8.5/10: This drama introduced me to Park Jinyoung and Got7 as a group, and basically my sister and I have tumbled down a rabbit hole into the fandom, lol. WANG GAE, PARK GAE!!! Oh also, this show was pretty good!!
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The story centres around Lee Ahn (my boy Jinyoung <3), who experiences the tragic loss of his parents when he is young, and through that incident, gains the fascinating ability to “read” people’s memory when he touches them, or when he touches something that came in contact with the person when the memory was formed. This “superpower” is called psychometry in the drama, and kind of like “Strong Woman Do Bong-soon” and “Pinocchio”, it’s something that’s supernatural, but is still based in the reality of the drama world.
[MILD SPOILERS AHEAD]
I really enjoyed this drama! It had a lot of humour and sweetness, especially between Lee Ahn and the main female lead, Yoon Jae-in (played by Shin Ye-eun), and I really liked that the central “mystery” the characters needed to unravel was complex enough to keep me intrigued, but not so convoluted that it became confusing. The highlight of this drama was definitely the development of Lee Ahn’s character, as well as his relationship to Jae-in and his adoptive hyung, Prosecutor Kang Sung-mo. The way their lives and stories were connected was very interesting, and I was super invested in lee Ahn’s growth as a person throughout the drama. I thought Jinyoung did a really good job of portraying the character as someone who is naturally very cheerful and care-free, but because of the loss of his parents and his inexplicable psychometric powers, has a lot of sorrow underneath his mischievous and laid-back exterior. Because touching anyone allows Lee Ahn to see into people’s lives, he is quite jaded in a sense. He isn’t fooled by someone’s appearances or outward displays of kindness/goodness. And at the same time, he’s also cursed with a very unique type of loneliness. He feels like he is unable to get close to anyone in a genuine way, and is being hyper aware of potentially invading someone’s privacy. The subtle choices made by the scriptwriters and actor – having him hide his hands in his sleeves or in his pockets all the time, for example – really brought his struggles to life.
Jae-in as a strong female lead was also a great character that I enjoyed watching throughout. Due to her father’s imprisonment, she is very guarded about her personal life, and often suffers anxiety attacks because of the trauma of having her father being dragged away to prison in front of her. As someone keeping this dark secret and trying to succeed in life in spite of it, you can imagine how things get pretty wild when a boy who can read memories comes along! But she is the first person Lee Ahn consciously chooses to get to know the real, human way, through communication and experiencing things together. A really touching scene was when Lee Ahn sees Jae-in on the roof of the school having an anxiety attack and hyperventilating into a paper bag, and he begins to realize that whatever her secret is, it was something that caused her a lot of pain but that she still needed to keep close to her. And so later on, he chooses not to shake her hand when she offers it, even though previously he had wanted to do so that he could read her.
Jae-in is someone who Lee Ahn grows to care about so much that he becomes much more self-reflective and mature. Over the course of the drama, their relationship is put through many tests, and he realizes that in the beginning what he had was simply a puppy crush. When he accidentally finds out through psychometry that Jae-in’s father may have been the culprit behind the apartment fire that killed his parents, his shock and horror and resentment surface, and he lashes out at her. Lee Ahn actually knew her father was in prison very early on, but he never knew for what crime, and at the time he blatantly condemned those who persecuted her, saying that she is not her father, and that his crimes have nothing to do with her. Seeing his hypocrisy, Lee Ahn realizes how fragile and shallow his feelings for her were, that they were so easily shaken by something that wasn’t her fault. He acknowledges that he had been using his abilities simply to impress her and hadn’t been taking things seriously beyond that. His promise to only give her happy memories and to take her bad memories on his own shoulders, were lovey-dovey things he said without fully understanding what kind of commitment they would demand. I thought that level of growth in the character was very impressive writing, and it made me feel many things.
ALSO, one of the cutest/saddest scenes ever was when HE was actually having an anxiety attack after finding out about Jae-in’s dad. He thinks to himself that this must be how Jae-in feels during her episodes, and HE REACHES INTO HIS POCKET AND TAKES OUT A PAPER BAG THAT HAS “FOR JAE-IN, JUST IN CASE” WRITTEN ON IT. SO CONSIDERATE AND CUTE AND SAD BECAUSE THEY’RE THE SOURCE OF EACH OTHER’S ANXIETY NOW.
Another important character is Lee Ahn’s adoptive older brother, Prosecutor Kang. He is actually the one who saves him from the apartment fire accident, and he is the only person who Lee Ahn is unable to read. His character is largely an enigma for the audience as well, perhaps to parallel to how Lee Ahn feels. As the plot unfolds and more pieces of the past and present are revealed, his character becomes more and more intriguing (but also devastating). It’s really quite tragic, if a bit unrealistic, haha.
Overall, this was perhaps not the most unique Korean drama out there, but the character development was so organic and natural, and the plot was paced well. There was a good balance of humour, cute relationship stuff, and disturbing crime (lots of graphic images and dead bodies had to be blurred out in this drama haha, more than any other drama I’ve seen tbh!!) It reminded me of “While You Were Sleeping”, which kind of had a similar premise of someone having a special ability that can “see things”. “While You Were Sleeping” dealt with interpreting the future in order to change it, whereas “He is Psychometric” dealt with rediscovering the past so as to understand the present. If you enjoy fantasy realism, really cute, slightly cheesy romance, and some pretty intense exploration of crime and human psychology, this is a drama for you!
Thought Bubbles 