Written by Joshua Jacob
On January 16, Netflix released the very first episode of Can This Love Be Translated?. This brand new romantic TV drama follows the passion and story that comes with being able to understand one another beyond the barrier of different languages.
The episode starts off with the main character Korean actress Cha Mu-hee (Go Youn-jung) tiredly walking up a beautiful castle site with a beautiful green dress and scuffed heels, which she quickly learns from her manager were loaned to her. She’s then shown being filmed overlooking a beautiful scenery where Japanese actor Hiro Kurosawa (Sota Fukushi) is revealed to be the leading man in the series she’s acting in. Members of the backstage crew comment about how the pair have grown close, with Korean interpreter Joo Ho-jin (Kim Seon-ho) helping direct the speech of the two since they speak different languages.
On the last day of filming, Kurosawa says something heartfelt in Japanese so shocking that it leaves Ho-jin speechless, making Mu-hee question what her co-star said in order to respond with her scripted speech. When Ho-jin translates into Mu-hee’s earpiece, she’s shocked by the words told to her. As she looks at the camera, the audience can notice a look between Ho-jin and Mu-hee, causing the scene to quickly transition from romantic music into lively music and a title card to help shift the current story into a flashback from one year ago.
The flashback follows a younger Ho-jin, who is revealed to be a professional interpreter that can fluently translate multiple languages including (but not limited to) English, French, Italian, Japanese, and Korean. On a trip to Tokyo, he bumps into then struggling actress, Cha Mu-hee. She has come to seek out her ex-boyfriend who left her three months ago for another woman based on an Instagram post. While testing an AI translator to help her curse at the woman whom she assumes her ex cheated on her with, she questions if the man sitting next to her at the restaurant counter understands her until she sees him reading a Chinese pamphlet and dismisses it. However, a Korean notification from his phone makes her realize he was eavesdropping in her language, resulting in a funny interaction between the characters and her dubbing him a “Papago app on legs.”
What started as an awkward encounter between two strangers slowly turns into a day of repeated coincidences, as they continue running into each other and relying on one another.
Mu-hee receives Ho-jin’s help translating her feelings to her ex’s girlfriend while Ho-jin recovers his phone after Mu-hee accidentally takes both of them. He receives a heartfelt call from the parent of someone whose life he saved earlier, leading to the pair spending the day together in Tokyo while waiting for a restaurant reservation. Their time wandering the city leads to them learning more about the other’s contrasting priorities. Mu-hee is fixated on reaching 10 million followers on social media despite her small acting career. Ho-jin values privacy instead, and we find he holds unresolved feelings for a former love. After getting lost and separated by a railroad crossing, Ho-jin receives a call saying that the woman he still cares about is in Japan.
Mu-hee encourages him to leave her and chase after the woman he loves, only for him to arrive at their special spot too late and realize she’s no longer there. The episode then takes a sudden tonal shift, cutting to Mu-hee’s final day of shooting her horror film when a stunt goes wrong, resulting in her ending up in a coma. The episode ends with her waking up months later to find herself propelled into unexpected worldwide fame while Ho-jin learns of her recovery from afar.
The opening scene immediately grabs one’s attention because it does not just show what is happening, it makes the audience feel it. The intense eye contact between Mu-hee and Ho-jin through the camera immediately hints at a deeper history between the two, suggesting that their relationship goes beyond a simple work connection. This moment establishes the show’s biggest strength: using visual storytelling to communicate emotion instead of relying on a heavy dialogue.
By presenting a powerful emotional moment first and then moving into a flashback, the episode creates a sense of mystery and wonder because it encourages the audience to keep watching to understand how the characters reached this point. As such, it quickly becomes evident that the series will mostly focus on the interactions between Ho-jin and Mu-hee given how they consistently try to go their separate ways but something always brings them back together. Not only that, but one can’t help but feel that there is a level of dependence on the other, with Mu-hee needing Ho-jin’s help to get over her first love and Ho-jin beginning to abandon his routine life as soon as she inserts herself into his life.
Overall, this first episode already does a great job of showcasing the general vibe of how the two interact over the course of the series. As the credits roll, it does beg the question as to how the characters will later find themselves on a Korean romance show after their chance encounter in Japan one year later. Audiences will simply have to continue watching the remaining 11 episodes of the story to see if Ho-jin ever reconnected with his lost love, what led to him and Mu-hee’s eventual reunion, and seeing where Hiro Kurosawa fits into all of this as it sets the stage for a possible love triangle for the future.
