Nostalgia in Crash Landing On You

S1E3 / Ever wondered why Crash Landing on You feels so nostalgic? 

🪖From World War II visuals to vintage fashion to restrained romance, I explore how the iconic kdrama's sentimental vibes added an intriguing layer to an already compelling story. I also dig into why nostalgia is such a powerful story-telling tool. 

🌪️ 💔 Plus discover how a tornado and a Casablanca-type relationship created the perfect storm in CLOY.

🚫 Spoiler warning for this episode!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to How I Met My K-Drama. I'm Sarah Rosette, and this episode is all about nostalgia and crash landing on you. So this is the first of a series of episodes that I'm going to call Things I Noticed because when I'm watching K-drama, I sometimes start to pick up on elements, plotting choices, or themes that intrigue me. And I want to highlight and dissect them because I think they're fascinating. Our next episode will have, we'll be back to the interviews, and I'll talk to a K-drama viewer and you'll get their K-drama, how they found K-drama story, and some recommendations. But this week I just wanted to look at Crash Landing on You because it is one of the classic, iconic K-dramas, and I think it's one that it appeals to such a wide group of people. I want to figure out why. And I think nostalgia has a big impact on why it's so compelling, along with a lot of other things. But I think it's one element that's not talked about a lot. Now, this episode may be a little challenging since it would be much easier to explain these ideas with visuals. But Crash Landing on You is so popular that I'm guessing most of you have already seen it and won't be able to call to mind the scenes I'm talking about. There will be spoilers in this, so if you haven't watched Crash Landing on You, then I would suggest you watch it and then come back to this later because I really can't talk about it without spoiling quite a few scenes and elements in the show. Crash Landing on You aired in 2019. It exploded in popularity during COVID because so many of us were at home reading books and watching TV. Many people discovered it then. It was a gateway drama for many people in 2020, and it still is. It's one that's recommended over and over again, and it has a really wide appeal. For me, it wasn't the first K-drama I watched. I didn't find K-dramas until after, way after lockdowns were over. But it was probably the fourth or fifth one that I watched. The funny thing is, I attempted to watch it. I started it, and I got to the tornado scene in the first episode, and I thought, hmm, I can't do this. And I went on to something else. But my friend Amy, who's been on another episode of this podcast, told me it was really good and that I should give it another try. And she did a really good job selling it to me. She talked about the uh the separation between North and South Korea played into the story and all the secondary characters. And I was like, maybe. Netflix at the same time was recommending it to me constantly. And I kept seeing that scene with Siri walking through the department store about a million times as they tried to get me to watch it. So finally I thought, okay, Netflix, fine. I will give it a try. So I watched the first couple of episodes and I got through the tornado scene. And I still wasn't very on board with the Suri character. I just couldn't sympathize with her that much because she was just was spoiled and entitled. But despite I did have sympathy for her because her family background was so strained. But um, I just wasn't as interested in that aspect of the show. But what did draw me in was the question about, you know, she's trapped in North Korea. How is she going to get back? And then when I started getting into all the secondary characters, the village ladies and the soldiers, then I was into it. And then finally I got really into the secondary couple and what would happen with them. So I was a couple episodes in watching it. And all of a sudden I thought, I feel like I'm watching a World War II movie. And that's what set me off on this path, thinking about the nostalgia in it and how strong the element of nostalgia is. So the first time I noticed it was when during one of the military scenes. And the just the visuals of the troop transport vehicles, the Jeeps, the chain link with barbed wire on top, um, all of these things, along with the spying, you know, early on you learn about the character of the rat that he's privy to pretty much everyone's personal goings on. And all of that together just felt very much like a 1940s World War II, World War II movie, or like a 1950s Cold War film. So I was like, hmm, that's interesting. And I noticed, I kept noticing it again and again with all these different scenes. And I thought, I think this is on purpose. These choices are on purpose. The thing that really solidified this nostalgic feeling for me that it was intentional was the clothing, Ceres clothes from the market with her the nipped-in waist, the full skirts, the yellow sweater, the scarf tied at the neck, very iconic look. It really does look like something out of the 50s. And then later, when she gets her passport photo taken, she has to go get her hair styled, and she comes back with this sculpted waves that looks like something straight out of World War II. So those choices, I was like, okay, I think this is intentional. I think this is really what they're leaning into. The men's clothes also have a vintage look to them, too, quite a bit. Um, not so much when the like when Captain Ree is in fatigues, but when he's in his dress uniform. And then there's quite a few military men in the show, and a lot of times they're in their dress uniforms. And it really does invoke like that classic World War II movie feeling. Another place I saw this was in the village life of the North Koreans. It's got this real throwback vibe feel to it. Because of the power outages, they can't rely on modern conveniences. So they have a cellar for their food and they cook over fires quite a bit. Um, they don't have bathtub shower, or Captain Reed doesn't. I'm sure some of the really affluent people there do, but in the show, most of the time that you spend with most of the people in the village, they have a much simpler life. Uh, although they do have the talking rice cooker, which I thought was very funny. Um, even the new apartment that the newlyweds are going to move into, there is a fire for cooking. And they don't use their refrigerator for keeping food cold. So they just couldn't rely on it. And these little details by having these in, it really gives you that older vintage feel, like you're feeling like you're not in modern times. And then another thing that I thought was really interesting was the train. It looks very antique in Suri's outfit with her tweed uh jacket and skirt with the strong shoulders and tight waist. That's very vintage feeling. And then they get stuck in the countryside and they have to get out and have a campfire. And it's just all reinforces this throwback to another era feeling. There was one final place that it really came through for me. And it's this wasn't a visual, this was in the interactions between the characters. So I think another way the nostalgia really shows up is in their physical relationship or lack thereof, as some viewers would say. It's very restrained. Even the kisses are very chaste. There's not a sex scene, it's all very proper. And there's a real emphasis on longing. Um, it seems to me that their relationship arc was modeled on the relationship arc you see in classic movies. You don't in classic movies, you don't really get bedroom scenes. And really, you don't even get any spicy kissing. That, you know, when Alfred Hitchcock shot the uh North by Northwest scene in the train and the kissing and the dialogue were interspersed, that was quite radical for the time. Lots of people were like, oh, that was clever of him putting the dialogue in between the kisses so they couldn't cut the kiss short. Um, anyway, so I think the romance is very proper and restrained and chaste because I think they were trying to invoke this classic cinema feel. And it like if you watch Casablanca, you've got the same thing. You've got star-crossed lovers, they're separated by these forces beyond them that are political forces, and they're kind of caught up in this thing that they have no control over. And Captain Ree and Sari, they want to be together, but they know it's impossible because of these political situations that they're in, because the country and the government where they live, it's just not going to be possible. It's impossible. And I think that's a really interesting element for the plot. It's not um something that's used a lot. Political uh ideologies and global conflict is not one that's used a lot to keep characters apart. And so I think that's another thing that pulled people in because it was different and it was unique. And when we see things that we're not that are new, they're interesting to us. And we're like, hmm, this is interesting. Where's this gonna go? So even as I'm thinking about this, I'm realizing that the tornado that really put me off in the beginning could actually be a nod to another classic movie, which would be The Wizard of Oz, because you've got the tornado that takes Dorothy to Oz, and then you've got the tornado that takes Siri to North Korea. So that's probably another classic reference because Dorothy is in a completely different situation she doesn't want to be in, and so Siri is the same, and they're both trying to get home. That's hilarious. That I just didn't pick up on that when I was first watching it. So, why does all this appeal to us? Why would they use nostalgia and why does it appeal to viewers? And I think these nostalgic elements in like the military, the military images and the clothing, hair choices, the emphasis on how life was simple in the village, and the really restrained romance. I think it just adds a uniqueness to Crash Landing on You that you probably don't find that often in other K-dramas. People like to go back, or we like to imagine it would be nice to go back to a simpler way of life. We don't necessarily want to go back to war, like we don't want to go back to World War II, but we like the idea of a less complicated life. We like the idea of not being constantly dinged with notifications on social media or not receiving work emails on Saturday night, Sunday morning, and having to reply to them. We like the idea that everyone we know, we know in person. I think right now in this world we live in now, there's a lot of people who are connected. We're connected through Facebook or different groups we're in, and it's and a lot of it is is online. But if you go back, you know, even what 40, 50 years plus, then those the people that you knew then were the people that you knew in person. And or you had known them in person at one time and then you talked on the phone or you wrote letters. So I think there is a there's a romantization of the past. Most of us really don't want to go back to a time where we don't have reliable electricity and have to, you know, pump water out of a well or cook over a fire all the time. We do like to think about the good parts of it. There's a fondness for things in the past, classic styles, also the manners and the formality of that time. Uh, men used to lift their hat to women uh when they would meet, uh, maybe give up their seat if it's a crowded train or bus to women. Um, and then there were very specific rules about like how you introduced people, like who went first and who got mentioned last. And, you know, I think that there is a lot of formality in Korean society that we don't have in the West. And I think that may be another reason that people are interested, um, or that K-dramas seem different to us, and maybe we like that layer of formality that we don't have. So I think that may be part of it, that you get these hits of nostalgia, I guess is what you'd call them. And maybe I see this because I read a lot of vintage mysteries, I love golden age mysteries, and I watch, well, right now I'm watching mostly K-dramas, but I have watched a lot of older movies. So maybe that's why I've noticed this. I think when you take all these things, these nostalgic vintage elements, and then you layer them onto something, uh, a story that has incredible acting, strong supporting cast, uh, interesting and unusual storyline, I think it just adds another boost to that. Oh, I must watch this to see what happens. I think it really pulls people in a little bit more. So that's my theory. I'd love to hear what you think about it. Do you agree that that the nostalgia elements are pretty strong in Crash Landing on you, or do you disagree? Are there any other K-dramas that use nostalgia? I think the reply series leans into nostalgia pretty heavily. Um, that's what comes to mind right now to me. But if you have others that have lots of nostalgia in them, I'd love to hear about them. So if you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to rate or review it wherever you listen to podcasts. That will help K drama fans find the podcast. And next episode we'll be back to the interviews, and you'll be able to hear a viewer's K Drama origin story and their recommendations. So I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening.