What Comes After Love Review: Why Only Love Is Never Enough

“What comes after love is, I believe, the understanding of what love is.“

And love is much more than its romantic definition. It’s a mix of different emotions, attitudes, and most importantly, dedication to constantly keeping a line of communication open.

That’s the main theme of What Comes After Love, the Coupang TV 6-episode series that aired its finale last Friday. This is Choi Hong (Lee Se-young) and Aoki Jungo (Sakaguchi Kentaro)’s love story. While studying in Japan, Hong and Jungo met and fell in love. Their romance, however, doesn’t last long. Even though they continue their lives, they are forever changed by their time together. Five years later, they meet again in Korea.

An adaptation of Gong Ji-young and Tsuji Hitonari’s novel of the same name, this is the first K-drama that film director Moon Hyun-sung led. He also wrote the script alongside Jung Hae-sim.

What Comes After Love is a classic romance drama, in which the main dramatic issue revolves around our protagonists’ love story. Making use of silence as much as sharp, heartfelt dialogue, the script develops a solid single narrative that keeps us completely engaged throughout. Perfectly paced, What Comes After Love is a stunning combination of excellent script, visuals, and performances.

Genuine and wistful, the narrative offers a realistic yet hopeful take on the intricacies of love. Taking into consideration that there are only 6 episodes, no time was wasted overly exposing supporting characters or adding extra plot lines that would distract us from the point they were trying to make.

That point being: only love is never enough, and communication is key.

This review contains spoilers! Read it at your own risk! Looking for a spoiler-free summary? It’s down at the bottom!

What Comes After Love: The Story

What Comes After Love is a poignant tale about the complexity of love. As romantic stories go, love is the one thing that can overcome all obstacles, and also in What Comes After Love, love is a force to be reckoned with. It stands the test of time, it engraves your heart, and it defies logic and social constructs. But Hong and Jungo’s story tells us that love alone can’t do much.

Even though Hong and Jungo love each other deeply, their relationship doesn’t survive their youth and immaturity. Here, I mean “love” as this mysterious and magical feeling that we can’t really define. And theirs is such a pure, sweet, and sincere attachment that it’s difficult not to root for them. Se-young and Sakaguchi exude chemistry, and their performances are peppered with microexpressions and meaningful glances that go beyond what either Korean or Japanese (or any other language, really) could ever express.

Sometimes, breaking up is inevitable

As the story unravels and you’re introduced to their past, you realise that their break-up was almost inevitable. Not because they didn’t love each other wholeheartedly or because they didn’t care or because they committed a capital crime. No, not at all. They were too inexperienced to realise that they were both fighting their own personal battles — and they didn’t understand that they had to share that battle with the other person.

They didn’t understand each other’s struggles and loneliness, not because they didn’t want to. But because the other never realised that they needed to say it aloud.

Only words that are voiced can be understood, regardless of the language and the cultural differences.

Even though our words should always be accompanied by our actions, the act of communicating is vital for the survival and health of any relationship. As Hong struggled to integrate into Japanese society and became more and more isolated, she didn’t openly tell Jungo any of her troubles until it was too late. Meanwhile, as Jungo fought to make money and find his way into the publishing industry, he didn’t realise that he wasn’t sharing his struggles with Hong either. Because they both mistakenly thought that love was enough to help the other understand what was happening in their own personal worlds.

What loving someone really entails

That’s one thing that always bugs me in romantic stories: love is everything, and two people in love are automatically in sync (and, apparently, able to read each other’s minds).

But no. A relationship is based on the willingness to communicate and compromise, on active support and patience. Love is just the force that drives us to work hard towards the shared happiness that being with someone you cherish can offer. Jungo didn’t seek out Hong when she was suffering, nor did she fully open up to him. Hong didn’t understand Jungo’s fears and needs, nor did he tell her about them.

And so, their relationship, which shone so bright in its early days, slowly loses its spark as neither Jungo nor Hong makes an effort to allow the other to really get to know them.

They weren’t aware of who the other person truly was, the difficulties that they were facing as individuals, and what they actually needed from their relationship. While Jungo needed someone to understand his need for work, Hong needed someone to spend more time with her and encourage her to open up. They were both right and wrong and too much in the high and fervour of youth to realise that either one or the other had to open a line of communication between them.

Something that the script also did extremely well was introduce the reason why Jungo and Hong behaved the way they did, but they never used it as an excuse or exploited it for the sake of melodrama. It does help us, the audience, see where they are coming from, but the narrative gives the space the characters need to grow out of those traumas and flaws on their own.

As years pass by, they both start to realise their mistakes, leading to a spectacular final scene.

The Visual Storytelling of What Comes After Love

Moon Hyun-sung creates a fully cinematic experience in What Comes After Love, allowing the story to shine in romantic compositions and with excellent use of colour and light. The story intertwines past and present, giving us the chance to experience the unravelling of events similarly to the characters. After all, as they meet again, Hong and Jungo are bound to recall their past together.

Hong and Jungo’s past is portrayed in vivid colours and diffused light, giving their memories a hazy, dreamlike quality. Their past sparks with the warmth of young love and the magic of early romance. But, as their relationship starts falling apart, the colours become darker and the lighting harder. Back in the present, the lighting is more even and colours are constantly muted and clearly more desaturated. And so, the show not only successfully differentiates flashbacks from present-day scenes but also points to the timeless bond that Hong and Jungo have. Visually, the series perfectly shows the joy and meaning that Hong and Jungo brought to each other’s lives. And it also tells you how, even though they continued with their lives after their break-up, they never really got over it.

The warmth and coldness of the visuals are also strengthened by the seasons that pass by as the cheerful spring of their lives turns into a gloomy wintery present. That also leads to the lovely saying that wraps up the show: “Spring blossoms are the response to the snowflakes of winter.”

The Symbolism In The Script

But seasons are only one symbol among many in the show: books, keychains, running — What Comes After Love is anything but obvious, and the script counts on a subtlety and poetry that makes it truly special. From the keychains that needed to be together to the books that both Hong and Jungo only give attention to after they put their own stubbornness aside, their story is told beyond arguments and confessions and relies on the details to show how deep their emotions truly are.

But running deserves a special mention here: Jungo relies on Hong’s habit of running to meet her from the very beginning. But she continues to run, on her own, because when they did try to run together, Jungo couldn’t keep up with her. She runs and runs — running from her loneliness, her difficulties, and a relationship that isn’t giving her what she actually needs. At the end of the series, Jungo is now able to keep up with her. He runs to, and alongside, her, leading to their most honest, most open-hearted conversation in the entire show. As they now run together, you see that they finally understand that love is only the beginning.

Cultural differences show up in the script but never add extra drama to the narrative. They pop up here and there, casually warning that the differences (not only cultural) between Hong and Jungo need to be addressed. But they shrug at the face of that divergence, not realising the opportunities for conversation that those moments offer.

The Power of The Performances

Lee Se-young and Sakaguchi Kentaro deliver impressive performances that go from a chemistry-charged young couple to two melancholic adults who are still trying, consciously and subconsciously, to find each other. The feeling of longing, regret, and, ultimately, love floods every single scene. For the audience, it’s sometimes physically painful to see them struggle to climb over the wall between them — the one they built themselves. Dialogue is important — reflecting one of the themes of the show — but Se-young and Sakaguchi don’t need it to convey the depth and strength of their emotion. Their delivery is as subtle and as persuasive as the script itself.

I need to highlight Se-young’s performance in the break-up scene, though. As she shouts in Japanese at first and then switches to Korean at the height of her anger, she imbues her lines with an intensity and heart that is mesmerising. What Comes After Love is another addition to her filmography that proves how Se-young is one of the best actresses in K-dramaland.

Nakamura Anna (who played Kanna) and Hong Jong-hyun (who played Min-jun) also deliver strong performances, being just annoying enough for second leads. Jokes aside, both Kanna and Min-jun have their own personalities and prompt the growth of our protagonists without overshadowing them. Hong’s family and best friend, as well as the ramen restaurant employees, give the show different perspectives and personalities, balancing out the seriousness of the storyline. I personally fell in love with the ramen guys, who were the most adorable gang you could ask for.

And Lily Franky plays Jungo’s father! THE Lily Franky. Do I need to say anything else? (I’ve already mentioned him in our review of The Parades, but Lily Franky is an actor who needs no introduction).

Should You Watch What Comes After Love?

What Comes After Love is an irresistible watch that portrays love in all its complexity and authenticity. The Korea-Japan combination also gives it extra charm and shows the amazing stories that can come from the collaboration between these two neighbouring countries. Visually stunning and profoundly moving, Hong and Jungo’s tale is one that I’ll be going back to every now and again, when I’m in need of a splendidly made romance drama.

You can watch What Comes After Love on:

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You can watch What Comes After Love on Viki. And its beautiful soundtrack, including Fromm’s stunning Closer Than The Stars, is on Spotify. Let me know in the comments what you think of the series!