THE THINGS YOU LEAVE BEHIND: Why "Move to Heaven" is Television at its Best

 If there is one good thing that the more than a year of quarantine has done to me is my sudden immersion into Korean Dramas.

I never understood the fascination of audiences for subtitled television series because I never had the time to comprehend the possibilities.  Some of my friends and even more of my students have already partaken of the feast of Hallyu but I was too preoccupied dealing with my clutter and deadlines.  Then, all of a sudden, there came this virus that forced me to stay at home (as a matter of life or the risk of death) and I had all those spare hours to make a religion out of viewing Netflix.  

Crash Landing on You came at the perfect time: right when quarantine was declared with various permutations and imaginings of the ECQs, Hyun Bin and Son Ye-Jin started stealing the hearts of the Filipinos. OK, so let's give it a try.  And before I knew it, I was hooked.  Then a friend of mine recommended an older series called Pinnochio (2014) starring Lee Jong-Suk and Park Shin-hye --- and what hit me about this show is that it was not about your usual falling in love with the right person at the wrong time sort of shtick.  This was about honesty, integrity and the power of broadcast journalism.  OK, I got more hooked.

I realized that KDrama is not just about frou-frou and if they indulged in meringue entertainment, they made sure it was good.   They were not going to give you run-of-the-mill done-this-seen-that sort of stories just because it is kind of show that has an assurance of selling.  They have the courage to innovate, the guts to pry into delicate themes that others (that means us) find too high for the masses or not entertaining enough of the suffering madlang people to forget about their problems while being anesthesized by tv.

KDrama works not only because of variety but because it takes risks in dealing with themes and genres that would challenge their audiences not only to be entertained but to think.  Whether it is historical dramas reinterpreted in both comedy (Mister Queen, 2020 / Love in the Moonlight, 2016 or Hwarang, 2016) or mixed with fantasy (Tale of Nine Tailed, 2020 or Mr. Sunshine, 2018) or dramas dedicated to social issues (Life, 2018 or Itaewon Class, 2020), the novice who is just immersing himself in Korean popular culture realizes its respect for intelligence and dedication to imagination and innovation.

In the year that came to pass I have had my share of favorites: yes, I was swept away by Park Bo Gum and Song Hye-Ko in Encounter (2018) but my favorites have been set on Sky Castle (2018) because of its uniqueness in showing the rigid parental control Korean families had over their children's education or the delicate yet beautifully imaginative It's Okay Not to be Okay (2020) with Kim Soo-Hyun and Seo Yea-ji dealing with mental illness with its Tim Burtonesque imagery.  Yes, there is the recent Vincenzo (2021) with Song Joong-Ki with its larger than life production, black humor, uncanny treatment of violence and lessons in the art of the creative torture of villains.  Or maybe you can never get enough of Park Seo Joon and Park Min-Young in What's Wrong with Secretary Kim? (2018) because of its crisp treatment of the tropes of romantic comedy.

But recently, my quota of favorites went to far excess.

After finishing Navillera (2021) starring Song Kang and Park in-Hwan, I thought I had seen the best of what the genre had to offer.  That heartbreaking story about a seventy year old retired postman wanting to be ballerino in order to fulfill a lifelong dream to appear on stage dancing Swan Lake was almost ridiculous as a premise.  Instead, it turned out to be one of the most heartwarming stories to keep you not only sane but appreciative of life and the passage of time in a period of world calumny.

KDramas offer not escape but affirmation in their delicate yet life-affirming themes: Navillera, which talks about acceptance, forgiveness --- and how love literally conquers all including the frailty of the mind.  During the final scene of the closing of the series, I found myself crying my head off not only because of what the series wanted to say and successfully conveyed ... but because it went beyond the narrative. It was an introspection of mortality and the realities of existence.  I do not want to sound all that philosophical: to put it bluntly, it is an in-your-face-realization that time slowly takes away your control of life.

I was still having a hangover with Navillera --- and Vincenzo when I decided to see the pilot episode of something which I thought was promising. I saw the trailer: it was about trauma cleaners --- those who cleaned up and collected the possessions left by those who died alone or who do not have immediate families to look after them.  Not exactly the happiest premise but let's give it a try. After all, it was just going to run for ten episodes.

I was never prepared for this.

It took me time to blog about it because I wanted the feeling to filter so that I may have a better understanding of what I went through.

What started out as a glimpse of the pilot of Move to Heaven  before I hit the sack because of an early appointment the next morning turned out to be start of a compulsion. No, it was a short-term addiction that leaves you in a state of cold turkey after consuming the entire series. (I had confessions from others who saw it all in one sitting --- so that means about ten hours in a single day gulping down each episode. And I do not blame them.)  I was not prepared to see one of the most beautiful television shows that does not only deal with such sensitive and unspoken subjects but treated with such care, sincerity, beauty and intelligence.

Yes,  Move to Heaven is about a twenty year old boy Geu-Ru (played magnificently by Tang Joon-Sang, the baby solider in Captain Ri's squad in CLOY)  who is suffering from Aspergers and left all alone after his father dies.  Now he is left under the care of his uncle, Sang-Gu (again excellently portrayed by Lee Jee-Hon who you will not recognize as the same actor in the title role of Taxi Driver).  Never has two opposite personalities been forced to be together: a mentally challenged kid --- and his thug uncle, fresh out of incarceration and an underground MMA player. Added to this is a nosy busybody next door neighbor,  Yoon Na-Mu (played by Hong Seung-Hee --- who I did not even recognize as the granddaughter in Navillera).

So after watching so many KDramas, what makes Move to Heaven all too special: the reasons are simple yet hard to explain unless one sees the entire piece --- episode per episode.  This is one of the most beautifully written, directed, acted and photographed television shows I have ever seen.

It was beautifully written because the shows are episodic --- as the Move to Heaven Cleaning Team deals with each and every client, stashing away the things that were left behind as Geu-Ru reads the thoughts of the dead before giving these remnants of existence in a yellow box to the next of kin.  The choice of stories is ...how shall I put it? Heartbreaking? Ingenius? It was never pretentious because they were so real so that the events may not have happened in Seoul but right in the background of your personal memories.

The stories never went over the top because of the direction of Kim Sung-Ho from the materials written by Yoon Jin-Ryeon: the subtlety, the nuances, the choice of camera angle, the care in details.  I have told this to my students: every episode is a master class in television direction.

Moreover, the themes tackled by the ten-part series are not only heartbreaking. They are heart-crushing.  I cried at the end of Navillera but I was crying at the end of every episode of Move to Heaven. It was that bad... in a great, cathartic,  soul-purging way.  When you find yourself bawling your eyes off at the end of Episode 4, you realize that you are actually recollecting fragments of your own personal memories and translating them into the experience of the narrative that you just witnessed.

A friend of mine warned me: "Beware of Episode 5." So I was forewarned. Yet when I finally finished that episode about the ER Doctor and the cellist, I found myself in a literal state of hagulgol at 1AM.  Why? Because it was about a delicate subject treated with such sensitivity and reverence that you realize that yes --- despite the dreariness, the ugliness, the vulgarity of the world we live in --- there is a quiet corner out there where love exists and sometimes in thrives upon the death of someone tacitly leaving marks of great emotions.

I do not want to ruin the experience by giving spoilers --- but a show that tackles the pain of abandoned and forgotten parents, the agony of unloved children --- the way we tend to judge others because of our own perception not really knowing what goes on in the mind of those we so easily condemn --- or how in the deepest of hearts there is such purity in the soul of a boy suffering from Aspergers --- or that a thug is a sensitive soul dealing with pain ... Move to Heaven has found its perfect place in a world so confused and seemingly hopeless.

I have had my fair share of KDramas and I love and study them.

If you should want to give yourself the chance to see just one KDrama, try Move to Heaven. In the here and now, this show represents what television should be ... and what it can yet become for us.  It's the best there is on Netflix now.