Can This Love Be Translated? review

Can This Love Be Translated? is sold as a travel romcom and plays as something heavier. Joo Ho Jin is an interpreter who works in several languages and still cannot read the woman in front of him. Cha Mu Hee is an actress who became a global star overnight playing a zombie called Do Ra Mi, and she is cast opposite Japanese actor Hiro on a dating reality show that needs Ho Jin to translate every line. The joke is that the two people who share a language are the ones who keep missing each other. The first stretch is the best thing here: Japan, the Canadian shoot, the hunt for the northern lights, gorgeous photography and a soundtrack that sticks. Kim Seon Ho does a lot with stillness, and Go Youn Jung carries the show, funny and raw in the same scene, especially when the Do Ra Mi side takes over. Then the tone turns. Around the midpoint the romance steps back for a story about anxiety, childhood damage and a second self, and this is where the room splits. The clues are there from the first episodes, and the show rewards attention, but the turn is still jarring and the middle is repetitive, with the leads pulling apart and circling back more than once, and the mental health thread more device than depth. A late family thread arrives too close to the end to land, and the second couple gets together with little build. Hiro starts as a jerk on purpose, and not everyone forgives him. Watch it for Go Youn Jung, the locations and a romance that trusts silence. Budget patience for the middle, which is where the drops cluster. Skip it if you want the light, bubbly romcom the trailer sells, or a mental health story handled with care.