This drama is outstanding and has earned its place as one of the greats. It is incredibly rich, incredibly layered and ultimately incredibly satisfying.
It showcased all the typical kdrama tropes while still remaining fresh and addictive; the tropes I identified are: impossible love, chaebol family, cohabitation, a past, barely remembered meeting between the leads, arranged marriage, fake engagement, truck of death, riches to rags, adopted love child, sibling succession wars, fate or destiny; I'm sure there are many others.

This is a story about love in all its different facets, romantic love, familial love, love between friends, love between co-workers, love of your immediate community, love for your country and finally love for oneself. On the flip side the drama also explores destructive love for example the love of money, power or revenge.
Ultimately the drama strives to portray a love that is protective, selfless, healing, enduring, patient and a love that seeks to build it's object up rather than tear it down.
Jung Hyuk and Se ri's love and to a certain extent Seo Dan and Gu Sung Jun's love shows that as long as your heart is open and you're looking outward toward the object of your affection and putting them first, then your love will be rewarded, it will continue to grow and your life will be enriched as a result. I also particularly loved how Gu Sung Jun found his humanity in North Korea and I applaud the writer for not romanticising him by allowing Seo Dan to fall in love with him just as he was.

The cast and acting are what makes this drama special, not just the leads ( who are truly outstanding) but the entire cast kept this drama exciting, relatable and so heartwarming to watch; there is a commitment to the narrative that is evident in this show, each actor is so diligently and charmingly immersed in their role that as a viewer you cannot fail to be captivated.
The village ahjummas and the lovingly dubbed 'ducklings' literally steal this show with their sometimes hilarious and other times poignant and heart tugging performances, I truly adored this aspect of the drama and was never impatient to get these characters off the screen.

The treatment of the North Korea aspect was handled in a very sensitive manner, I appreciate that the writer depicted North Koreans as normal people who live their lives working hard and loving their friends and families just like any other people on this planet, this is important because oftentimes North Korea is caricatured and stripped of any normal commonplace attributes.

I also enjoyed this drama because I could always make sense of what I was watching, and all the nods to other kdramas and kdrama characters in the form of cameos, guest appearances or references were truly appreciated.
Although this is a drama with many goodbyes, each goodbye led to another level of love where the characters discovered more of themselves and what they are capable of enduring.

I do have a small criticism to make, I personally think that the synchronicity of the main couple's story regarding their first meeting in Switzerland and how this plays out throughout the drama is a little too neat and pat in the way it all just falls into place at the perfect moment. I don't know that's just me, kdramas love their fated love stories.

A lot of people have expressed some dissatisfaction with the ending, but in my opinion the writer and production team were probably very conscious of giving us a politically correct resolution which didn't appear to advocate anything illegal or insensitive. I think as viewers we are free to flesh out how our main couple navigated the rest of their lives.

The music is great in this drama, I think the placement of the music improved as the drama went on, especially with regard to the tracks with lyrics, not the instrumental pieces.

Overall 9.5 out of 10