불꽃

To find true love while going through chaos and in the name of love. The life story of four men and women (Lee Young-ae, Cha In-pyo, Lee Kyung-young, and Jo Min-soo). It unfolds passionately like a firework. Vividly conveyed to viewers through author Kim Soo-hyun's detailed descriptions.

Being a drama that came out around the late 90s I can see how it might be drawing flak for its take on relationships and societal norms. Deep down, it was all about love, loss, and redemption, painting a vivid picture of intertwined lives against a turbulent backdrop, however, it failed to create a healthy structure to contain the story. The most important first step was to create a convincing scenario and story to sell their flaming torturous love, but what we got was only brief montages during the first episode. Every time they met they were filled the screen with displays of passion but there was no bases for it to carry a good impact, let alone, a lasting one. A core part of the story was the dynamic between the four leads, however, the second couple became much less relevant in the second half which made the new trajectory boring. Initially, the drama was heading somewhere while making a statement with how it dealt with gender roles and societal expectations but suddenly it gave up completely on the idea and resulted to the same old same old, reinforcing stereotypes from the 90s instead of shaking them up. I wonder if the broadcast received criticism from the public? On an unrelated note, most female leads from the 90s speak excessively timid and subdued most of the time for some reason, even when their colleagues of female supporting cast are speaking normally. Anyway, the drama was somewhat alright for its time.