Whenever they look at each other, his face fills with wonder and hers with longing. They have one of the most beautiful moments when he sings/signs the song, Magic Castle for her. (Speaking of which – this cast learning sign language for the drama is very impressive.)
Actress Seol In-a aptly portrays the characters of Se-kyung who is cold toward Yi-chan and her lively but troubled daughter, Eun-yoo, who has come to the past (via Viva La Vida) where she plans to erase her life. While passing herself off as her look-a-like mother, Eun-yoo messes up everything Eun-gyeol is trying to fix. Her and Eun-gyeol have several touching scenes together including their first kiss. He initially hesitates – his head telling him that she is his parents age in the future. Then he remembers he’s also eighteen and his heart leads him into a kiss that surprises them both. Later, they have an awkward and funny moment after learning they are both from the future where Eun-yoo realizes Eun-gyeol has been crushing on her mom the whole time.
Best Tear-jerker Moments
Many of the best tear-jerker moments in the show feature Ryeoun as Eun-gyeol. (Kim Soo-hyun definitely has an up-and-coming rival in the on-screen crying department!). Not surprisingly, they often involve his teenage parents.
Eun-gyeol’s love and affection for his mom, Cheon-ah, is apparent in every scene they are in together. When he learns of her difficult family situation, he jumps into protective mode. Sitting down to teach her sign-language, he is overcome by the fact that he is teaching the very person who taught him as a child. Finding his mom locked in a room filled with her drawings on the wall, he collapses as he realizes everything she has gone through. On the flipside, every time he sees his mom’s beautiful smile, Eun-gyeol is filled with joy. He may have learned a lot from his father growing up, but it’s clear that much of his heart comes from Cheon-ah.
Then there are the scenes with his father. After luring Yi-chan away from the final band rehearsal to an island, Eun-gyeol breaks into tears when he thinks he has stopped the accident that caused his father’s hearing loss. He is overwhelmed at the thought of how his father’s life in the future will change. Unfortunately, the accident that takes Yi-chan’s hearing is still to come. Yi-chan lying in the street after being hit by a car is the moment when my own tears flowed. Eun-gyeol cries are agonizing as he grasps the fact that he didn’t prevent his father’s accident after all.
Random Things I Liked
When Ha Eun-gyeol puts on a green track suit and Eun-yoo tells him he looks like a character in Squid Game.
How Eun-yoo and Eun-gyeol learn that the other is from the future while trying to get a signal for their modern cell phones.
Every time young Yi-chan call Eun-gyeol “son”. This starts after Eun-gyeol has tricked Yi-chan into going to the island to prevent the accident that will happen during the band’s rehearsal. There, Eun-gyeol admits to being Yi-chan’s son from the future. Yi-chan doesn’t completely buy it but can tell that his friend is sincere. After that, he calls Eun-gyeol his son several times which moves Eun-gyeol (and me!) everytime he hears it.
The sequence where Eun-gyeol learns what day the accident will happen and asks Yi-chan not to leave the house. Yi-chan surprisingly agrees. He recognizes that everything Eun-gyeol has ever asked him to do has been for his own good. But, realizing he only has one chance to drop of the cassette tape, he leaves the house and then ends up saving Eun-gyeol from being hit by the car. Just like in the future, he is there to save his son.
Twinkling Watermelon Ending
Twinkling Watermelon ends a lot like both of its source movies. Marty – I mean, Eun-gyeol, returns to a future where things are much brighter for his family. He lives in his grandfather’s house where his mother grew up. His massive room contains cool gadgets, rad guitars, and fancy clothes. (No giant black truck though!) Mom is a successful businesswoman. Dad could write a science fiction book about time travel but instead is the head of Jinseong. Not only did Yi-chan end up going to college, but he stayed connected with his former bandmates and with music.
Like Ruby’s character in CODA, Eun-gyeol is able to pursue his dream of music with the blessing of his parents – as long as he still goes to college. He has arrived back to the future in time for the release of Jinseong’s new guitar, Goliath, where his popular band, SPIN9, headlines the event. Before going on stage, he has a conversation with his dad where Yi-chan tells him it’s his turn to shine. Then, he meets up with Eun-yoo who has successfully made it back to the future and is now happy with her life.
Lingering Time Travel Questions
The time travel in Twinkling Watermelon differs from the recent A Time Called You. In A Time Called You – the time travel initiates a spiral of tragedies that have to be undone to fix everything so the original timeline can be restored. In Twinkling Watermelon, the time travel erases the original timeline and replaces it with a different one for Eun-gyeol and his family. (I’m ignoring an article from Starlog Magazine I once read about the other Marty McFly. He’s the one we don’t see who is from the second timeline and ends up inheriting our Marty McFly’s old life. I never liked the thought of two timelines occurring simultaneously where the Marty’s switch places. Hence my supposition that the original timeline in Twinkling Watermelon has been erased.)
The ending of Twinkling Watermelon is satisfying. But as with many time travel shows, I’m greedy and want just a little bit more. For instance, how nice it would be to see if Eun-yoo’s parents are any different since she intervened with her mother and grandfather. Are they still together? Are they happy? And – what about the moments when the members of the old band are watching Eun-gyeol’s group and wonder why he looks so familiar? Then there is Dad who has found the old cassette tape that Eun-gyeol dropped. He looks up at his son on the stage and has a “ah ha” look on his face.
That brings up other questions like – didn’t Dad and Mom realize they named their second son after the Eun-gyeol of their youth? Did they not keep any pictures of that time period? I also really want a scene between Dad and Eun-gyeol where they talk about 1995. Does Dad now believe what Eun-gyeol told him in the past about being his son? Sigh. I guess I will have to be happy with the short scene of Eun-gyeol right before the concert where he briefly thinks he’s talking to 18-year-old Yi-chan. Maybe everything that needed to be said is said in that moment.
Twinkling Watermelon Soundtrack
Not surprisingly with its focus on music, Twinkling Watermelon features a fabulous soundtrack. Standouts include the lovely, A Song for You, sung by Jung Joonil, the band-slamming song, Shinning, with vocals by Kim Hangyeom, and Aalia singing, About Loneliness. My favorite songs are Kown Soon Il’s beautiful Loveless Night filled with a nice guitar line, and Wherever, sung by Eight’O, which makes me wish I still had a piano so that I could play it. I also like this site that provides The Meaning of Wherever by Eight’O.
