List of reasons why viewers feel anxious about “Now, We Are Breaking Up”’s remaining 10 episodes
Is the “hibernating break up” a big deal?
Despite the high ratings of Song Hye-kyo‘s “Now, We Are Breaking Up“, some predict that it is difficult for this film to become a hit. The current ratings are expected to be maintained thanks to the cast’s star quality and the female viewers in their 30s and 40s’ affection, but it is hard to rise further.
The fourth episode of SBS Friday-Saturday drama “Now, We Are Breaking Up“, which aired on Nov 20th, recorded the viewership rating of 8.5% in the Seoul metropolitan area, continuing its No.1 streak among Friday-Saturday dramas and channels in the same period. The highest viewership rating at the moment soared to 10.4%. Nevertheless, there is still an uneasy look on the remaining 10 episodes.
▶ The only conflict structure is the older brother’s death and the “hibernating break up”
If the story was focused on unraveling the thread between Song Hye-kyo and Jang Ki-yong (Yoon Jae-guk) until episode 4, their pink story unfolds in earnest from episode 5. In the process, it is revealed that Yoon Soo-wan – Song Hye-kyo‘s first love – is Jang Ki-yong‘s dead older brother. Also, Song Hye-kyo‘s misunderstanding, which she thought was decisively “hibernating break up”, is resolved. One day, the contact was suddenly cut off, and Song Hye-kyo, who thought she was dumped in the form of “ghosting”, finds out that Yoon Soo-wan got into an accident while coming to see her.
In other words, “Now, We Are Breaking Up”, which bored viewers due to frequent coincidences and encounters in the first and second episodes, solved the best conflict structure in the early stages. According to the outline of the story that has been revealed so far, all that remains is how to completely break up with the older brother whom she once loved and attain love with his younger brother Yoon Jae-guk. There is a story behind Yoon Soo-wan’s travelling at high speed in the rain, but the conflict related to this seems to be somewhat unreasonable to take responsibility for the remaining 10 episodes.
Song Hye-kyo (Ha Young-eun), who is known as a melodrama queen, reaches another peak of her career with “Now, We Are Breaking Up.” However, the drama is said to be too tragic and unrealistic. Her mid- to low-pitched tone of acting, which has not changed much compared to her previous works, is so familiar that viewers might feel bored. Some lines of the female protagonist sound like a part of a historical drama’s script, not a lively melodrama about a girl in her 30s.
11-year-younger Jang Ki-yong’s line, “Stop changing the desktop photo now,” might make female viewers flutter, but it’s not new compared to his performance in his previous work “Search: WWW.”
▶ Ha Young-eun’s questionable view of relationship
In the 3rd and 4th episodes, breaking up with her boyfriend became a “tragic” event that had the greatest influence on Song Hye-kyo (Ha Young-run). As a result, Song Hye-kyo‘s self-esteem has bottomed out, and since then, she has lived a life of focusing only on work.
However, this setting seems unreasonable to be persuasive to many women. Some say, “You can get dumped or dump someone while dating when you are young, but it is hard to understand that it (break up) is treated as an overly tragic event.”
In addition, her character is said to be not really “well-developed” compared to other roles that Song Hye-kyo portrayed in her previous works. In “Descendants of the Sun”, she played a realistic woman who seeks honor and wealth, while in “Encounter”, Song Hye-kyo’s character looked for her own life and voice with the power of love.
Playing a role who devotes herself to work in “Now, We Are Breaking Up”, Song Hye-kyo’s appearance at work is not lively even though she is doing a job in a fairly trendy field, a fashion designer. This detail is portrayed to give the feeling that a woman uses work as the only way to get out of her desperation after being dumped by a man.
In fact, not all female leads in dramas need to find huge meaning in their work. For Song Hye-kyo’s character, her current workplace is depicted as a symbol of “tiredness”. Therefore, the viewers seem to get bored whenever the camera changes to the working scenes. Many people even thought, “Jang Ji-yong needs to appear quickly, and let’s move forward to the romance scenes”.
On the other hand, Han Hyo-joo of tvN’s “Happiness” and Lee Se-young of MBC’s “The Red Sleeve”, who are competing with the same broadcasting time, are enjoying favorable reviews from audiences. Han Hyo-joo, who is willing to marry her friend only to get her own house, and Lee Se-young, who laughs at the Crown Prince, have given the viewers enough enjoyment and laughter.
Therefore, K-Drama fans are raising concerns about their expectations that Song Hye-kyo, who seems to be trapped in a frustrating concept, will overcome her limit and lead the remaining 10 episodes.
