Stream K-Dramas at OnDemandKorea

[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Three Color Fantasy - The Stars in Space" Episodes 3-4

So Byeol-i has a physical body again, and promptly uses it to stalk Woo Joo. This ends up going better for than her than would seem logical. The story in "Three Color Fantasy - The Stars In Space" is easy enough to parse from Byeol-i's perspective. She's a sad lonely girl who happens to be dead, and relishes the chance to live out her dream once, if only once, before going on to something more permanent.

Advertisement

It's Woo Joo that's a bit harder to unravel, in part because "Three Color Fantasy - The Stars In Space" is so heavy on the cute bubbly romance here that we never see what he's thinking. Which is for the better. Whenever Woo Joo starts to thinking, that's when he starts toying around with thoughts of suicide. All the same it would be nice if we had some idea why Woo Joo is suddenly so keen on hanging out with Woo Joo. His character lacks any apparent dimensions.

We do know that there's something going on with him and So-ri (played by Han Da-ra), yet better elucidation is kept oh so frustratingly out of view. The contrasts are obvious enough. Byeol-i wants to live and Woo joo doesn't, and their dates allow them to meet in the middle on that question. Yet aside from being generally very cute their scenes together don't actually tell us very much about either character. Byeol-i and Woo Joo are more compelling apart than they are together.

Part of the issue, I think, is that "Three Color Fantasy - The Stars In Space" wants to be romantic comedy happy and also romantic tragedy sad, never really getting that these genre elements are inherently irreconcilable. Serious scenes in romantic comedies take on a very different tone than their tragic counterparts, as do moments of comic relief in tragic melodramas. The blend in "Three Color Fantasy - The Stars In Space" is so even as to never approach the catharsis in either genre.

That only leaves us with random production elements to praise. The music is fairly decent. The dog is cute. The pop atmosphere in general is quite good, right down to the fan reactions. But though "Three Color Fantasy - The Stars In Space" is logically consistent and even has genuinely good moments, the drama is too badly hamstrung by a lack of clear purpose. Well, with only a couple of episodes to go, at least this won't take long to wrap up.

Review by William Schwartz

"Three Color Fantasy - The Stars In Space" is directed and written by Kim Ji-hyeon-III and features "Suho", Ji Woo, Shin Hyun-soo, Han Da-ra, Ko Kyu-pil, and Lee Si-eon.

❎ Try Ad-free