Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is exactly what I expected it to be: lighthearted, brainless fluff, and I’m totally fine with that. The show knows what it is and it’s delivering as a standard rom-com. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but it’s a pretty show with pretty people and some humorous dialogue.

One interesting thing that I noticed but haven’t seen anyone else mention is that it basically has the fixings of a noona romance without being a noona romance. The female lead is a successful single career woman who’s great at her job but clueless at some other things. The male lead is an outgoing, rough-around-the-edges charmer with a minimum wage job but has a secret past. I’m getting lots of Witch’s Romance/Dal-ja’s Spring vibes from the setup, and I don’t hate it. I just hope he doesn’t end up going back to being a big elite like in Witch’s Romance. One thing I liked about Dal-ja’s Spring was that it just let the female lead be the “breadwinner” with a stable career in the end because who cares about society’s expectations! So I hope this one goes that route–let “Chief” Hong stay “Chief” Hong!

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a straight, almost old-fashioned rom-com that has a flawed but not completely unlikeable male lead and without a major power imbalance between the leads (cough Monthly Magazine Home cough) and without any weird/tragic red flags… yet (cough Oh! Master and Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol cough).

I really hope I didn’t just jinx it, LOL.
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    I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. It felt warm and comfortable and like you said, almost old-fashioned. I used to watch every rom-com that came out and am now the ultimate rom-com dropper, but I feel good about this one.

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    Plus, watching the leads smile is making me smile. Also, the Halmoni group and the kids are adorable 😍

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    The pessimist in me says we’ll never know whether you jinxed it or it was just inescapable fate.

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    While it’s racing through the tropes, the drama watcher in me is braced for developments. I’m observing myself too to see how satisfied I will be if it’s an old time brainless-fluff rom-com. Jinxing spells coming your way….

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    It’s the escape I was looking for. It’s replacing my yearly ocean trip.

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    Now that you mentioned it YES it gave me the noona romance vibe too xD

    Unfortunately I find myself unwilling to commit to a romcom these days so I’ll just look and smile at screencaps like these 😅

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    It’s a remake of Mr Hong (2004) with Kim Joo-Hyuk as Hong Doo-shik and Uhm Jung-hwa as Hye-jin. From clips available at YT, there are exactly the same scenes in both – will check out the movie over the weekend.

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      Yup, I know! I also plan on checking out the movie at some point.

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      The film is a pretty old-fashioned, not terribly enlightened rom-com that’s quite typical of its period. However, while Hye-jin is written as a straightforwardly clueless and condescending city girl, Doo-shik, though a bit brusque, is never deliberately rude to her. The townspeople are pretty ordinary and not particularly unreasonable. So the film would not ignite the kind of debate that I think is beginning to emerge over Hometown Cha3 — i.e. whether Doo-shik is nasty or nice, and whether Hye-jin deserves the treatment she gets from him and the other townspeople.

      Based on the comments, the new Doo-shik seems like a more old-fashioned character than the old one, cos the old one is in no way a tsundere or whatever you call it. In fact he is so objective that there is barely any romantic chemistry between him and Hye-jin. And IMO Uhm Jung-hwa’s charisma is completely wasted on the character. What I did enjoy about the film is its very wry and almost off-hand humour. Watch out for the game of baduk between Doo-shik and Hye-jin’s dad, the single kimbap that Doo-shik has to deliver, and – best of all – the saluting seagulls.

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