When Life Gives You Tangerines

Rated TV-14 • Netflix

I’m normally not a crier, but out of the more than 70 Korean dramas I’ve watched, When Life Gives You Tangerines—punctuated with moving instances of sacrificial love and heart-wrenching grief—had me reaching for tissues more than any other series.

The show begins with 70-year-old Ae-sun looking out at the sea with its crashing waves surrounding Jeju Island, South Korea’s southern island known for its tangerines, thinking of her mother.

It then flashes back to Ae-sun’s childhood in the 1960s on Jeju. Young Ae-sun is living with her father’s side of the family following his death. Her mother Gwang-rye, already remarried, believes Ae-sun is better off with her wealthier paternal relatives, while Gwang-rye struggles through poverty and toil. But Ae-sun longs to be with her mom, a sentiment she conveys in an abalone-themed poem that wins her a prize at school.

When Life Gives You Tangerines progresses in a measured pace through the ups and downs of Ae-sun’s life. The bright, plucky girl who aspired to be a poet grows up to be a loving wife, mother, and grandmother. Through it all she has the support from her equally loving husband and close-knit Jeju community.

K-pop singer IU, aka Lee Ji-eun, plays multiple roles: teenage Ae-sun, young-mother Ae-sun, as well as middle-aged Ae-sun’s daughter. In this show the 31-year-old performer deftly emotes through the various roles. The beauty of Jeju also shines through certain scenes shot against backdrops of postcard-perfect yellow canola flower fields and mesmerizing colors of the sky and sea.

The show contains occasional expletives and misuses of God’s name, but sometimes it’s the English subtitles rather than the actual Korean dialogue that violates the Third Commandment. The drama also contains a brief glimpse of drawings depicting nudity, a shaman, and references to a supposed Dragon King deity who controls the sea.