‘Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha’ Review: A Cute, Light Romcom K-Drama

August 30, 2021August 30, 2021 Jeriah 1 Comment kdramas, kdrama review, hometown cha-cha-cha

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha marks the grand comeback of the biggest k-drama breakout star of 2020: Kim Seon-ho. The wealthy and dapper second lead that we all fell in love with in Start-Up is now the hero of his own k-drama romance. While there are many of us in Team Good Boy who are still licking our wounds from last year, we are ready to move on and see Kim Seon-ho have his happy ending.

Does the new tvN-produced and sure Netflix hit live up to the hype? Find out in our spoiler-free Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha review. Take note that I am only reviewing the first two episodes, so a lot of my opinions about the show may change from now!

I mean, I was so quick to declare Record of Youth as the perfect k-drama for zillennials, but that one turned out to be pretty disappointing.

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha Plot

With such a unique name, you’d expect the show to be about a cha-cha dancer moving back to their hometown to live his dream. But this remake of the 2004 film Mr. Handy, Mr. Hong tells the story of a city girl dentist from Seoul, Yoon Hye-jin (played by Shin Min-a), who moves to a small seaside village called Gongjin to open her own clinic. She does this after quitting her comfy job in Seoul when she is fed up with her money-hungry boss.

In Gongjin, she meets the handy Hong Du-sik (played by Kim Seon-ho) who does everything in their town. And when I say everything, I mean everything — being a barista in the cafe and the sauna, a painter, a renovator, a soapmaker — you name it, and he has the license to do it.

Yoon Hye-jin’s privileged upbringing in Seoul becomes a nuisance when her snobbish behavior turns everyone in town against her. But Hong Du-sik is well-loved by everyone in their town because of his jolly can-do attitude. Du-sik helps Hye-jin adjust into her new life in the province and eventually fall in love in the process.

The promos leading up to the show also promised that it was going to offer warmth and healing. While the first two episodes of Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha didn’t really tackle any of those yet, there were some subtle hints about the two leads’ families having a complicated past. And we were also introduced to a whole slew of whimsical characters from the village who will surely provide some entertainment and heartwarming moments as we learn more about them.

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha Review: The Characters

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is shaping up to be one of the best romantic k-dramas of 2021. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been biased about this series because Kim Seon-ho is probably my favorite k-drama actor right now. But I’ve been in a drought with k-dramas lately where nothing that I’ve been watching has been serving.

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha episode 1 was one of the few k-drama episodes in a while where I was hooked from start to finish. Let’s start with the cast and characters.

I didn’t think much of Shin Min-a coming into the show, but the girl can admittedly breathe life to her character. The problem with having an unaware snobby rich city girl as the main character is that she can easily become unlikable. Shin Min-a is able to do her job in making Yoon Hye-jin just the right amount of annoying, and more importantly, rootable.

As for Kim Seon-ho, his Chief Hong character doesn’t feel too different from roles that he has played before. I mean he does the easily irritable/tough love character pretty well as we saw in his role as Han Ji-pyeong (Start-Up), and Cha U-sik (Welcome to Waikiki 2), but Hong Du-sik doesn’t feel too different. So if you fell in love with him before, then you’ll probably enjoy him here as well.

Hong Du-sik still feels like a two-dimensional character without a lot of concrete motives, but we still have a long list of episodes to go through where we can explore who he is, so I’m giving the show a pass.

We can’t talk about Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha without bringing up the entire village of Gongjin. I presume this show is going to be a lot like It’s Okay to Not Be Okay where we learn more about the supporting characters’ backstories one by one.

There’s no one as iconic as Chef Toto in Vincenzo yet, but I already appreciate their presence a lot even if the first two episodes don’t do a good job highlighting their personalities. One of the things I’m looking forward to is how Yoon Hye-jin will get along with the more conservative elders in Gongjin. They already badmouthed her just because she had the galls to wear *gasp* leggings while jogging, so I’m hoping that getting to know Hye-jin more will help them reflect on their outdated values.

Then episode 2 of Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha fleshed out the washed-up 90s one-hit-wonder, Oh Chun-jae, whom Hye-jin had a pretty awkward and hurtful encounter with.

If the writers keep the village residents as a central element of the show, then I undoubtedly see it raking in success. The characters are interestingly whimsical, and it would be a shame if we didn’t give them enough shine.

And perhaps the most stunning character in Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is Gongjin itself. I’m a sucker for TV shows set in gorgeous beaches like Yangyang Beach in Lovestruck in the City, so I’d like to point out how much value the seaside village adds to the show “about healing”. It really does a lot for me whenever we get a relaxing view of the sea, the boats, or the mountains. The setting being so present sucks us deeper into the universe, especially when complemented by the simpler people we meet in the village.

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha Review: Final Thoughts

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha has never been presented as a groundbreaking k-drama, but does it have to be? I’m not gonna lie and say that it’s a “must watch” show (for now), but I’ve been waiting for a quality romantic comedy to sink my k-drama lovin’ teeth into. In that aspect, it seems to do its job well.

The k-drama led by Kim Seon-ho and Shin Min-a is a cute harmless romantic story that doesn’t really take a lot of effort to watch.

The future episodes promise to add some spice into the story, but I have a pretty good feeling about the general vibe of the show just from the first two episodes alone. It’s going to be a breezy boy-falls-in-love-with-girl thing where Hong Du-sik teaches Yoon Hye-jin the “simpler life”… until we start to unpack some of their family baggage from the past. And maybe throw in a richer and more handsome second lead into the mix, then you’ve got yourself a winning romcom!

Like I said earlier in this Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha review, the show has a lot of potential depending on how they use their supporting characters.

Because aside from them, it’s really hard to see where the show can potentially go from here — and not in a good unpredictable kind of way — but in a “how are they going to stretch this to 16 episodes” type of thing. I hope the writers are able to introduce enough compelling elements soon to help the story be more interesting when the main romance plot starts to peak.

For example, the cliffhanger of episode 2 doesn’t really entice me to watch the next one because I don’t know what conflict I should be looking forward to.

But overall, the main characters and their insane chemistry are enough to make me enjoy the show. I mean I was hooked from the very first scene of Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, and it kept me smiling until the end of its 80-minute running time, so there is something really great here. Not all k-dramas impress me from the start so I have no doubt that it will pick up soon.

Plus, who doesn’t love a good ol’ princess and the pauper story? There are some pretty funny moments thrown in there set up by the premise of a clueless city girl living in a conservative small town.

And if there’s anything to look forward to, it’s Lee Sang-yi’s character. We haven’t encountered him yet, so things can only get more interesting from here.

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha Rating: 7.5/10

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