Stream It Or Skip It: ‘You Are My Spring’ On Netflix, About A Concierge, A Psychiatrist, A Funky Building And A Murder Mystery

We’ve written extensively about K-dramas here, and for the most part, they’re about people who haven’t been able to accept love into their lives finally falling for someone. In a lot of ways, they’re classic screen romances: the pair either hates each other at first or they’re attracted to each other right away. You Are My Spring has those elements, but adds in some messed up childhoods and a potentially interesting murder mystery to the mix.

YOU ARE MY SPRING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man walks up to the foreground on a darkened street. Then we see a woman, who says in voice over, “When I ran over, he wasn’t there. He… was nowhere.”

The Gist: We start with the view of a car in a dark alley; suddenly a body falls down and smashes into the roof of the car. Then we flash back to 1994, and the picture narrows.

We see the story of a seven-year-old girl and her little brother, whose father comes home drunk every night, and whose mother has to accept offerings of tangerines from local grocers. The girl gets offered a free book by a church group, but her mother tells her the depressing and sad endings of every book she gets except one, The Black Cat. The girl rereads the book many times, because it’s the only story where she can rely on a decent ending. She even reads it to her brother as her drunken dad trashes their home and threatens their mom. The mom takes off with the kids in the middle of the night, blood on her hands.

Back in 2020, Kang Da-jeong (Seo Hyun-jin) is now a grownup 34, works as a concierge at the Grand Hyatt, and is renting a rooftop apartment in her old neighborhood, in the building where the murder occurred right before she moved in. She thinks it’s a fresh start; her bestie Park Eun-ha (Kim Ye-won) just hopes she moves on from all the toxic relationships she’s had.

Also moving into the building is the offices of Joo Yeong-do (Kim Dong-wook), a psychiatrist who has consulted on TV dramas and has helped the police as well — he keeps looking at the case file for an old friend’s murder who was the partner of the detective he works with. He recently divorced Ahn Ga-yeong (Nam Gyu-ri), a narcissistic actress and TV star, and wants a fresh start himself. Eun-ha introduces Da-jeong to Yeong-do, and he reads her right away. His description of her, just based on a quick look at her apartment and the fact she calls herself a “trash magnet”, is so accurate that Da-jeong grabs him by the lapel.

Also circling around Da-jeong is an investment banker named Chae Joon (Yoon Park), who saw Da-jeong working at the hotel and thinks she’s “the one.” He just happens to show up at the building or outside the convenience store where she’s getting coffee. He does persuade her to have dinner with him, and tells her lots of stuff she wants to hear, as she tells her mother, Mun Mi-ran (Oh Hyun-kyung). But Yeong-do knows more about Joon than Da-jeong does, and he warns her not to date him.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? You Are My Spring has a love triangle, people with messed up childhoods and a murder mystery. It’s definitely different than most of the K-dramas we’ve seen; this actually feels more like a telenovela like Jane The Virgin than anything else.

Our Take: There are a lot of elements that need to come together for You Are My Spring to be successful. Written by Lee Mi-na, the show has to bring everything that we described in the previous section — the love triangle, the murder mystery, the messed-up childhoods, and make it all make sense. The near-feature-length episodes help in that regard; we got a good 12 minutes of Da-jeong’s backstory, and will likely get Yeong-do’s in a subsequent episode.

Both of the main characters are close to their moms; Yeong-do’s mom works as a nurse at his practice. But dads are nowhere to be found. We know what kind of toxicity has made Da-jeong the “trash magnet” she describes herself to be. But what about Yeong-do? What has made him so obsessed with observing everyone a la Sherlock Holmes? That would be the interesting part of the subsequent story, plus the examination of what went wrong with Ga-yeong.

Joon is the wild card. He’s such a charmer that Yeong-do calls him a sociopath by the end of the episode. He seems like he might be a part of the mystery. But who knows? This is where we wonder if the murder mystery part of the story will get lost among all the relationship building. It’s hard to say; perhaps the storylines will be made distinct enough, but we wonder if something is going to get lost along the way as the season goes along.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: After confronting Joon, Yeong-do sees his nemesis walk towards Da-jeong. The picture is frozen with Joon literally and figuratively coming between them.

Sleeper Star: Oh Hyun-kyung as Mun Mir-ran, Da-jeong’s mother. Her pain was especially apparent during the flashback sequences.

Most Pilot-y Line: As with many K-dramas, the pacing of the first episode was a bit slow, even though it had a lot to set up. We did appreciate the visual effects of switching from 1994 to 2020. There was also a short interlude from 2015 where Da-jeong pours one of her boyfriends into his bed, but we’re not sure what purpose that serves. We already know why she attracted drunk and disorderlies.

Our Call: STREAM IT. What we like about You Are My Spring is that it’s not just about love and people who have problems accepting love in their lives. There’s a real story there; we just hope that the writer and producers can keep the threads going and make them make sense.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream You Are My Spring On Netflix