2026 has only just begun, and we have so many K-dramas to get started on already! But Can This Love Be Translated, the first Netflix K-drama to release all episodes on this Friday (the first for this year, that is) has been an absolute delight to watch. Fridays are often reserved for absurd dramas or action ones that are highly engaging, but occasionally we get a cutesy drama like this one that is smooth enough to binge like butter (yes, BTS is coming back!). Before we even saw promotional material for this show, we already knew the chemistry would be incredible. Kim Seon-Ho and Go Youn-Jung play an interpreter and an actress, respectively. Cha Mu-Hee is a budding actress with just short of 10K followers on Instagram, whereas Joo Ho-Jin is an established translator in Italy for some work. Their meet-cute isn’t really cute at all, but one can say what follows is absolutely adorable. Despite the unrelatable nature of putting yourself in the shoes of an actress, the show seems to have a realistic approach to love and romance, so let’s find out if the ending is as romantic too.
Spoiler Alert
What Is Mu-Hee’s Trauma?
In Can This Love Be Translated, Cha Mu-Hee seems to be an ordinary person with some anger issues, but it doesn’t take too long to realize how lonely she truly is. When Ho-Jin first meets her, she is looking for an ex who cheated on her and now has a pregnant woman as his girlfriend. I know, it’s quite complicated, but nothing beats her past life. Ho-Jin and Mu-Hee’s circumstances are such that, after saving an Italian kid’s life at the restaurant (in Japan), they end up spending the whole day together. The Italian couple gives Ho-Jin a special dinner, and since he’s just made a new friend, he decides to go along with it. They’re both having a kind of tragic time, Mu-Hee with her ex and Ho-Jin with a love that never ended up happening. Ho-Jin takes Mu-Hee to Enoshima Island, an island that the woman he was in love with wanted to visit for her birthday. It happens to be her birthday that day, so I guess he’s there just to get a glimpse of her. But it so happens that just as Ho-Jin and Mu-Hee are about to make it to that reservation, Ho-Jin gets a call from his brother (who is seeing the woman of Ho-Jin’s dreams, Ji-Sun), because he can’t find her.
While Ji-Sun and Ho-Jin did not meet on that day, he still left Mu-Hee because she encouraged him to go, a train blocking her way as he disappeared into nothingness. But this whole interaction left Ho-Jin with the realization that this is a lonely woman who has never been loved. But the next time he hears about her, he’s shocked to learn that, while shooting a zombie movie, her harness broke and she fell from a great height. Fortunately, she wakes up, but soon after, she starts hallucinating. Who is the hallucination? Well, it happens to be Do Ra-Mi, the character she played in the zombie movie. But why does Do Ra-Mi appear to Mu-Hee?
Well, it turns out that when Mu-Hee was a child, she saw her father “die” from poisoning, and thought her mother would do the same to her. So she tried to step off the railing of the balcony, falling in the same way that she did during the shoot. That’s why she was so scared to do the stunt, I suppose. Turns out, Mu-Hee remembers what happened when she was a child. It was her birthday, and her mother had decided to poison the whole family so they could all be happy together. Mu-Hee’s parents had never married, but Mu-Hee’s mother had been desperate to keep them together; this was the only way she could do it. Mu-Hee refused to eat the cake because she noticed what was happening. But, to make matters worse, Mu-Hee was adopted by her uncle and aunt, who never treated her right because they were afraid of her. They didn’t even bother trying to understand the child, and instantly decided that because she shares her mother’s blood, she too will end up being evil. Mu-Hee happens to be the sweetest little bean, which is why her trauma manifests as the zombie killer Do Ra-Mi. While initially she’s wearing the Do Ra-Mi costume, soon after, the avatar changes into a white dress; it’s the same dress that Mu-Hee’s mother was wearing on her birthday. Mu-Hee’s a spitting image of her mother, so the hallucinations were never of Do Ra-Mi, but of her mother.
Who Is Ho-Jin’s Translator?
In Can This Love Be Translated’s ending, when Hiro asks Ho-Jin if things would’ve turned out differently had Mu-Hee understood Japanese, Ho-Jin replies that even he couldn’t understand her. But he tells him that he, too, had a translator. I think the translator he’s referring to here is Do Ra-Mi, because she’s the reason he was able to bring Mu-Hee back and keep her safe. After her hallucinations because of the accident, one fine day, Mu-Hee started to dissociate. So, whenever Ho-Jin met her privately, she was Do Ra-Mi. This was a repeat occurrence when they were in Italy, and she had the most fun as Do Ra-Mi, leaving Ho-Jin to look after her. If it weren’t for this version of Mu-Hee (because Do Ra-Mi is, after all, a version of Mu-Hee), Ho-Jin may not have ever understood why she’s struggling and how she truly feels about him. It takes forever for Mu-Hee to admit how smitten she is with Ho-Jin, but it takes Ra-Mi mere seconds.
What Happens With Hiro?
Hiro is the guy that Mu-Hee is supposed to be seeing in the reality romance show “Romantic Trip.” He’s an established actor before Mu-Hee even makes it big, but he’s also Japanese, so Mu-Hee has no idea who he is. However, their first encounter is on a red carpet, where she nearly faints, and he catches her. But the next time Mu-Hee meets Hiro, she thinks he’s a fan and takes a picture with him, leaving him embarrassed. So, Hiro decides to be a prick to her on purpose when he learns that she’s going to be his travel partner on the show. Hiro wants revenge, but Mu-Hee has no idea what she’s done, because she doesn’t remember him. But soon after getting to know her, Hiro can’t help but like the person that Mu-Hee is. So much so that he ends up falling in love with her by the end of “Romantic Trip.” When he confesses, Ho-Jin struggles to translate, because he doesn’t want Mu-Hee to hear his confession. However, he tells her what Hiro has said, only for her to think it’s fake and just for the show. She finally learns from the production that the confession was real after the edit is ready. They offer to remove the confession so Hiro doesn’t have to be flustered when the show airs, but he’s a good sport about it. Ultimately, Hiro and Mu-Hee have a great friendship, and I think it will last longer, especially once Hiro finds someone himself. For now, though, he worries for her while working out, because that’s his escape.
Do Ji-Sun and Yong-U Stay Together?
Ji-Sun is Ho-Jin’s first love, well, at least on the show, but she happens to be dating his brother. This leaves him devastated, but he decides to get over it, because this is his brother we’re talking about (even if they have different mothers). Ji-Sun breaks up with Ho-Jin’s brother, though, because he seems too nonchalant for her. When he asks her to marry him, it’s not because he wants to be married, but because she wants to. This leaves her really upset, and she runs away to join the production of “Romantic Trip.” By this time, fortunately, Ho-Jin and Mu-Hee have already developed strong feelings for each other. She even gets mad about Ji-Sun showing up, which is very cute. While at first, Ji-Sun just wants a break from Ho-Jin’s brother, when on the trip, she calls him and breaks up with him. This is specifically because of a conversation she has with Yong-U, who uses the word “cheat,” sparking an idea in her.
Ji-Sun then starts to look for guys to cheat with, but she can’t find anyone. One fine day, she ends up kissing Yong-U out of frustration, and he immediately reciprocates, because apparently he’s developed feelings for her in this time. What starts off as a one-night stand spirals into a misunderstanding (that Kang Han-Na cameo was unexpected). Ji-Sun visits Yong-U’s house, only to find another woman there, but it turns out this is the day he’s moved out, and a happy couple has moved in. Well, they’re not so happy anymore, because Ji-Sun messed up their relationship by showing up there too (oops, 8 years down the drain). Love that the show subverts the trope, and they talk immediately about the misunderstanding, though, because if that had dragged on, I’d have been mad!
Ultimately, Yong-U visits Ji-Sun in Busan, her hometown, and asks her to marry him, because he’s moving to the UK and doesn’t want them to break up. Turns out she’s been planning to take a sabbatical from work for a year too, so this would be perfect for her, and she can go abroad with him instead of going to the US to study as she’d planned earlier. Even though he’s younger than her, he gives her what Jin-Suk never could have given her. He’s stable, and he wants her just as much as she wants him. He’s more eager than she is, which is what was missing in the previous relationship. She needed initiative, and now she has it.
What Happens With Mu-Hee’s Family?
I think the last episode was a little over dramatic, though it didn’t have to be. Can This Love Be Translated’s ending is romantic, yes, but the whole family drama is left for the last episode, which is a little bit annoying. Mu-Hee’s uncle and aunt, who adopted her, want an antique piece that belongs to Ho-Jin’s mother. Mu-Hee’s uncle visits Ho-Jin and tries to scare him about Mu-Hee. At the same time, Mu-Hee’s aunt visits her and isn’t surprised to learn that she remembers the night of her birthday from all those years ago, though she’s been telling people she doesn’t remember a thing. I do like that her uncle and aunt didn’t immediately come for her money because she’s now rich and famous; that would’ve also been an annoying trope to follow. They are evil here, but emotionally. She admits to Mu-Hee that they were afraid of her and what she would become. But she finishes with the fact that if Mu-Hee looked in the mirror, she would understand why, because she’s the spitting image of her mother.
But none of this scares Ho-Jin. Instead, he doubles down on his feelings and promises to never let her go. However, he also finds out that her parents are still alive, and while she’s not so interested in meeting her father, who wasn’t even around much when she was a kid, she does want to meet her mother. We don’t get to see this interaction; instead, we see Ho-Jin waiting for her, hoping she’ll come back for him, because they “break up” before she heads off, not knowing how long she’ll be going for or if she’ll get the closure she needs. But, ultimately, just like they saw the aurora together, Mu-Hee shows up to see the stars with Ho-Jin, as she’d promised she would. They finally get the happy ending they’d been waiting for. But I’d imagine “Romantic Trip” would get popular enough for Mu-Hee to get more projects, and she’ll have to restart her career again. Maybe she chose acting because she would feel more love and acceptance, or maybe because she’d be able to do many roles, forgetting her loneliness. Apart from the DID, there are subtle hints about mental health in this show too, and I think after all this time, Mu-Hee’s finally not suicidal and doesn’t feel like her life needs to end. That’s the effect the trauma had on her; it didn’t make her hostile towards her. But anyway, the show ends on a positive note, and I can only hope that even if Mu-Hee continues acting, she will be with Ho-Jin.
