If you are in love and like the love plot in "Love Past Progression", then you will definitely like "Love Your Katie", which is also by Jenny Han. The play presents the inevitable injuries, misunderstandings, suspicions, etc. of adolescent girls in the process of pursuing love, as well as issues such as ethnic integration and erotic flow.
Woman Fan Editor Maggie
In the age of fast food love, is it wrong to still believe in sincere, pure love? Netflix's latest Young Adult Movie, XO, Kitty, may have the answer.
The play is a spin-off album of the youth campus movie "Love's Past March" launched in 2018.
Kitty, who helped her sister send secret love letters in "The Past of Love" four years ago, has grown into an 11th grade student, and now the audience can have a more three-dimensional understanding of Kitty's view of love, and see more clearly how Kitty, who prides himself on being a professional moon elder, interprets love and how he deals with the pain of love.
Image | Courtesy of Netflix
What is Katie playing in "Love You"?
The protagonist Kitty is an optimistic person who always has a positive vision of love, and from "This Is What Happy Looks Like" and many other love works, she is looking forward to harvesting her own love.
Even if there is an over-age interpretation of love, but she is in the United States, she still can't escape the 10,000-year-old problem of long-distance love. The story begins when Kitty transfers to Dae School in order to shorten her long-distance love with her Korean boyfriend Dae. Excited and excited, she did not tell her boyfriend first, but went to South Korea alone, ready to surprise her boyfriend at the orientation party.
As expected, although Dae shines as always at the party, there is a Korean girl who calls herself his girlfriend, Kitty, who has not overcome the jet lag and experiences a broken love first, and begins her love adventure, she wants to understand what intervenes between her and Dae, and also wants to practice the romantic experience that she has learned from love novels for many years.
Image | Courtesy of Netflix
Three highlights: Korean and British blending, family bonds, and erotic flow
Although the story of "Katie Who Loves You" is carried out by a protagonist full of girlish hearts, the focus is not only in the plot of beautiful love fantasy, but also contains the following highlights.
1. Attempts to be compatible with Korean and English
Kitty transferred to an international school in South Korea, naturally including students of multiple nationalities, there are many European, American, Korean actors in the play, in addition to lines interspersed with Korean, English, this series also tries to blend Korean and English songs, including 88rising's artists BIBI, Seventeen, DPR IAN, Blackpink, THE ACES and other singers' songs, can be heard in this play.
2. Family affection is the kind of strength that always supports you even if you are not around
Although because Kitty's mother left the child very early, most of Kitty's memories of her mother came from the retelling of her family, but the courage and longing to believe in love were given by her mother.
For example, Kitty's sister Lara Jean's love letter to her loved one in "The Past of Love" is placed in a box left by her mother; Kitty plucks up the courage to come to Korea to look for Dae, also because she accidentally finds her mother's high school uniform photo in the attic.
Even if she can't be with her children for a long time, Kitty's mother can still skillfully promote her daughter's romance in different forms, and the confirmation of the connection between relatives is hidden in these subtle plots.
Image | Courtesy of Netflix
3. You don't have to owe the fluidity of lust
At first, Kitty came to Korea for her boyfriend Dae, but after getting along with her female classmate Yuri, she developed a different feeling.
Unable to ignore the throbbing in his heart, but at the same time loving Dae, Kitty is confused. In a conversation with her dad, Kitty said she was confused and wondered if she was bisexual, pansexual, or fluid.
But whether it was Dad's reply, "sadness and confusion are part of growth"; Or Kitty never apologizes for exploring her sexual orientation, confused emotions, but finds out that she belongs to her part, etc., which is very touching.
(Same scene plus screening: "don't want to fall in love" is not wrong, for asexual people with no romantic inclination: love is not a necessity, life is as complete)
The second season of "Love You Katie" begins? What else is unfinished
However, "Love Your Katie" is not always perfect, and it still leaves a lot of unanswered and imperfect issues when it comes to presenting issues such as race, lust, and family affection.
1. Gender issues are not explained in depth
The love that "Love Your Katie" talks about is not only bisexual love, but also shows the world's acceptance of bisexuality, pansexuality (regardless of the subject's biological sex or gender identity, which may produce affectionate emotions), and fluidity (sexual orientation is not yet clear and full of changes) through the angle of friends and relatives.
Although the plot enriches the choice of sexual orientation, it includes the doubts when sexual orientation changes, how people can explore the sense of belonging to love through physical reactions, and so on.
2. Absence of family support
Although the writing of the screenwriter Jenny Han (Jenny Han) is characterized by the laying out of a large number of love scenes, there is always no lack of family affection, allowing people to see that there is always family affection behind them on the road of pursuing love. However, "Katie Love You" is noticeably less supported by her sister Lara Jean.
In an interview with Netflix's Tudum, Jenny Han explained that the best gift to Katie is to make her an independent character, narrating from her point of view, rather than putting her in the shadow of her sisters, but this answer still does not satisfy some fans who love Lara Jean deeply.
Image | Courtesy of Netflix
3. Emotional interpretation is not in place, and emotional lines are mixed and chaotic
The main line of "Love You Katie" is Kitty's love scene, and the side story is supported by the feelings of the parents' generation, and the complex family situation and business methods, although it strengthens the depth of the story, it also leaves endless questions, and some plots are interpreted a little sloppily.
For example, Yuri's mother spent a lot of time restricting her daughter's love, why she released her child's homosexuality at the end, what drove her to leave all romance to her own people, and realized that she was ready to fall in love seriously.
The plot advances too quickly, resulting in the emotional portrayal of those very real characters, which has been omitted a lot, and replaced by an interpretation that points directly to the end of the event, which inevitably makes people fall into the bubble of love while occasionally being shaken awake and realize the difference and distance between the plot and the real world.
In just ten episodes, the relationship between the characters in the first season of "Love Your Katie" has changed dramatically, and the stories of the parents' era, and many secrets that have been kept for many years have gradually surfaced. The emotional issues between the characters are still to be solved, and the end of the plot also leaves a foreshadowing, and we can only hope that these questions can be fully answered in the second season.
Despite this, "Katie Loves You" still lets us see that even if you occasionally hurt on this road to love, you are still very attractive and worthy of praise for your eternal hope and courage for love like Kitty!
Image | Courtesy of Netflix