Call It Love | Full K-drama Review / Ep. 110

On Episode 110 of the Daebak K-Rambles Podcast, Jess and Nas from the Swoon Diaries Podcast to review the underrated 2023 melodrama Call It Love, starring Kim Young-Kwang and Lee Sung-Kyung. Jess and Nas talk through how Call It Love transforms a familiar revenge setup into something unexpectedly tender, introspective, and quietly devastating. From its opening—lonely silhouettes, a haunting radio monologue about understanding others’ pain, and a heroine walking against the flow in the rain—the drama establishes its core thesis: love begins with empathy. The story follows a hardened, defensive woman shaped by abandonment and betrayal, and a gentle man whose kindness feels almost radical. Their dynamic anchors a slow-burn romance that resists spectacle in favor of emotional truth. Call It Love stands out in the K-drama landscape with its refusal to glamorize revenge, exploring how vengeance offers no relief, just more emptiness. Meanwhile, the male lead embodies a quiet resilience, choosing endurance over retaliation, even when wronged. Their conversations—about loneliness, restraint, and the cost of honesty—are some of the most emotionally rich in recent K-dramas. Highlights include: messy family ties, morally gray parents (including a strong contender for Worst K-drama Mom™), and questions of emotional boundaries—can you love someone connected to your deepest wounds? GUEST: Nas Swoon Diaries Podcast: Available on Spotify, Google, Apple Instagram: @swoondiariespod Twitter: @swoondiariespod YouTube Intro Music Credit: “Golden Coconut Club” by Tearliner, from the Cheese in the Trap OST. Used with permission from the artist. *No portion of this work may be used to train large language models or similar Al systems without written permission. Rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, follow us on all the socials, and be sure to let us know what you want to see in Season 8!