They had me with the tree…

I’ve begun That Winter the Wind Blows.

(Because there just hasn’t been enough melo in my life. I lie. Actually there’s been so much melo I’m having to rethink my whole, “I only like melo when I’m in a certain mood,” theory. Or maybe those moods last for a good long while? I’ll have to gather more evidence.)

I do know this. Unless something goes horrible wrong, I’m in TWtWB for the long haul. Because so much beauty! Seriously, so much beauty.  Here’s the opening sequence:

We start with tree:

The tree fades:

We scan to baby:

Have a brief moment of, “oh, cute…” which shifts into horror when we realize there’s an adult fleeing the scene (the beautiful, beautiful scene):

Head back to tree, which fades into…

Painting of tree:

Which lands us in our protagonist’s apartment. We’ve not had a moment of dialogue and I’m already breathless.  And the stunning camera work only continues.  It’s helped out by the beauty of the leads, of course.

Song Hye-kyo — not ugly

Jo In-sung — also, not an eyesore

But the cinematography takes their beauty and works it like a working thing. There’s such an awesome use of light and color to make every scene just feel like it’s winter. There’s the stark black and cold blue above, or the color just fades to bleak. Like color is trapped beneath a dusting of snow.

Even warm colors are faded out to something almost cool, as seen in Oh-soo’s (beautiful, beautiful) apartment.

Not that everything is stark and bleak. We do get warmth, like here when our leads meet for the very first time:

 

But it’s a candle’s worth (at least for now). More of a promise of warmth than a comfy, coziness at this very moment.

Fortunately, the story itself seems pretty solid. I’ve seen the movie the drama’s based on (which in turn was based on a j-drama? I think?) so I’m familiar with the basic plot. And I really like how they’re fleshing things out. For example, in the movie, Oh-young’s brother is spoken of, but other than a few photos we never see him.  Here we get to know him. And we see how knowing him effects Oh-soo, rather than being told of their friendship.

And they’ve done a good job of setting Oh-soo on this admittedly skeevy path (“Hey, kids! Let’s scam a blind girl out of her money by pretending to be her long lost brother!”) for reasons that leave me actually sympathizing with him. While also hoping he finds a way out, of course.

They’ve also done an excellent job of undercutting the whole, faux-cest thing. I won’t say how, since I don’t want to spoil anything in this very first introductory post. But at this point I’m comfortable with any burgeoning romance.

Dramas can always turn on you, so I’m laying out no promises. But as of right now? I’m all in.