Let me start off by saying that I had a love-hate relationship with this drama, Motel California (2025), that I watched on Viki.com. There were times when the female lead character, played by Lee Se Young (What Comes After Love, The Crowned Clown), really had me at my emotional toleration limits, but then I had to remind myself that her character was a very scarred, hurting person. She sees herself as unwanted by everyone, including by her emotionally distant Daddy, played so well by veteran actor Choi Min Soo of Sandglass fame, and by her boyfriend, played by Na In Woo (Mystic Pop Up Bar), and by the acquaintances of the communities she lived in. She ends up lashing out at others because of all that pain, even when it's unwarranted, even when people are trying to help her. Sometimes I wanted to reach into my television screen and shake her! Your own attitude has to change, girl! Everyone has pain in their lives but it is how they deal with it that makes them strong survivors.

Lee Se Young with Na In Woo

The male lead character also is afflicted by many insecurities, as he was formerly overweight as a child and teenager but still carries that fat person inside himself as a thin adult. He also has to learn to stand up for himself and not just go with whatever his Mother or even the female lead character says to him. I think he had great character growth during the series, however, and was able to show that not everyone has to be unparalleled in machismo to be an attractive man. His simple boyishness was cute in its own ways.

Lee Se Young with Choi Min Soo

The series was written by Sim Yoon Seo, based on her own novel, and maybe she was more talented as a novelist than as a screenwriter. The director Jang Joon Ho did a good job directing this often depressing story. He directed classics Beethoven Virus and Coffee Prince so he must have had a lot of patience dealing with this script. You definitely need a lot of patience to get through this drama but in many ways the ending was the best part of the story. Maybe if they had made it an 8 episode drama it would have flowed more smoothly.

The Story:

Pretty but lonely Ji Gang Hee (Child: Oh Eun Seo, Adult: Lee Se Young) grew up at her Dad Ji Chun Pil's (Choi Min Soo) "Motel California" hotel in her rural hometown in Korea. He was distant from her emotionally partly because he threw himself into his work rather than his family life. Her Mother, Mia Kim Taylor (Adriana Maria Duello), came from a mixed-raced background and didn't stick around long enough to help Gang Hee develop normally. Due to Gang Hee's unusual family background she was often the object of gossip by the local residents in her small town, including her schoolmates. Gang Hee carried a deep wound in her heart from her problematic childhood.

She had always liked her overweight childhood friend Chun Yeon Soo (Child: Lee Su Ho, Adult: Na In Woo) best, who was her secret first love, but, when she turned twenty, she left her hometown, after an emotional goodbye to Yeon Soo, and moved to Seoul to escape from everyone and everything and start anew.

Twelve years later she works as an interior designer and is reaching the pinnacle of her career, but impetuously decides to return to her hometown, possibly to try and face her childhood frustrations and completely heal from them. There she reunites with her first love Chun Yeon Soo, though she barely recognizes him at first because he's lost the excess weight and is now very good looking.

Chun Yeon Soo works as a veterinarian in the village. The only woman he has loved his whole life is Gang Hee but in her absence he had received a lot of attention from the local farmers who were eager to introduce him to their daughters. In order to avoid these kind of uncomfortable situations he doesn't clarify the rumor that he is going to marry a fellow veterinarian, and when Gang Hee reappears in his life he is shaken to his core and is slow to build a new relationship with her. There has to be a trust factor in any relationship for it to succeed and this is still lacking in both their lives. Is there any hope that, in time, they can discover that trust and fall in love for always? At the same time Gang Hee tries to build a strong relationship with her Dad as well.

I loved the way the series ended, it delivered a great show of character growth for all the main characters, especially for Gang Hee, showing that she had learned that she was hurting the people around her and that she wanted to change and not just run away like she always did before.

Having everyone pair up in a nice, formulaic way at the end is pretty par for the course in K-dramas so I wasn't too bothered by it, but I did take off some grade points for some of the overplayed break-ups / make-ups in the script. I think a B grade is a respectable grade for this drama, which admittedly requires a lot of patience from the viewer. Best part of Motel California is the acting. It was wonderful from everyone in the cast.

~~~~~~~~~

HOME TO KOREAN DRAMA REVIEWS

~~~~~~~~~