It’s not what you say it’s how you say it is something that can be said when you slowly tire of tropes and stories and too often with poor results. And yet, occasionally you come across a story that manages to use these tried-but-true tropes and old soap opera clichés so well that they remind you why these narrative elements have become so widely used and turned into clichés in the first place.

There were a lot of things in When the Phone Rings that usually make me roll my eyes whenever they appear on the screen in romance dramas, like rich evil parents and their twisted family dramas and birth secrets and the like. But somehow the soapy goodness of When the Phone Rings managed to make it all work. A kdrama story about an emotionally stunted rich man and the woman who makes him open up just by loving him, with a dash of family drama nonsense and tropy plot that seems over the top but works so well within the universe that the drama has created.

The story felt airtight and structured where there was always plenty going on and a good enough flow to the story to keep you constantly entertained. There was always a plot twist, something that kept you on your toes, and the chemistry between the paths was so electrifying that you couldn’t look away. You never really knew what to expect.

The emotional weight of the story works well with the suspense. I enjoyed that Hong Hee Joo seemed helpless to the other characters in the drama, and yet the narrative showed her that she wasn’t, she was just trapped. It created such a beautiful contrast and interesting character dynamic, and Chae so Bin was great in this role. To me, this jerk who is the main male character is often in the beginning a double-edged sword. It can be an interesting character, dynamic and fun like the ‘I hate you, but I also adore you’ relationship that you have with that character while they’re opening. It’s become a tired cliché to a certain extent, as many of these characters because the narrative needs them to be, but it doesn’t feel organic, but here I thought it worked really well for the character.

These two characters’ longing for love was palpable, captivating, and addictive. The two main leads have quite a rich inner turmoil that becomes quite intense and addictive to explore as the story unravels and at quite a simmering speed. They are very interesting characters that you can’t help but root for in one way or another in their source of happiness and inner peace.

One of the few minus points I can really give this drama is the second way, which feels way too much filling and doesn’t help much in moving the story forward. If anything, these characters and their story seem to hinder the tension and the pacing of the story. And those secondary characters were just there, if anything. The plot didn’t need them.

Although those characters involvement in the mystery was perhaps because When the Phone Rings is only 12 episodes, and the story here so wants to dwell on the emotions and spark between our main characters and focus on telling that story as kdramas tend to have a slower and more emotional structure in their stories that the current twelve-episode formula doesn’t always allow for. And if so, I think it was the right call because Paik Sa Eon and Hong Hee Joo are the emotional core and focal point of the story and everything else revolves around them.

This drama is such a soap opera but that’s what made it so fun. It takes a bit of a skill to weave together such a story that uses tired and old tropes in a fun way and really leans into the soapy aspects of the old school kdramas while also finding a way to satisfy everyone no matter how long or not they have watched kdramas. Every episode had an intent, or a purpose and it felt like not much time was wasted as the story briskly takes us from one heartfelt moment to another cliffhanger and onwards. And with the exploding chemistry of the leads and the highly dramatic story it was very entertaining and an addictive watch.