In the first two episodes of The Wind Blows, Kwon Do-hoon (played by Kam Woo-sung) comes home drunk, falls asleep, and ‘accidentally’ locks his wife Lee Soo-jin (Kim Ha-neul) outside their apartment.
The next day, he acts like nothing has happened. Angry, Soo-jin goes to her mom’s in the countryside.
A few days later, her husband erroneously sends an address to her, with an instruction for her to just show up. While still upset, she dresses up for the evening because it’s their wedding anniversary after all, only to be even more outraged because her husband is there with a group of friends for another reason.
Okay, you should now be as mad as Soo-jin, because I was. In fact, I murmured “What a jerk, just leave him.” And then you assume that this time, he will apologize. But no, he still doesn’t.
Now, which idiot in real life will be so clueless and heartless?
Then you find out that he has early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. At 38.
Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
What follows is a series of actions that will puzzle you, starting with him hiding the illness from everyone, and then creating ‘opportunities’ for his wife to divorce him. And then he makes plans to disappear from his loved ones, with the hope that he will be forgotten.
Of course there are twists ahead but don’t expect me to tell you here.
It will be an understatement to say that I have been rather saddened and affected watching it.
It’s bad enough that I Googled “Is Alzheimer’s Disease a death sentence?”. Not exactly because it’s possible to have some quality of life with help, but it won’t be easy.
It’s bad enough that I Googled “Is Alzheimer’s Disease a death sentence?”. Not exactly because it’s possible to have some quality of life with help, but it won’t be easy.
So why does Do-hoon choose the seemingly worst course of actions? Is he doing it because he doesn’t want to be dependent? Or he just doesn’t want his loved ones to see him deteriorate?
Needless to say, I wonder what would I have done in his shoes?
The simple me says “Surely I want to be helped and cared for”, but I can also see why Do-hoon is behaving so ‘weirdly’.
I have seen many sappy Korean dramas but ‘The Wind Blows’ ranks high up on my list of the ‘must-see’.
The acting is brilliant from the leads to the supporting cast.
The relationship between Soo-jin and Do-hoon is superbly crafted but what’s even more touching for me is the effects their problems have on their good friends Hang-seo (Joon Hyuk Lee) and Soo-ah (Yoon Ji-hye). Like real good friends, they stick with them through thick and thin, but not without complaints. To have them take all the nonsense without cracking will be unreal.
That’s why this series is so relatable.