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Pierce Conran

This article contains mild spoilers.
Lead cast: Shin Hye-sun, Ji Chang-wook
Latest Nielsen rating: 8.3 per cent
They say that adversity should be faced head-on, but what often happens instead is that people rush home with their tails between their legs.


The pull and comfort of home can never be overestimated, and for top Seoul-based photographer Cho Sam-dal (Shin Hye-sun), home is volcanic Jeju island to the south of the Korean peninsula, a holiday destination sometimes described as Korea’s Hawaii – unless, of course, you live there.
And that is where Sam-dal and her sisters run home to early on in the breezy romantic comedy Welcome to Samdal-ri, after her bitter and ambitious assistant steals her boyfriend and ruins her career with made-up allegations of abuse.
Welcome to Samdal-ri: Shin Hye-sun, Ji Chang-wook in Jeju-set K-drama
Rural Jeju is a good place to escape the public eye, but it comes with its own prying eyes – those of all her nosy neighbours – as well as the judgemental eyes of her hardy sea diver mother, Go Mi-ja (Kim Mi-kyung).
But the eyes she is most afraid to meet after shamefacedly returning to Jeju are those of her next-door neighbour Jo Yong-pil (Ji Chang-wook). Yong-pil and Sam-dal were born to the famed “Two Mi-jas”, a pair of Jeju divers both named Mi-ja, on the very same day.
They grew up as best friends and, in early adulthood, that friendship turned into a relationship, since Yong-pil has only ever had eyes for Sam-dal. Despite their bitter break-up eight years ago, he still does.

However, in the gossipy confines of the tiny Samdal-ri village, nothing stays secret for long, and Sam-dal’s presence quickly becomes known.
Welcome to Samdal-ri is the latest in a popular category of Korean screen stories known as “healing dramas”, which range from the film Little Forest with Kim Tae-ri to the hit drama Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha with Shin Min-a and Kim Seon-ho.
Healing dramas typically involve women who suddenly abscond to the countryside to escape the pressures of their busy urban lives. Once there, they begin the process of restoring themselves and usually cautiously engage in a romance with a local boy.

After briefly returning to Seoul to confront her former assistant Bang Eun-ju (Jo Yun-seo), after she swipes Sam-dal’s work from her office and presents it as her own, Sam-dal sets about the task of “finding herself”.
To do so, she follows the cliché of hiking Jeju’s famed Olle coastal trails; Yong-pil and their mutual friends have some fun at her expense about that.
Seoul soon becomes a distant memory as Sam-dal finds herself thrown back into all the romantic and family drama of her past. She spends a lot of time with Yong-pil, but also with their friend Boo Sang-do (Kang Young-seok), who has long had a one-sided crush on her.
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There is also the unresolved drama between Mi-ja and Yong-pil’s father, Jo Sang-tae (Yu Oh-seong), who blames her for his wife’s death and has hated Sam-dal’s family ever since. We learn that his bitter opposition to Sam-dal and Yong-pil’s relationship was part of the reason they were torn apart all those years ago.
On the sidelines, Sam-dal’s headstrong eldest sister, Jin-dal (Shin Dong-mi), finds herself crossing paths once again with her ex-husband Jeon Dae-young (Yang Kyung-won), the mocked younger son of a family that runs a corporation, while her younger sister and single mother Hae-dal (Kang Mi-na) starts to spend time with dolphin enthusiast Gong Ji-chan (Kim Min-cheol).
Welcome to Samdal-ri offers a simple and familiar package, but unlike many other easy-going K-dramas – such as its current competitor My Demon – it offers rounded characters, most of whom share strong chemistry, and evinces a confident sense of humour.

The comedy in particular shines through thanks to the combination of the writing of Kwon Hye-joo, who previously penned the fantasy drama Hi Bye, Mama!, the clear direction of Cha Young-hoon (When the Camellia Blooms) and the comic timing of leads Shin and Ji. Among the show’s most memorable scenes so far has been an epic seaside seaweed fight between the bickering Sam-dal and Yong-pil.
The show’s early comedic highs make way for a more emotional tone after Sam-dal makes peace with what happened to her in Seoul. With the tension of her career hiccups growing distant in the rear-view mirror, the drama turns to the issues between Sam-dal and Yong-pil’s families.
The humour is eschewed in favour of a few occasionally saccharine interludes, but Welcome to Samdal-ri remains engaging viewing throughout its midsection, thanks in no small part to its compelling leads.

Welcome to Samdal-ri is streaming on Netflix.


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Shin Hye-sun and Ji Chang-wook excel in Welcome to Samdal-ri as once-best friends and lovers who reconnect after Shin’s Sam-dal returns to their island home
While the show has gradually moved from comedy to adopting a more emotional tone, the Netflix K-drama remains engaging viewing throughout its midsection


Shin Hye-sun and Ji Chang-wook shine in Welcome to Samdal-ri, a rural healing drama that remains engaging viewing despite moving on from its early moments of comedy.
