Ha Eun-gyeol doesn’t mind being the only member of his family who can hear and speak. He’s grown up interpreting for his deaf parents and brother, helping them deal with the hearing world. It’s a weighty responsibility for a child, but to compensate he’s been blessed with a happy family that adores him. They know how to enjoy the little they have and how to cherish each other. His parents, played by Choi Won-young and Seo Young-hee, brag about his exceptional scholastic ability and expect that he’s going to be a doctor.
What they don’t know about Eun-gyeol, played by Ryeo Un, is that he really enjoys playing the guitar. He kept his talent a secret, sure his family would not understand. During the day he helps his brother, Eun-ho, played by Bong Jae-hyun, with his taekwondo skills and he also studies hard. At night he slips out, wearing a mask, to play an amped-up version of Pachabel’s Canon in D on the busy streets of Hongdae.
He keeps trying to quit music, but it makes him so happy, especially when his talent leads him to front a band, with members played by Yeon-oh, Kim Jun-yeong and IKON’s Koo Jun-hoe. When his dad finds out, he’s furious and Eun-gyeol is once more torn between the happiness he derives from music and meeting his father’s expectations. If only the kindly grandfather who taught him to play guitar was still around to dispense advice. Eun-gyeol wanders, while deciding what to do, and finds a music store that looks oddly like the one run by the grandfather, who died six years ago. There’s something otherworldly about it—and that might be a good thing as Eun-gyeol has run out of solutions in reality.
That’s when any homage to the Academy Award-winning film Coda ends and Twinkling Watermelon becomes a fantasy coming-of-age story, veering into Back To The Future territory. After leaving the otherworldly music store Eun-gyeol winds up in 1995, confronted by his father as a high school student. His father isn’t deaf then. He’s in a band and it’s a band Eun-gyeol is asked to join.
This drama takes two whole episodes to arrive at the fantasy part. There are a lot of characters to introduce, including Lee Chan, played by Choi Hyun-wook; the cello prodigy Choi Se-kyung, played by Seol In-ah, and fellow student Yoon Chung-A, played by Shin Eun-soo. The complicated plot jumps from Eun-gyeol’s childhood to his high school years and then back to his father’s high school years. Yet in every decade music makes life magical for Eun-gyeol.
Ryeo Un, who makes his character’s longing for music seem palpable, previously appeared in the dramas Secret Romagntic Guesthouse and Through The Darkness. Bong Jae-hyun, a member of the k-pop band Golden Child also starred in I, A Gangster, Became A High School Student and in one episode of Revenge of Others. Seol In-A appeared in the dramas Business Proposal, Oasis, Mr. Queen and Record of Youth.
Twinkling Watermelon also stars Ahn Do-kyu, Yoon Jae-chan, Lee Ha-min, and Lee Su-chan. The tvN drama airs on Viki.com in the US.
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