🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
You Are My Spring, a new K-drama series on Netflix that premiered on Monday, opens with a surprising dark twist. The show first aired on South Korea's tvN television channel on Monday before its release on the streaming service the same day.
Blood, tears and a person appearing to fall to their death on top of a car form part of the series' dramatic opening scene within its first five minutes, preceded by the narrator's mysterious words: "When I ran over, he wasn't there. He was nowhere. He was never there to begin with."
The episode ends on a cliffhanger as Chae Jun—an unassuming, sweet "boyfriend material" type lead character played by South Korean actor Yoon Park—reveals an unexpected dark side.
The bright and cheery vibe of the series' title and equally uplifting opening music track with animated graphics are a stark contrast to the underlying eerie tone of this romantic thriller.
Echoes of footsteps launch the opening scene as one of the other male leads, Ju Yeong-do (played by South Korean actor Kim Dong-wook), emerges out of darkness, appearing stunned by what he's discovered ahead.
You Are My Spring follows the story of a psychiatrist (Yeong-do) and a hotel concierge manager (Kang Da-jeong, played by South Korean actress Seo Hyun-jin). The two strangers cross paths after they move into a newly renovated apartment building where a person was previously murdered.
According to the official series website on tvN, the characters in You Are My Spring find themselves unable to escape the traumas of their 7-year-old selves in different ways. The first episode reveals the troubled childhood past of Da-jeong, who grew up with an abusive father and has had many failed relationships.
Da-jeong is subconsciously drawn to troubled men, with the hope of helping them change for good. She later realizes she is only capable of "recreating her misery" but has not learned how to overcome it. That's according to Yeong-do, whom she meets by chance over lunch with a mutual friend at the building's rooftop.
The hotel manager becomes the victim of "fact violence," as she calls it, when Yeong-do offers his cutting psychoanalysis of her relationship history. Explaining the reasons why she appears to have become a "trash magnet" when it comes to men, the psychiatrist notes she is "scared of relationships that require emotional commitment," among other observations.
The heated rooftop exchange forms the first of other random encounters between the two, including moments when Da-jeong is awaited by a charming stranger who claims to have fallen head over heels for her after he saw her at a hotel.
Da-jeong has come to jokingly refer to him as "the stalker" due to his relentless and patient pursuit of her. He often appears unannounced outside her place with a flower in hand or waits at the bus stop to walk her home in the hopes that she will give him a chance.
But by the end of the episode, viewers get an unexpected glimpse of a sinister edge to Da-jeong's pursuer—Jun—who (mini-spoiler alert) Yeong-do suspects could potentially be the culprit of the aforementioned murder case at his building.
The trio come to a climactic silent standstill in a chance encounter outside the building during the episode's final scene, which ends only with the word "sociopath" spoken by Yeong-do, leaving viewers intrigued with even more questions than they started with.
New episodes of You Are My Spring are released on Netflix every Monday and Tuesday.
About the writer
Soo Kim is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. She covers various lifestyle stories, specializing in Read more