Can This Love Be Translated? is the 2026 K-drama series on Netflix that might be a good watch for fans of Korean love dramas but is an absolute snoozefest for anyone else. The plot is centered around an actress named Cha Mu-hee and a professional interpreter, Joo Ho-jin, who fall deeply in love with each other but struggle to express their feelings through the course of 12 hour-long episodes. Despite the convincing chemistry between the lead actors, Can This Love Be Translated? is bogged down by frustratingly drawn-out storytelling and the lack of anything significant even by the end of it, making it a truly disappointing watch.
Spoiler Alert
What is the Netflix K-drama about?
The show begins with a Korean actor named Cha Mu-hee visiting Tokyo on a peculiar mission—to find and confront the woman her boyfriend has been having an affair with. Despite finding this woman, Mu-hee needs the help of a man named Joo Ho-jin to even express her feelings, as she does not speak or understand Japanese. Ho-jin turns out to be a polyglot and a professional interpreter, and although he spends some great time with Mu-hee, the two have to suddenly part ways when Ho-jin receives news of Ji-sun, a friend whom he is secretly in love with, having come to Tokyo. A few months later, Mu-hee becomes a global star after the release of her new film, and despite remembering Ho-jin quite fondly, she has no contact with him.
Some time later, Mu-hee is cast opposite a Japanese superstar, Hiro Kurosawa, in a romance reality show, the premise of which is that two actors are taken to various picturesque places in the world to see if they fall in love with each other. Since the production unit is entirely Korean, and the shoot is to take place in various foreign countries like Canada and Italy, the team needs a skilled interpreter, and this is where the polyglot, Joo Ho-jin, walks back into the scene. Ho-jin is selected to work as the interpreter on the project and soon starts to feel deeply attached to Mu-hee.
What was the traumatic experience from Mu-hee’s childhood?
It is teased from the very beginning that Cha Mu-hee is still haunted by some traumatic incident from her childhood, but like everything else, the series takes an awfully long time to reveal what she had experienced. As a child, Mu-hee hardly could spend time with her father, whom she dearly loved, as he mostly stayed away on business. Therefore, when he came home on her birthday in one particular year when she was about seven or eight, Mu-hee could not contain her excitement, and it became a core memory for her. She loved the teddy bear that her father had brought for her, and she can still remember herself seated on the balcony playing with the toy and the pet chicks that she had been raising.
But this was also when something absolutely gutting happened, right in front of the young girl, as she saw her father suddenly fall to the floor and lose consciousness. What was even more shocking for Mu-hee was the reaction of her mother, who stayed calm and simply walked up to her with a piece of the birthday cake. The woman wanted Mu-hee to have the cake so that they could all be together once again, and although the girl did not understand what these words suggested, she grew immensely suspicious of her mother’s demand. This was because one of her pet chicks had nibbled on a few crumbs of the cake and instantly fallen sick and died. Witnessing this made the girl rightly fear that her mother must have done something to her father and was now trying to do the same to her.
Mu-hee’s mother, who clearly suffered from a range of serious mental health disorders, had actually put poison in her daughter’s birthday cake with the intention of killing her family members and then having the cake and taking her own life as well. The woman had most likely started to believe that all the woes and miseries of her life would be wiped clean if she and her family could get a fresh start, which was only possible in the afterlife. It is also later claimed by the Cha family that Mu-hee’s parents had never married, and when her father repeatedly refused to finally tie the knot, her mother took the drastic step of punishing the family. Therefore, she had served the cake to her husband first and had then tried to force her daughter to eat it. But in an effort to avoid the same fate as her pet chick, Mu-hee tried all that she could to get away from her mother, which resulted in her jumping from the balcony and suffering serious injuries.
As a neighbor heard the scream and the thud and immediately called an ambulance, Mu-hee was rushed to the hospital and treated over the next few weeks. Finally, when she regained consciousness and recovered from her injuries, the girl was adopted by her uncle, meaning her father’s brother, and his wife, as there was nobody left to take care of her. But the uncle and aunt, members of the esteemed Cha family, were very harsh and sometimes outright cruel to the girl, because of which Mu-hee severed ties with the family as soon as she was an independent adult. Incidentally, Mu-hee had lied to her uncle and aunt about not remembering anything from that fateful day, which led the latter to completely bury the truth and tell everyone that the girl’s parents had died in an accident. But in reality, Mu-hee still very much remembers the horrific incidents from that day and is still deeply traumatized by them.
Why does Mu-hee keep seeing Do Ra-mi?
Interestingly, Mu-hee suffers another serious fall as an adult, this time while shooting a film, and it is during the period of 6 months when she is in a coma that the film becomes extremely popular and Mu-hee becomes a global star. Therefore, when she starts to hallucinate the psychopathic murderer character that she had played in the film, Do Ra-mi, it seems like the visions stem from her inability to grasp her sudden fame, which felt like an overnight development to her. But Do Ra-mi keeps repeatedly appearing to the actor, with the hallucinations gradually worsening, with Mu-hee eventually having full-fledged conversations with her imaginary self. Finally, Do Ra-mi even ‘takes over’ Mu-hee from time to time, with the woman essentially displaying personalities of both.
As Do Ra-mi keeps appearing whenever Mu-hee experiences self-doubt and questions her own worth, the two are clearly revealed to be linked. With time, Do Ra-mi becomes a projection of all the negative emotions of Mu-hee, especially with regard to her self-loathing. Do Ra-mi constantly tries to convince Mu-hee that she is an utter failure and that she does not deserve any love from the world. The split personality of Mu-hee gradually starts to create immense problems for her, as she ends up kissing her Japanese co-actor, Hiro, while being Do Ra-mi and completely denies doing anything like this when she identifies herself as Mu-hee. Similarly, Do Ra-mi goes out on reckless nights-out during the shoot in Italy, the consequences of which are faced by Mu-hee.
Even these supposed transformations in the young woman’s mind point to her inability to process her extreme self-depreciating thoughts and, in essence, the trauma from her childhood. But in the very end , a different angle to the matter is revealed when Mu-hee discovers that she looks very similar to her mother. Therefore, the hallucinations of Do Ra-mi were actually projections of the insecurities and fears that her mother had filled her mind with when she was just a young girl. Although Do Ra-mi appears to look like a slightly altered version of Mu-hee, she is actually a portrayal of the actor’s mother, even in physical appearance. But since Mu-hee had no recollection of how her parents looked, because her mind had naturally suppressed all memories of them, she could not identify Do Ra-mi as her mother until she finally saw a photo of the woman. In essence, Mu-hee sees Do Ra-mi because the self-loathing and self-doubt that her mother had made her accustomed to still haunt her, especially after she becomes a successful and popular actor.
How is Mu-hee cured of her ailment?
Despite evidently suffering from serious mental health ailments and what definitely seems like bipolar disorder, Mu-hee’s situation is not treated like an ailment but rather a sweet characteristic about her. Instead of seeking help through professional therapy (maybe she does, but we don’t see it), Mu-hee is seen consulting a neurospecialist, who claims that her condition cannot be diagnosed by modern medicine. Thus, her condition is left unattended, and her Do Ra-mi personality starts to take over very frequently, especially during the shoot in Italy. By this time, Ho-jin is used to this weird situation, and he puts up with Do Ra-mi’s erratic behavior in an earnest effort to help his beloved Mu-hee. A few days later, Mu-hee also realizes that she has been doing some extremely strange things while acting as Do Ra-mi, but she remembers none of it, at least for now.
But with her experience of having lived with Do Ra-mi for so long, Mu-hee had also figured out how invoking confidence in herself usually suppressed her evil personality, and the key to stopping Do Ra-mi was for her to be happy and content with herself. Ho-jin’s expression of how he genuinely cares for her does a great deal of good for Mu-hee, although he does not yet reveal how much he loves her, because why should the characters in a romantic drama series express their true feelings for each other before the 10th hour? Thus, Mu-hee starts to do a lot of self-reflecting, pushing herself to be confident and stand strong against the inhibitions that she has against her own self because of her mother’s teachings, all of which is presented through scenes where the actress simply shuts her eyes with force. This stops Do Ra-mi from appearing for a long time, but she is ultimately dispelled when Mu-hee bravely revisits the memory of seeing her mother kill her father, facing her traumas and overcoming them mentally. However, towards the very end, Mu-hee fakes having been taken over by Do Ra-mi because she is too shy to be upfront with her feelings for Ho-jin, which suggests that she could have been faking it all along, or that she tried to deal with the difficult and uncomfortable situations in her life by ‘turning into’ Do Ra-mi.
Does Hiro find love?
The Japanese actor Hiro Kurosawa has a crush on Mu-hee from the very beginning, but is irked by her inability to recognize him as the one who had stopped her from falling at the red-carpet event and also for mistaking him for a mere fan. Therefore, Hiro acts very cold and disinterested when the shoot for Romantic Trip begins, and even tells the producers that he does not like his co-actor and therefore cannot act like he’s falling in love with her. But the feelings of admiration and attraction for Mu-hee do remain buried inside Hiro, and gradually start to express themselves as he spends more time with her. By the end of the shoot, Hiro is genuinely in love with Mu-hee and wants to spend the rest of his life with her, for which he even makes a heartfelt proposal to her on the last day of the shoot.
However, Hiro had also realized by now how Mu-hee had a happy glow about her every time they shot with Ho-jin working as the live translator, and so it had nothing to do with his presence. Hiro understood that Mu-hee did not have any serious feelings for him, but was in love with Ho-jin. Yet, he chose to express his feelings for her, knowing well that it would most likely trigger Ho-jin and Mu-hee to admit their feelings for one another. In this aspect, even Ho-jin has to later admit that although he is a polyglot with the ability to understand numerous languages, it is Hiro who helps translate the language of love to him. Thus, Hiro ends up being a catalyst in Mu-hee and Ho-jin’s romance.
Ultimately, Hiro accepts his fate but continues to be a great friend and supporter to Mu-hee. When the scandalous reports against Mu-hee having dated a married man start being picked up by gossip magazines all over the world, Hiro actively prevents the spread of such rumors in Japan. The superstar actor can have any woman’s love if he desires, and for a moment it even seems like Hiro too will have a happy and fulfilling end to his story like the other characters, but this does not happen. Hiro remains single till the very end, signifying that he does not want to rush into love and instead is more than willing to wait for the right person to come into his life.
What happens to Ji-sun?
Ji-sun and Ho-jin share a complicated past, as they had been close friends, with Ho-jin having actually been in love with her. But he could never admit his feelings to her, and things took an even more difficult turn when Ji-sun got together with Ho-jin’s elder half-brother, Na Jin-suk. At the beginning of the show, Ji-sun and Jin-suk are even engaged and about to marry soon, meaning that the love of his life is about to become Ho-jin’s sister-in-law. Despite this major development, Ho-jin still cannot get over his feelings for Ji-sun, and so he rushes to help her out after learning that she has come to Japan by herself, supposedly after a fight with her fiancé. However, Ho-jin ultimately stops himself from meeting Ji-sun and further complicating their situation, and the fact that he has already been slightly impressed by Mu-hee also probably helps in his decision. He tells Mu-hee about Ji-sun, and so the air turns awkward when Ji-sun joins the Romantic Trip shoot as a producer.
Ji-sun joins the shoot after breaking up with Jin-suk because of the man’s lack of genuine interest in marrying her and for him treating marriage as just another rash step to take. She remains caught up in her thoughts and confusion regarding life until she grows close to Mu-hee’s manager and agent, Kim Yong-u. Despite being younger than Ji-sun, Yong-u helps her find direction in life, stopping her from getting involved in hasty and meaningless one-night stands. In the process, Yong-u falls in love with Ji-sun, and she reciprocates the feeling as well, with them spending intensely passionate nights together. There is a slight misunderstanding between them as well, as Yong-u mistakenly believes that her new boyfriend is a married man who is having an extramarital affair with her, but that is quickly resolved as well.
At the end of Can This Love Be Translated?, Yong-u gets the chance to become a sports manager to an athlete in England, a professional role he had always desired, as he too was once an athlete. But he is genuinely scared that his moving to the UK will hamper his relationship with Ji-sun, and so he proposes to her only to hold on to her. Ji-sun does not accept the proposal, as it is really too soon for such a big step, but she agrees to move to England for higher studies, which is great news to her lover. Ultimately, Ji-sun finds genuine and nurturing love in her relationship with Yong-u, and his honest and caring nature is also rewarded.
Does Mu-hee reunite with her parents?
In a meeting with the Cha family members, Mu-hee learns that she had not known the entire truth about her parents, despite having remembered what had happened on that fateful day. Since young Mu-hee had jumped from the balcony and lost consciousness, she had no idea that the neighbor who had called the police and rushed to her apartment had actually found her parents alive. Although her mother had put poison in her birthday cake, the dosage was not high enough to kill her husband or herself, and the couple was taken to the hospital, where both of them survived the ordeal. But they naturally chose to not only separate but also abandon their daughter and move abroad for a fresh start to life. Mu-hee had actually heard of her father, but the man had been introduced to her as an uncle who lived abroad. There was no connection between her family and her mother, so nobody had any idea where the woman lived.
After learning all this, Mu-hee requests her uncle and aunt to get in touch with her father only to find out where her mother had settled. She intentionally chooses not to contact her father, since the man had once chosen to stay away from her, and so she respects his decision, despite the fact that the abandonment still hurts her. Mu-hee finds her mother’s address in the end and decides to pay her a visit, although we are not made a part of this trip to some undisclosed foreign country. By the end, it is not confirmed whether Mu-hee had actually gotten to meet her mother or whether she had abandoned the plan. Ultimately, all that matters is that she has been able to move past the traumatic memories of her childhood and the self-deprecating thoughts stemming from her mother’s teachings.
Are Mu-hee and Ho-jin together in the end?
After numerous twists and turns in their love affair, Mu-hee and Ho-jin had finally gotten together at the end of the shoot in Italy, but then a wild scandal rocked her professional career. Although her ex-boyfriend had cheated on her to have an affair with a restaurant chef in Japan, people on social media started to spread rumors that she had been having an affair with a married man. Mu-hee faces blind criticism only because she is now famous and a public figure, and she fears that Ho-jin will leave her because of this. But he naturally chooses to stand firm by her side, and he soon clears the air between himself and Ji-sun as well, admitting to her how he once had feelings for her and how he now truly loved Mu-hee. The last obstacle that the couple faces is another separation, this time because Mu-hee goes abroad to find and connect with her mother. But at the very end, she does return to Korea, where she reunites with Ho-jin, and they resume their romantic relationship, meaning that they finally get to stay together. So, it would be safe to say that the couple eventually got their happy ending in the end.
