Overview of Twinkling Watermelon

‘Twinkling Watermelon’ is a romance fantasy South Korean drama. It features Choi Hyun-wook, Ryeoun, Seol In-ah and Shin Eun-soo in lead roles. The 16-episode show was released on 25 September 2023 on tvN and streamed its final episode on 14 November 2023. It is also available on Viu and Viki.

‘Twinkling Watermelon’ revolves around a group of teenagers and their music band. Ha Eun-gyeol, a child from the present, time travels to 1995 and meets his father who is in his teenage years. By showing shuffled events, the drama parallelly shows stories from the past and present.

Profile

Cast

Main Cast

• Ryeoun as Ha Eun-gyeol
• Jung Hyeon-jun as young Ha Eun-gyeol
• Choi Hyun-wook as Ha Yi-chan
• Choi Won-young as adult Ha Yi-chan
• Seol In-ah as Choi Se-kyung / On Eun-yoo
• Lee So-yeon as adult Choi Se-gyeong
• Shin Eun-soo as Yoon Chung-ah
• Seo Young-hee as adult Yoon Chung-ah

Supporting

• Ahn Do-gyu as Oh Ma-joo
• Kim Hyeong-beom as adult Oh Ma-joo
• Yoon Jae-chan as Kang Hyun-yul
• Song Chang-eui as adult Kang Hyun-yul
• Lee Ha-min as Lee Si-guk
• Ryu Soo-young as adult Lee Si-guk
• Lee Su-chan as Noh Se-bum
• Jin Tae-hyun as adult Noh Se-bum
• Choi Won-young as father of Eun-gyeol
• Seo Young-hee as mother of Eun-gyeol
• Bong Jae-hyun as Eun-ho
• Kim Tae-woo as Yoon Geon-hyun
• Kim Joo-ryoung as Lim Ji-mi
• Kwon Do-hyun as Yoon Joo-yeop
• Lee Soo-min as Yoon Sang-ah
• Chun Ho-jin as Choi Hyeon / Grandpa Viva
• Park Ho-san as younger Choi Hyeon
• Jung Sang-hoon as master
• Woo Je-yeon as On Ji-hwan

Special Appearance

Synopsis

Ha Eun-gyeol is the elder child of his deaf parents, and he also has a deaf brother. He is very intelligent and is the only member of the family who has the ability to speak and hear. During his childhood, his parents move to a new house. The owner of the house has a child of the same age as Ha Eun-gyeol. Impressed by Eun-gyeol’s academic scores and other extracurricular certificates, the lady suggests her son to befriend Ha Eun-gyeol.

After becoming friends, the boy tries to manipulate Ha Eun-gyeol and tells him to write his name on Ha Eun-gyeol’s answer sheet in the coming exam. His refusal of the plan turns the other one against him. He starts to bully Ha Eun-gyeol.

One day after school, the boy pours water on Ha Eun-gyeol. He becomes sad, and on the way back home, he sits in front of an old musical instrument shop and cries. Hearing him cry, the owner of the shop, an old man whom the children are scared about, invites him inside and gives him a towel to dry himself.

After talking to Ha Eun-gyeol, the old man suggests Eun-gyeol to attend guitar class to relax. Ha Eun-gyeol starts attending guitar classes at the music shop. However, he does not tell his parents about it since they cannot listen him play. Soon he becomes excellent at playing guitar. Seeing his talent, the old man decides to test him. He gives him a song and tells him to play it on the guitar; if he wins, he will be gifted a precious guitar that the old man has been keeping for a long time.

One day Ha Eun-gyeol sees the house owner’s son standing outside after being punished by his mother. Seeing him standing in the cold, Ha Eun-gyeol gives his coat to him. Later in the evening, the boy opens a window of Ha Eun-gyeol’s house and throws the coat inside. Along with the coat, the boy kicks in a used cigarette inside the room.

Unfortunately, Ha Eun-gyeol’s sick brother is sleeping inside the room, and the room catches fire when a curtain of the window rubs the cigarette’s lit end. When Ha Eun-gyeol returns from visiting the old man in the music shop, his mother scolds him for putting his family in danger due to his carelessness.

Although the house owner lady understands the reason behind the accident was her son,  she accuses Ha Eun-gyeol’s family of burning the house. Ha Eun-gyeol’s family decides to move to another place. Before leaving, he runs to the music shop to meet the old man, but the old man dies the previous night.

Years later, a teenage Ha Eun-gyeol joins a music band as the lead singer and guitarist. On the day of a special event, Ha Eun-gyeol’s father asks him to accompany him to the police station to provide evidence of a car accident caused by their former house owner’s son. Like the last time, the lady tries to protect her son by accepting the blame for the accident. However, Ha Eun-gyeol’s father is determined to bring out the truth and provides evidence against the house owner’s son.

An angry lady tells his father that Ha Eun-gyeol is addicted to smoking. Afterwards, his father goes in search of him and finds him at the concert place. He scolds Ha Eun-gyeol for smoking and for hiding about attending guitar classes.

Ha Eun-gyeol goes to a lonely place after an argument with his father. In anger, he lifts the guitar above his head, intending to break it by crashing it on the ground. However, on the ground, he sees two shadows instead of one. Likewise, he sees two full moons in the sky shining. He looks around and finds a musical instrument shop. He goes to the shop and sells his guitar. In addition to money, the shop owner gives Ha Eun-gyeol a ticket and tells him that he should keep the ticket safe in case he decides to revisit the place to take back his sold guitar.

Opening the door of the music shop, Ha Eun-gyeol steps outside directly into a bright day in 1995, the time when his father was in high school. It takes a while for him to realise that he has time traveled to 1995. There he meets his father, Yi-chan, who is a teenager. To his surprise, his father can talk and hear, and he is also a member of a music band. Seeing his father, he recalls the accident that his father once told. Ha Eun-gyeol decides to prevent the accident and save his father from losing his ability to speak and hear.

Yi-chan (Ha Eun-gyeol’s father) and his best friend mistook Ha Eun-gyeol as the musician whom they invited to join their band. Ha Eun-gyeol utilises the opportunity and stays with his father. Being around his father, Ha Eun-gyeol realises that Yi-chan created the band to impress his crush Choi Se-gyeong. Ha Eun-gyeol becomes irritated and decides to make Yi-chan love Yoon Chung-ah, his real mother.

Choi Se-gyeong is the heartthrob of the entire school, but she avoids every boy who has confessed their feelings for her. Though she is not interested in music, she plays cello. Seeing Yi-chan’s efforts to impress her Choi Se-gyeong gives him a challenge to create a music band, and if he wins, she will accept his love. Nonetheless, she does not have any love interest in Yi-chan and later moves abroad.

Like Ha Eun-gyeol, Choi Se-gyeong’s daughter On Eun-yoo sells her cello at the magical music shop and time travels to 1995. Back in the present timeline, Eun-yoo was dealing with depression. Her father has an illicit affair, and he goes with that woman, divorcing her mother. She feels abandoned and decides to end her life. However, the door to travel back to 1995 gives her an opportunity to make things right in her life. She decides to find out the first love of her mother and tries to make them marry in the future. She thinks it would make her life better and prevent her parents from divorcing.

Taking the identity of her mother, Choi Se-gyeong, she starts to become close to Yi-chan, thinking that he is her mother’s first love. Her mother has already told Eun-yoo that her first love liked eating spicy food, and he has created a music band to impress her. The information makes Eun-yoo believe that Yi-chan is her mother’s first love.

The appearance of Eun-yoo in the scene complicates the problems of Ha Eun-gyeol since Yi-chan becomes highly motivated after meeting Eun-yoo (who has taken the identity of her mother, Se-gyeong).

The arrival of Eun-yoo compels Ha Eun-gyeol to find his mother Yoon Chung-ah at the earliest. Unfortunately, his mother has not revealed stories of her childhood to Ha Eun-gyeol, which makes it hard to find her.

Eventually, he meets Yoon Chung-ah, and some surprising incidents give him the privilege of staying at her house. While staying at her luxurious house, Ha Eun-gyeol learns that Yoon Chung-ah lives with her father, stepmother, half-sister, and half-brother. Her stepmother has turned her life into hell by preventing her right to learning sign language and communicating with others.

On the contrary, her father is still fond of her and wants Yoon Chung-ah to live a happy life. Also, her father notices the changes that happen in Yoon Chung-ah’s life after meeting Ha Eun-gyeol.

To divert Eun-yoo from becoming close to Yi-chan, Ha Eun-gyeol starts to show love interest in her, though he knows that his love will be a failure when he travels back to 2023. Also, he tries to protect Yi-chan from all kinds of danger to prevent Yi-chan from meeting the accident and losing his hearing ability.

As time passes, Yi-chan and Yoon Chung-ah start to have feelings for each other. However, the stepmother becomes envious of Yoon Chung-ah’s happy life. She destroys her fax machine and locks her in a room. Ha Eun-gyeol rescues her from the room and takes her to Yi-chan’s house.

To pretend innocent in front of Yoon Chung-ah’s father, the stepmother cooks up a story accusing Ha Eun-gyeol of kidnapping Yoon Chung-ah for money. Later, she kidnaps Ha Eun-gyeol and makes him sign a contract paper.

Yoon Chung-ah’s father has already arranged a team to keep an eye on Ha Eun-gyeol. Therefore, her father’s men save Ha Eun-gyeol from the kidnappers and reveal the truth. Later, her father divorces his second wife. Angered by losing wealth and prestige, Yoon Chung-ah’s half-brother decides to kill Ha Eun-gyeol by hitting him with his car.

Unfortunately, Yi-chan pushes away Ha Eun-gyeol and gets hit by the car. In the accident, Yi-chan loses his ability to hear. Ha Eun-gyeol regrets not being able to save Yi-chan from the accident.

In the meantime, Yoon Chung-ah’s father learns about the accident, and he makes arrangements for Yi-chan’s treatment.

Finally, the day arrives to take Ha Eun-gyeol back to the present. Ha Eun-gyeol reaches the place where he found the magical music shop. Likewise, Eun-yoo is also prepared to travel back to the present time. They have already made promises to meet each other when they go back to the present.

Ha Eun-gyeol wakes up from his dream startled. He finds himself in a cosy room, and on the wall he sees a photo of his family with his grandfather (Yoon Chang-ah’s father). From the mansion, Ha Eun-gyeol runs to find Eun-yoo. He discovers that Eun-yoo’s time travel to 1995 has fixed the problems in her life, and she is living a happy life with her parents abroad.

Later, he realises the band that he joined before time traveling to 1995 has become successful, and in the evening, his band is going to perform a special concert. At the event place, he learns that his parents live a good life. His mother has won many awards. His father, though he lost his hearing ability in the accident, has overcome his fears and disabilities and has become a successful businessman.

The drama ‘Twinkling Watermelon’ ends on a happy note by showing Ha Eun-gyeol recognising Eun-yoo from the crowd and meeting her after the concert.

Theme

The drama ‘Twinkling Watermelon’ discusses a number of themes like time travel and its related complications, youth, family, and music. The hero’s time travel to 1995 helps him rewrite the story of his family. When Ha Eun-gyeol gets the chance to time travel to 1995, he thinks that his mission is to prevent the accident that takes away the hearing ability of his father. Though he fails in his mission, his involvement in his parents’ lives during their teenage years helps him to gift a good life to his mother.

Furthermore ‘Twinkling Watermelon’ highlights the importance of making wise decisions at the right time. It stresses the relationship between parents and their children. Also, it shows the power of music that wipes out the communication barriers.

Awards

No information is available.