A dentist starts her own practice in a town by the seaside, and there she meets a man she initially hates, but then love will bloom, and you know the rest.
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is a long romantic series with 16 episodes, each lasting about 80 minutes. Since I love Our Blues and usually enjoy movies and TV series set in small seaside towns, I wanted to check out Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, as it has received good reviews.
But this is nowhere near Our Blues in terms of quality and entertainment. This is a series that is nauseating. And before you open your stupid mouth, I have watched South Korean movies since the early 2000s, and I’ve watched a lot of these nauseating romantic dramas from South Korea — and they just got worse and worse after 2010. Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is one of those series that is nauseating and, in fact, disgusting, with how the characters are written, the rotten dialogue, and the lack of depth.
The point with Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is that everything should be so cozy and warm, and when people living there face hardship, the town will be there to support them. But the scriptwriting is atrocious when it comes to the deeper drama and trauma that some of the characters have experienced.
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is best in the first six episodes, when the dentist meets the man she falls in love with, and he is pretty funny in the beginning when it turns out that he has a lot of jobs in this small town — it’s almost like he’s the person who has taken most of the jobs in the entire town. That makes some situations funny when the dentist, who doesn’t like him at first, meets him every time she needs something fixed. If she turns around, he’s there. If she’s going around the corner, he’s there. If a pervert is nearby, he will be there for her. He’s everywhere!
But the problem is that the characters act and talk like small children. These are not grown-ups — these are children, and they should be locked away until they grow up and become adults. Most of the long, fake crying scenes are embarrassing to watch. I wanted to cry myself because of the lousy acting.
As in Our Blues, there are a lot of characters here, and they all have their stories. But for the most part, these stories are so superficial that I get angry just thinking about the characters and their arcs. It’s fishing disgusting! I can’t stress it enough — it’s children we’re following over countless hours, and most of them are unlikeable.
The dentist, played by Shin Min-a, is the most disgusting character of them all with her view on life and what’s important. And the clothes she’s wearing? Holy fish in hell, I wanted to spit on her. I understand the point of this character — she represents the disturbed society of South Korea, where they mostly care about materialism, beauty, and status, since it seems many of them lack self-esteem. Only idiots think they can buy self-esteem, while people who have natural self-esteem can see straight through these morons.
Save yourself the agony and never watch this series. The script is thin, the episodes are drawn out, and there are a lot of wasted hours killing the pace. This should have been a 10-episode series, like many other South Korean TV series. Watch Our Blues, and thank me later.