# When Life Gives You Tangerines (2025)

> A spirited Jeju girl and a steadfast boy grow through decades of setbacks and triumphs in a lifelong island love story.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/139047

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 16
- Episode runtime: 62 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, romance
- Created by: Im Sang-choon, Kim Won-suk
- Network: Netflix
- Cast: IU, Park Bo-gum, Moon So-ri, Park Hae-joon, Yoo Byeong-hun, Lee Ji-hyeon, Jeon Bae-soo, Jung Yi-seo
- TMDB rating: 9.0/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26471411/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: none
- Tone: bittersweet, tender, nostalgic, warm, melancholic

## What critics say

Viewers broadly acclaim the series as a deeply moving, masterfully written family romance whose emotional payoff lingers long after the finale.

## Synopsis

When Life Gives You Tangerines (2025) is a Korean limited series created by Im Sang-choon and Kim Won-suk for Netflix. Across sixteen episodes of about an hour each, it follows Oh Ae-sun, played by IU as a young woman and by Moon So-ri in middle age, and Yang Gwan-sik, played by Park Bo-gum as a young man and by Park Hae-joon later on. Their island story unfolds on Jeju, where a spirited girl and a steadfast boy face poverty, family obligation, and the everyday setbacks of island life, and where small victories carry real weight. The engine of the drama is the stubborn persistence of two people who keep finding their way back to each other as circumstances push them apart. Each episode moves through ordinary domestic scenes, neighborhood ties, and quiet sacrifices, so the story builds a broad portrait of a family across time rather than a single crisis. The mood is tender and bittersweet, with humor running alongside grief and a warm, nostalgic attention to the textures of Jeju. Viewers who loved the romance and generational sweep of Crash Landing on You, the tender longing of Our Blues, and the emotional sincerity of The Notebook will find a similar resonance here, and the series rewards patient, emotionally open viewing from start to finish.

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