Watching Hometown Cha Cha Cha was like being on vacation.
You have that initial break-in period where you might need to adjust to a new time zone or figure out where things are. This was like our Ms. Dentist adjusting to Gongjin.
Once that break-in period is over, you start exploring the new area and having fun. You eat delicious food, meet new people, and experience the unique culture. It’s like when our Ms. Dentist acclimates with the townspeople, and we see the history and stories of our beloved town residents.
By the time you leave, you feel refreshed and glad to have visited such an amazing place! We get to see the happy endings of our lovely residents (especially Chief Hong and Ms. Dentist…won’t list the spoiler here).
I hope you shed as many laughs and tears as I did watching this drama.
Here’s my Hometown Cha Cha Cha review.
For those who haven’t watched it
I use Korean drama reviews to help me decide on whether or not I should pick up the drama. Since I don’t want to spoil this drama, I’m sort of doing a mini review portion to entice or convince readers who haven’t watched this drama to pick it up.
Should you watch this?
If you’re looking for something light and fun, you should definitely watch this. The drama picks up quickly, so you won’t be waiting long for things to start!
There are a lot of cringey-moments in the first couple of episodes, but the awkwardness tails off.
What is Hometown Cha Cha Cha about?
It’s about a dentist who learns what life is like when you live with others who aren’t as well off as you are.
Hye-jin is a dentist in Seoul. She quits her job and opens her own private practice in Gongjin, a small seaside town that she visited as a kid. The culture, people, and environment there are completely different than what she’s been used to in Seoul. She has to adjust to the new town, which is full of quirky and loving people. One of them is Du-sik, who has a mysterious past that is linked to Hye-jin. The drama follows her interactions and new life at Gongjin.
For those who have watched it
This is the part of the review for those who have watched it. Let’s jump in!
I’ll be using Ms. Dentist, Chief Hong, and Director Ji as names for our main cast. It just feels more fun and light for this review 🙂
The good
How fast the drama picks up in the beginning
It really took one episode to set our storyline in motion. Ms. Dentist ends up in Gongjin right after quitting her job. Her first encounter with Chief Hong doesn’t go smoothly. We are also introduced to most of the cast by the end of the first episode.
Having everything unfold quickly made the show easy to continue watching.
How the drama keeps the fishing boat rocking
This drama throws a ton of curve balls that just keep you so engaged with our characters and plot.
After the rocky beginning for Ms. Dentist, we get a small break when her and the townspeople start to get along.
That break shortly ends when we are introduced to Director Ji, a college friend and Ms. Dentist’s previous romantic interest. That whole 5-6 episode run of the love triangle was filled with cringe, joy, laughter, and sorrow.
When Ms. Dentist and Chief Hong make it official, we get another break where we see the romantic period of their relationship.
And then their relationship is brought to a halt by Chief Hong’s past.
And then when Chief Hong is ready to open up, we get another curveball with Do-Ha revealing himself to be the son of the father whom Chief Hong had really badly hurt was insane! I certainly didn’t expect that…
And then we figure out at the end of the drama that the winner of the billion dollar lottery was the cop! Our emotionally dense and awkward cop! I mean…come on. I wouldn’t have seen that. I lowkey thought it was one of the grandmas.
But these situations really made the drama so riveting to watch!
Episode endings to explain events
I really appreciate how the drama uses episode endings to explain certain events that took place during or in the previous episode. It feels like the drama provides that extra detail or puzzle piece that was missing to complete the picture of the episode.
One of my favorite endings is in Episode 4. We get to see how Chief Hong figured out that Ms. Dentist was being attacked by the pervert. He was enjoying his day off when Gam-ri called him about Ms. Dentist. He then runs across town to save Ms. Dentist. It really adds that level of cuteness to Ms. Dentist and Chief Hong’s relationship. Like we all know that their avoiding their feelings for each other, but when push comes to shove, they’ll be there for each other.
Our three grandmas
Our three grandmas…my God. They were rowdy, funny, and adorable. Their friendship is super wholesome. Honestly, I hope my friendships look like theirs when I get older.
They just brought this different energy to the drama. They may look old, but they have the energy and humor of some our younger Gongjin residents. I don’t know why, but I find old people bickering funnier than when younger people bicker.
When the two grandmas were pretending to fight over who would host Gam-ri, you couldn’t help but laugh because it’s not something you would expect.
The scene in the flower field was so heartwarming. Those smiles! Those laughs! Gahh! It’s as if we were seeing their younger selves again!
I didn’t expect Gam-ri to pass away like that. She looked like she was doing fine when she got back to her house. She even had a sleepover with her friends. The trio was back together! I teared up when she died in her sleep.
Director Ji and Chief Hong’s bromance
You’d think the love triangle would drive a wedge between Director Ji and Chief Hong, but it doesn’t. Instead, it brings them closer, and I really enjoyed watching their relationship and interactions. It was like a bromance.
All their moments of fighting and competing to impress Ms. Dentist felt more playful than anything. There wasn’t any toxic jealousy going around. They never held their friendship or business relationship hostage.
I really like the fact that even after Director Ji lost to Chief Hong in winning over Ms. Dentist, Director Ji makes sure to let Chief Hong know how precious Ms. Dentist is. He even backs Chief Hong up when he is one foot out the door in their relationship.
The hedgehog!
I really like the role of the hedgehog in this drama because it sort of represents all the characters in our drama.
Our beloved Ms. Dentist is pretty much like a hedgehog. On the outside, she can be prickly and a bit defensive. She shows herself to be this judgmental and cold character. She’s not very inviting. If she feels like you’re crossing her personal space, she gets defensive.
Once she warms up to a person, she shows a softer and cuter side of herself. Kind of like when she and Chief Hong get on better terms.
Chief Hong almost seems like the opposite of a hedgehog. When you first meet him, he’s very easy going. He isn’t reserved and doesn’t seem to bite. He doesn’t really have any quills that shoot out. While it may seem like the case, there are certain parts of his life that he doesn’t like to talk about. In some way, those are his quills he will throw out if you try to get too close. We see this when Ms. Dentist tries to unravel his dark past.
What seems like a random animal turns out to be a very accurate representation of not just our main cast but also of us in real life.
Our beloved dense policeman
I don’t know why but I really liked the dense policeman.
I think it’s because he’s the character that you don’t exactly expect but sort of do. I mean that’s what Mi-Seon felt when she fell for him.
He’s the cop of the town. He can handle whatever comes his way. You would think he’s as emotionally fit as he is physically.
But no.
He’s as dense as a rock and as slow as a turtle when it comes to picking up hints from women.
But he stays true to himself. He’s confident in his values.
Personally, I can relate to him a little bit because I’m quite dense myself when it comes to romantic situations.
Music
The music was great! Pretty much all the soundtracks were light and upbeat. I still listen to some of the soundtracks from time to time.
Here is my favorite song from the drama:
The bad…more like what I didn’t like
The only thing I didn’t really enjoy was the divorced couple.
Man…whenever they were on screen…I felt super awkward. It got to the point where I had to fast forward through some of their scenes.
I felt like nothing was working out for our divorced couple in the beginning. Throwing in another love triangle to spice things up felt a underwhelming because the love triangle amongst the main cast just outshined our divorced couple completely.
A part of me thought I would’ve been fine with them being a divorced couple.
On a somewhat random note, I thought the homosexuality thing was a small random detail to add in on the character. After finishing the drama, I did some reading and learned that homosexuality is considered taboo in South Korea. So having the drama keep that detail small made more sense.
What I thought could’ve been better
Chief Hong’s mysterious past and link to other characters
Chief Hong’s past had so much potential to be a bigger subplot of the drama. I wish we could’ve seen more of it! Even the townspeople were curious about his backstory.
I would’ve loved seeing more of his life when he was working in Seoul because that would’ve helped show how different of a person he was before coming back to Gongjin.
What about his relationships at that time? Did he have another girlfriend? What was his relationship with the people of Gongjin at that time?
In the last two episodes, we also find out that multiple characters are tied to his past: Director Ji, his right hand man Kim Do-Ha, Seon-A (who is the widow of Chief Hong’s best friend & close to Director Ji), and even Ms. Dentist! Seeing more of their reactions and how their relationships evolved with Chief Hong would’ve added more depth with some of the characters.
I’m glad that all the characters found closure with Chief Hong, but I would’ve totally traded air time for exploring Chief Hong’s past earlier in the drama…honestly, I’d trade the baby birth scene for this.
Chief Hong spending more time with Ms. Dentist’s family
I would’ve really enjoyed seeing more screen time with Chief Hong and Ms. Dentist’s family.
Their first time meeting was super entertaining to watch, especially with the father. Everything from the hard handshake to the game of Go to the serious talk outside about Ms. Dentist and to the ending where the Dad tells Chief Hong not to talk to him so casually was a great progression of their relationship. And this all happened before Chief Hong officially became the boyfriend!
It would’ve been wonderful to watch more of that future father-son dynamic develop. Maybe they’d garden together or play more rounds of Go.
Life themes in this drama
A simple drama that’s filled with simple life themes.
Be useful
One of the best things to be in this life is to be useful. Being useful allows you to serve and help others in need. Chief Hong and Ms. Dentist both demonstrate this well with their respective careers. Chief Hong has so many certificates that he can essentially do anything. He becomes useful and helpful to the towns people. It gets to the point that the townspeople struggle without him being there to help. While Ms. Dentist doesn’t have all the skills Chief Hong has, she is somebody that the townspeople sorely needs: a dentist. Her skills as a dentist really help the towns people out like when she gave Gam-ri the ability to enjoy squid again!
Being useful can give your life purpose and meaning. We see this Chief Hong. He lost his purpose and meaning in life after losing his best friend. He quit his job and came back to his hometown. We sort of see his life turn around when he decides to start helping others. He gains all sorts of skills like construction, fishing, coffee making, etc…, and his life almost turns upside down. He becomes a completely different person. By helping the people of the town, he found purpose and meaning in his life.
Chief Hong is a fictional character so it’s probably impossible to meet somebody with that many skills or trades to work that many odd jobs, but that doesn’t mean you can’t develop skills to be helpful. I’ve become more inspired to develop these more practical skills!
Don’t be so quick to judge someone
It’s never good to assume that you can evaluate somebody’s life based on your preconceived notions. It can make you narrow-minded and hurt others.
We see this happen in the very beginning of the drama when Ms. Dentist first moves to Gongjin. She starts judging and badmouthing some of the townspeople without realizing their past. She also gets easily offended when she’s being assessed, which shows how judging somebody without knowing them can make you narrow-minded.
When life gets tough, remember to take care of yourself
Life can get real tough sometimes. Work can get hard. Family problems can generate stress. Sometimes, we let these problems go on for so long that being stressed all the time can feel normal when in fact it isn’t. Our bodies aren’t mean to be stressed all the time. In order to navigate these challenges well, you need to have a healthy mind and body. Just like what grandma Gam-ri said – one should still eat.
Remember – when you take care of yourself, you’re not just helping yourself. You’re also helping others. you’re also making your parents happy. That’s what Chief Hong said to Gam-ri.
Love is the greatest gift but also the greatest source of pain
When you receive love from somebody, especially if it’s from a significant other, it’s one of the best gifts. You just feel really good. At the same time, when love is taken away from you, you can feel really hurt.
You could just tell Chief Hong was on cloud 9 when Ms. Dentist confessed her love for him. Everybody in the town knew Chief Hong was happier when him and Ms. Dentist started dating.
We see the complete opposite happen when Gam-ri dies. Chief Hong gets really sad and cries because he lost somebody that really loved him and somebody he really loved.
Surround yourself with good people!
It’s important to surround yourself with good people because they’ll be there for you during the low and celebrate with you during your high times. These people will be there to make sure that you don’t feel lonely because life can feel that way sometimes. That’s what the townspeople did for Chief Hong.
When he was sick, Gam-ri was there to take care of him. When he was celebrating his grandfather’s passing, everybody brought him food to make sure there was something to serve. When he got married, everybody was there to congratulate him! Everything they did for Chief Hong made me laugh and feel warm inside.
Remember to have some fun in unexpected situations
You’re bound to meet unexpected situations in life. Often and naturally, we try to avoid them, but sometimes, no matter how hard we try, they still impact us.
Sometimes, the best way to deal with these unexpected situations is to embrace them–maybe even find some fun in it. Just like how Chief Hong and Ms. Dentist did in the rain scene.
I love Chief Hong’s use of the rain as an analogy to dealing with unexpected situations in life. This scene is in my top 3 favorite scenes in the drama.
Hometown Cha Cha Cha Quotes
Here are some of my favorite quotes from Hometown Cha Cha Cha.
Episode 2
“You freely judge other people’s lives, but are offended when you’re being assessed? […] Life isn’t so fair for all of us. Some spend their whole lives on unpaved roads, while some run at fully speed only t reach the edge of a cliff” – Du-sik to Hye-jin
“We all badmouth others at least once in our lives.” – Du-sik to Hye-jin
Episode 3
“Someone told me that the best thing a parent can do for their children is staying healthy” – Du-sik to Gam-ri
“Toothaches are truly a pity. It doesn’t show, so no one but yourself knows how painful it is. Not even your kids.” – Hye-jin to Gam-ri
Episode 5
“Life isn’t a mathematical equation. It doesn’t have a clear answer. There’s no right answer either. You’re just given a problem, and it’s up to you on how to solve it.” – Du-sik to Hye-jin
“You’re bound to meet unexpected situations in life. Even if you use an umbrella, you’ll end up getting drenched. Just put your hands up and welcome the rain. Let’s just play” – Du-sik to Hye-jin
Episode 7
“If I let people have fun here, the house will feel less lonely right?” – Gam-ri to Du-sik
Episode 8
“It’s sad when you’re sick alone. Everyone knows that. Why don’t you?” – Hye-jin to Du-sik
Episode 9
“Talking is like pooping. You need to relieve yourself regularly to stay healthy.” – Nam-sook to Hwa-jeong
Episode 10
“Life may seem long but it really isn’t. Throw away unnecessary thoughts and be honest with yourself” – Gam-ri to Du-sik
Episode 11
“I have lived for 34 years without you, but each day seems to last forever, since I’ve met you.” – Du-sik to Hye-jin
Episode 13
“My parents gave their all to have me in this world, so I must do my best to find happiness.” – Hye-jin to Du-sik
Episode 14
“It’s funny, isn’t it? You don’t realize your own feelings until you seem them from a distance” – Cho-hui to Yeong-guk
Episode 15
“To tell you the truth, even if it wasn’t my birthday or I didn’t win a school award, I wanted to eat together as a family. I’ve always wanted us to live under the same roof.” – Yi-joon to his parents
“Look around yourself closely, and you’ll realize that you’re surrounded by many precious things. Life is full of excitement as if I’m going on a picnic the next day. ” – Gam-ri to her friends
Episode 16
“When parents pass away, children who regret the most cry the most. But I’m too ashamed to even cry.” – Gam-ri’s son to Du-sik
“No matter how hard life gets, one should still eat.” – Gam-ri to Du-sik
Re-watchability
I’d give the rewatchabaility like a 7/10.
It’s definitely something I can re-watch in the future.
It’s just the first several episodes were really cringey for me. I lowkey had to fast forward on scenes where the divorced couple were on screen.
After I got over that hump, the show became way easier and more enjoyable to watch.
What I watched before this?
I watched My Mister before this.
I was looking for something completely opposite of My Mister.
If you’ve never heard of My Mister before, it’s similar to this show in terms of genre – it’s slice of life. But it is way different than Hometown Cha Cha Cha. It’s far more depressing and serious.
Overall Rating
8/10
Hometown Cha Cha Cha was super wholesome and fun to watch. If I ever feel like I need something light to watch, Hometown is definitely my go to.
I hope you enjoyed this Hometown Cha Cha Cha review! Let me know what you thought of it in the comments below. I’d love to hear what were your favorite and least favorite parts!
