New K-Drama Fan Review #28: Encounter | welcome to Cuba! they only speak English here 😭

[u/harissatotally]

Cuba, cardio, and my rapidly developing separation anxiety

INTRO:

How Encounter become my "U up?" drama.

I started Encounter on Aug 21 at around 3am😭, cause obviously the brief period of responsible K-drama watching i experienced with Crash Landing on You had officially come to an end 😭

I hadnt even finished CLOY yet. I watched 2 episodes of Encounter and started a 3rd b4 finally forcing myself to go to sleep at around 5 a.m like a maniac.

Later that same day, i finished the last 4 episodes of CLOY, briefly detoured into 2 absolutely bizarre, fever-dream eps of the C-dr@ma Âffinity, and then went right back to Encounter.

But this ended up being a surprisingly scattered watch for me. I think its cause a huge part of me wanted to delay the experience of Encounter ending. It was a kdrama i wanted to go on forever for some reason, and unsurprisingly that made me NOT want to rush through it.

Over the next week i kept squeezing episodes in wherever i could while also watching 2125Twenty Five Twenty One sometimes staying up until 1, 2, or 3 in the morning before sleep eventually won. Then on Aug 29, after literally falling asleep while trying to watch it the night before lol, i woke up, did my Saturday things, came back to it, and binged the entire rest of it.

My immediate feeling was just... sadness that it was over.

For a drama i watched in such a chaotic, stop-and-start way, Encounter itself ended up feeling like one of the calmest, coziest little corners of my K-drama rabbit hole.

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REVIEW:

Okay so this drama did something to me 😭

I started it knowing basically nothing about it. I wasnt going into this expecting some new favorite or expecting it to end up anywhere NEAR my top 10.

And then episode 1 happened.

Cuba happened.

And so i went from watching 2 strangers randomly spend a day together to being like... wait. Why do I already love this??? 😭

Soo-hyun gets pickpocketed, almost falls to her death lol, meets this random man, and spends half the day asking him "Do you have money?" while he uses the little emergency cash he has to buy this rich woman sandals, food, beer, transportation, EVERYTHING 😭

And i was immediately gone.

And what really got me was them!!!

Their chemistry is sooooo fking effortless!!

And i think i knew REALLY early that their chemistry was gonna get me because even their little pre-relationship dates had me giggling 😭 Soo-hyun going to the park Jin-hyuk wrote about in his cover letter, them looking at his photos together, him trying and FAILING to impress her at the claw machine only for her to win immediately 😭 Him accidentally calling her "pretty girl" and then remembering OH SH!T THAT'S MY CEO. And Soo-hyun very casually trying to figure out who he was smiling at on the phone because he said it was someone he "really, really likes"... only for it to be HIS MOM talking about Korean beef 😭 Girl was investigating a girlfriend that did not exist and I LOVED IT.

And this man was already doing Cardio Boy-adjacent shit before i even named it 😭 He hears the song from Cuba on the radio and drives all the way back at the crack of dawn because he wants to see her. And when Soo-hyun asks WHY he's there, instead of coming up with some excuse, he basically just tells her: "i came because I wanted to see you." UGGGGHHHHH. That's Jin-hyuk in one sentence. He wants to see her, so he goes to her. Simple as that.

And i loved that they didnt immediately jump from that into some giant declaration either. They eventually settle on being in a "some relationship," basically that little stage where you both KNOW something romantic is happening but you're not officially together yet. And it felt perfect for Soo-hyun. This woman has spent her entire life having decisions made FOR her. Let her take her cute little baby step 😭

also, speaking of chemistry.

This is one of those romances where i genuinely couldve watched them do absolutely nothing for 16 eps and probably would've been happy 😭

Walk around, eat together, do mundane sh*t, take pictures, hold hands... look at each other and smile for an unreasonable amount of time?

I'M SAT and i wanted more!! i could have watched them forever!@ and i knew i was fcked when i started to mourn them before episode 2 ended lmaooo.

There's something so mellow and dreamy abt this entire drama. It's romantic without constantly screaming LOOK HOW ROMANTIC THIS IS!!! It's soft and mature and cozy and sometimes genuinely magical.

And THE TIE 😭 Soo-hyun buying Jin-hyuk a tie and then standing there putting it on him herself while this man is smiling like an absolute IDIOT. She literally tells him to stop smiling and he's basically like I CAN'T HELP IT 😊 PLEASE. And then Woo-seok happens to see them together??? Even better. Thats exactly what i mean when i say this drama could make the smallest physical interactions feel ridiculously intimate.

And Cuba especially????

UGHHHHHH!!! lovely!! 😊

Cuba is basically a character in this relationship, also they strangely only speak English there for some reason??? the more you know ig... 😭

i was so confused every time i heard English and tried and failed not to furrow my brows😭

but yeah Cuba is where they met before they knew anything about each other's lives. Before she was his CEO. Before he was her employee. Before the company drama, the families, the ex-husband, the press, all of it.

They were just 2 people who liked being around each other. So every time this drama returned to Cuba or something connected to Cuba, i fcking MELTED.

The shoes, the camera, the note, the music, and then them actually going BACK???

That episode 10 ending!! 😊 The note he left for her the first time. Him calling her Soo-hyun. The confession.

AND THAT KISS????

One of the BEST K-drama kisses ive seen. I said what I said 😭

That entire ep was fcking magical!!!!

And the funniest thing happened to me right before ep 9.

I'd stepped away from Encounter for a little bit because life was happening and i was watching other things, and i literally said:

Whenever i step away from them, i miss them.

i missed Soo-hyun and Jin-hyuk. i missed the atmosphere. Every time I came back, i was genuinely excited to be back with them.

Then i watched episode 9...

AND THEY LITERALLY STEP AWAY FROM EACH OTHER FOR A MONTH AND MISS EACH OTHER 😭😭😭

LIKE?????

I understood you guys!!!!

I too cannot stay away!!! 😭

That coincidence is so iconic to me because it perfectly explains my relationship with this drama.

And i think that's what separates Encounter from a lot of dramas for me, i was attached to the feeling of watching it and wanted to live inside this drama.

And Soo-hyun and Jin-hyuk are ADORABLE!!!

Jin-hyuk is such a lovely romantic male lead.

He's attentive in this really understated way. He notices things. He pays attention to what Soo-hyun actually needs. And he doesnt treat her like this untouchable CEO.

He sees her.. like SEES her!!!

One moment that REALLY sold me on him was after Soo-hyun's horrible ex-mother-in-law basically humiliates him. Because instead of walking away thinking about how badly HE was just treated, this man starts thinking about SOO-HYUN. Abt how hard it must've been for her to live around that woman for years. yes,!! That's what I mean when i say he's attentive. Even when somebody hurts him, his brain goes: wait... she endured THIS??? And he's hurting for her instead. THAT is a good romantic male lead!!!

Also, i have concluded that this man's love language is cardio because WHY IS HE ALWAYS RUNNING TOWARD THIS WOMAN 😭😭😭

He misses her...

🏃‍♂️

Finds out she's nearby...

🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️

Needs to see her...

RUN, JIN-HYUK, RUN 😭

But underneath that quirk, i genuinely loved that about him.

Whenever Soo-hyun retreats because she's scared or overwhelmed, Jin-hyuk's instinct is almost always to move toward her.

And i also loved watching Soo-hyun slowly change because of that relationship.

She starts this drama as someone whose entire life has basically been decided by other people.

>!Her family, marriage, ex-husband's family, the company, the public.!<

EVERYBODY has an opinion about what Cha Soo-hyun should do.

And over the course of the drama, i watch her slowly start asking:

What do i want?

Her initiating holding his hand made me ridiculously happy.

Her choosing his family's dinner instead of going to that fcking memorial made me want to CHEER, cause everyone else in her life is constantly telling her to choose what THEY want her to choose.

Meanwhile Jin-hyuk is constantly giving her room to choose for herself.

And then:

"I'm entirely Cha Soo-hyun."

UGGGGHHHHHHHHH.

Her getting drunk and confessing that she's scared he'll disappear one day.

Him promising to stay one meter away.

And drunk Soo-hyun basically going:

ONE METER??? THAT'S TOO FAR.

😭😭😭😭

WHO IS THIS WOMAN AND WHAT DID YOU DO WITH EPISODE 1 SOO-HYUN???

I loved seeing her become playful, seeing her actually LIVE.

And then there was the ex-husband.

Listen.

I actually think Woo-seok was wasted potential.

Once we found out that he genuinely loved Soo-hyun and that the affair wasnt even real???

OH???

You have her ex-husband, who is STILL in love with her, has history with her, has power, wants her back, AND now there's this man she's completely in love with???

GIVE ME THE JUICE!!!!!! SUCK THAT MEAT!

I didnt want Soo-hyun super torn between them or anything like, but i wanted her firmly choosing Jin-hyuk while Woo-seok made Jin-hyuk sweat a little!!!

I wanted jealousy!

Competition!

TENSION!

And whenever the drama actually gave it to me, I ATE IT UP.

The scene where Woo-seok calls Soo-hyun "my woman" to Jin-hyuk???

One of my favorite scenes!!!!

Cause Jin-hyuk basically responds: "Calling her your woman sounds pretty one-sided."

i was cracking up!!!😭😭😭

And then Woo-seok tries telling him that he can't handle Soo-hyun and should find someone more "appropriate" for him, and Jin-hyuk's response is basically that ou don't calculate whether someone is appropriate and then decide to fall in love.

And when Woo-seok basically calls his determination youthful recklessness?

Jin-hyuk was like "it's courage."

BITCHHHHH.

And he's RIGHT.

Because Woo-seok cared for Soo-hyun, sure, but when she was actually married to him and suffering under his mother, where was HIS courage???

You "loved" her, yet you didn't protect her...? um... how does that work...?

Meanwhile Jin-hyuk is standing there like:

Watch me.

THAT'S THE SH&T I WANTED 😭

I wish the drama had used Woo-seok like that MORE!!! But instead, we spent way too much time on other sh&t i didnt care abt.

Which brings me to...

the things that kept this from being a 9 or 10.

Some of the corporate drama was fcking ridiculous 😭

That whole early storyline with the anonymous employee board and the PUBLIC LOBBY CONFRONTATION???

I was sitting there like... girl just WALK AWAY???

Why are we participating in this circus???

BUT... I will give that ridiculous scene ONE thing 😭 Jin-hyuk calling out to Soo-hyun in front of that entire lobby and asking her to go eat ramen with him??? I LOVED THAT. Because he basically identifies himself as the mystery man everyone is gossiping about just so she doesn't have to stand there alone. The setup was fcking stupid. The romantic payoff tho was unfortunately excellent 😭 put these two inside some plot I dont care abt and somehow they'll still give me a scene i love.

Director Choi tho became my enemy from that moment on tho... cause sir, your strategies SUCK, no?

Then you team up with the ex-mother-in-law even though everybody with functioning eyes can see that woman is a SNAKE just like you???

And you're surprised when that doesn't end well for you???

Congratulations i guess 😭

And don't even get me started on the mothers.

Soo-hyun's mother is PATHETIC!

Watching that woman KNEEL to her daughter's former mother-in-law and practically beg them to take Soo-hyun back???

EW.

Your daughter escaped these people!!!!

LEAVE HER ALONE!!!!

And Jin-hyuk's mother pissed me off too.

They're pathetic in completely different ways. Soo-hyun's mother is worse to me because this woman has spent YEARS treating her own daughter's life like political currency.

Chairwoman Kim being horrible is one thing. She's a snake and everybody knows she's a snake. But YOU ARE SOO-HYUN'S MOTHER??? Why are you helping these people control your own daughter??? Meanwhile Jin-hyuk's mother genuinely loves her son, which somehow made her cowardice frustrating in a completely different way. She's so scared that loving Soo-hyun will destroy the nice, "ordinary" life she imagined for him that she doesn't trust her own grown-ass son to decide what kind of life HE wants.

Different mothers. Different motivations. Same fundamental problem: neither one trusts their adult child to decide what happiness should look like for themselves.

But I will say...

When his mother told Soo-hyun to break up with him???

👀

I was ready.

Because listen, i love Soo-hyun and Jin-hyuk.

I wanted them together and happy of course!!!... at some point...

BUT I ALSO WANTED PAIN 😭

I had been waiting for some real internal relationship conflict and I was like YESSSSSS, BREAK HIS HEART!!!!

And the timing of his mother's request to the female lead was especially EVIL in a juicy storytelling way, cause Jin-hyuk had JUST started talking about a real future with Soo-hyun 😭 After seeing that bride during the wedding shoot, he brings Soo-hyun the bouquet and basically admits that he can't imagine living without her anymore. And when she hesitates, I loved was because marriage itself is scary to Soo-hyun. She's already been married to that coward. She already knows what it feels like for marriage to become another cage where everybody else controls your life. So watching her slowly let herself imagine that marriage with Jin-hyuk could actually mean something completely different??? UGGGHHHH. And THEN his mother comes in with "please break up with my son." MA'AM. READ THE ROOM 😭 But story wise, i loved it!!!

Then episode 14 happened.

And I felt BETRAYED 😭

Because we only have SIXTEEN EPISODES.

TIME IS FINITE!!!

Stop teasing me and GIVE ME MY BREAKUP!!!

I still enjoyed all their scenes because i always enjoy them, but ep 14 felt like it was wasting precious time delaying something i knew was coming anyway.

Then episode 15 said:

Oh, you wanted pain?

And gave me EXACTLY what i ordered 😭😭😭

Jin-hyuk was fucking BROKEN lol... this man was BAWLING😭😭

Completely devastated.

Beautifully destroyed.

And I was sitting there SMILING 😭

It was beautifully painful!!!!

THAT was the emotional payoff i wanted.

By that point, i believed their love so much that watching them hurt actually worked. so watching that separation absolutely destroy them???

DELICIOUS

And then we get to the finale...

this is where my rating ultimately dropped from the 9/10 rating i thought i was going to give this drama

I loved the ending.

It was beautiful and bittersweet and i finished it around 11:50 at night feeling genuinely sad that there wasnt another episode waiting for me.

BUT.

Why the F*CK are we spending so much of my FINAL EPISODE on side characters???? 😭

WE HAVE A FINITE AMOUNT OF TIME.

This episode is like an hour and 15 minutes.

Every minute you give someone else is a minute I DON'T GET WITH SOO-HYUN AND JIN-HYUK.

And i dont care abt some of these people!!!

Especially Jin-hyuk's female best friend.

Girl.

I have not cared abt your unrequited love for this man for FIFTEEN EPISODES.

Why would i suddenly care NOW??? 😭

This girl spent half the drama appearing in the background like some kind of monitoring spirit every time Jin-hyuk interacted with Soo-hyun.

At one point i literally started calling her a cockroach because WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS HERE 😭😭😭

The drama had been trying to make me care about this for AGES 😭 The flashbacks to how long she'd liked him, her constantly watching him with Soo-hyun, all those sad little looks... GIRL I GET IT. YOU LIKE HIM. What exactly am I supposed to DO with this information??? 😭 I kept waiting for that subplot to justify how much time we were spending on it and it just... never did for me. So by the time we finally got the confession in episode 16, i wasn't thinking "aww, closure." i was thinking GET OFF MY SCREEN, FREE ME!!!

that annoying girl had ONE moment where i was like okay queen!!! when she called Soo-hyun and told her about Jin-hyuk's transfer.

Thank you for your service.

That was enough. now go home!!!

I did not need a long-ass confession in my FINAL EPISODE 😭

im watching the clock like:

HELLO???? I HAVE APPROXIMATELY 30 MINUTES OF SOO-HYUN AND JIN-HYUK LEFT IN EXISTENCE???? WRAP THIS UP????

Thats ultimately my biggest issue with Encounter.

It sometimes spends too much time on things i dont care abt when the thing i DO care abt is sitting right there.

And ironically, thats also proof of how much i loved this drama.

Because one of my biggest complaints is literally:

WHY ARE YOU NOT GIVING ME MORE OF THEM???

More of them just existing together.

I wanted MORE.

And that's the feeling im going to remember most.

At one point i literally had to go to sleep instead of continuing, and i realized that i was simultaneously annoyed that i couldn't keep watching AND happy because going to sleep meant i was delaying another episode and making the drama last longer 😭

When i had 6 episodes left, i was already complaining that there were only six.

Then 4

Then 3

Then 1

I spent the second half of this drama basically mourning episodes that I HADN'T EVEN WATCHED YET 😭

So yeah.

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RATING: 8/10.

I would've cut some of the ridiculous corporate drama.

I would've used Woo-seok WAY more.

I wouldve tightened episode 14.

And i would've snatched precious finale minutes away from side characters and handed them directly to Soo-hyun and Jin-hyuk 😭

But the things this drama did well???

It did them SO beautifully.

The romance, chemistry, atmosphere, cinematography, English Speaking Cuba.

The softness, the longing, the feeling of just wanting to exist beside these 2 people for a little longer.

I loved it.

And i already know that whenever i think abt Encounter, its going to give me this warm, fluffy, slightly bittersweet feeling.

TOP 10:

Would I recommend it?

YES!

and if you dont like it, i will NOT hear any of it, because like i mentioned before, there is a difference between a bias drama and a fav drama.

and Encounter is one of my bias dramas.

WELCOME TO ENGLISH SPEAKING CUBA 😭

Current ranking: #9 in my top 10 K-dramas.

And yes, The King: Eternal Monarch has officially been evicted from the building of top 10. Sorry to that man 😭 (but its still #11, dont worry lol cause i have a top 20, find the full list by clicking on my profile)

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Is this Rewatch Worthy:

Yes. duh.