Tinted With You (물들여)

Synopsis 

A time-slip fantasy romance between Heon, the deposed Crown Prince who is trapped in the painting, Guem, a guard silently protecting the prince, and Eun Ho, a high school student who adores painting and lives in the present. (Source: IMDb)

Watch Tinted With You if you like:

• BL 
• Short web dramas – short and sweet
• ACE’s Park Jun Hee – support Jun’s lead role

Avoid Tinted With You if you dislike:

• Low production value – small budget is apparent 
• Lack of story depth
• Idol dramas – Park Jun Hee [ACE] and Yoon Hyun Woo [ATO6] are the main leads with little experience acting

Episodes 1-8 Mini Recaps

[ Episode 1 ] 

Eun Ho wakes up from a dream after studying hard. Seo Jin points out a painting in the textbook that looks similar to Eun Ho’s painting style. Eun Ho leaves to study at a cafe, and as he looks around at the paintings hanging in the cafe, the lights start to flicker. The closer he gets to the same image that Seo Jin pointed out in the textbook, the faster the lights flicker. The three dotted figures in the painting start to move. A strange lady pops out beside Eun Ho and scares him. “I finally found the painting’s owner.” The lady and the three dots vanish, and Eun Ho ends up in a forest. A bloody fight has just occurred, and Eun Ho stumbles upon Crown Prince Lee Heon and bodyguard Guem. 

[ Episode 2 ] 

With Guem’s sword to Eun Ho’s neck, they interrogate Eun Ho’s identity. Eun Ho believes this is a prank that Seo Jin sets up until he feels actual danger. Crown Prince Lee Heon will spare Eun Ho’s life if he sends a letter to the King. After receiving the letter and confirming that he has time-traveled to the Joseon period, Eun Ho has to set out at first light the next day. Not being able to sleep, Eun Ho opens the window to see Lee Heon in the moonlight. He approaches Lee Heon, and they have a heart-to-heart talk.

[ Episode 3 ] 

Eun Ho comes to bid farewell to Lee Heon and Guem and finds them in an embrace. Before he leaves, Lee Heon gives Eun Ho a set of clothes to blend in. Reluctantly bidding them goodbye, Eun Ho leaves to send out the letter. Not long afterward, Eun Ho shows back up at the house with Seo Jin, a friendly and familiar face. When nighttime comes, Eun Ho realizes that Seo Jin is acting weird but brushes it aside, assuming it’s due to failing the exam.

[ Episode 4 ] 

Eun Ho runs out to see Seo Jin and Guem fighting and soon figures out that the familiar face to him wasn’t Seo Jin. The danger of the attempted assassination leads Eun Ho, Lee Heon, and Guem to share a room. The next day, Lee Heon finds out that Eun Ho is a painter and asks him to look over his personal paintings. 

[ Episode 5 ] 

Eun Ho and Lee Heon spend time painting together. Their moments spent painting together allow their relationship to blossom. 

[ Episode 6 ] 

While Guem may be a bit aggressive, he still shows concern for Eun Ho. Realizing that his final exam is coming up, Eun Ho rushes to find the mysterious painting so that he can go home. Eun Ho tells Guem that he is from the future.

[ Episode 7 ] 

Guem realizes that Lee Heon will be in danger if Eun Ho’s words are valid. He pleads Eun Ho to take Lee Heon with him to the future. Eun Ho asks Lee Heon to finish the painting with him. 

[ Episode 8 ] 

With a time limit, Eun Ho and Lee Heon must finish the painting before the King sends his people. Guem decides to stay behind to delay any distractions that may prevent Eun Ho and Lee Heon from completing the painting. Unbeknownst to them, the mysterious lady had visited Guem and had given him a secret task. Rewriting their fates through the painting, they all receive their new happy endings. 

Tinted With You Review

Painting a new destiny with you

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ “Lukewarm cup of tea!” 

Characters

I have to admit that I came into this drama with no expectations for the show except to see ACE’s Jun or Park Jun Hee partake in a lead role. Although I have long taken notice of Jun, I have yet to see his acting from his previous cameo works. I went in expecting to cringe a little but allowing myself to be open-minded. However, I was pretty surprised that Jun didn’t make me cringe, but the first scene we see of Lee Heon and Guem during the assassination attempt felt underwhelming. The lack of emotional believability made me question if I could enjoy the drama. As I continued the drama, Jun exceeded my expectations while Yoo Hyun Woo and Yoon Tae Jung’s acting got better. I need to clarify why Yoo Hyun Woo and Yoon Tae Jung were judged a bit harshly at first. I thought these two are established actors – or at least have more experience under their belt than Jun. After completing the show, I researched and found that Yoo Hyun Woo is part of an idol-actor group, and they’re both fairly new to the industry. Also, Yoo Hyun Woo’s soundtrack for Tinted With You, Like That Time (그때처럼), is probably my favorite, and his vocals were impressive. I wished that Park Jun Hee and Yoo Hyun Woo would’ve been able to collaborate and duet with an OST for Tinted With You. 

Park Jun Hee plays Eun Ho. Eun Ho is a high school student who time-travels into a painting with vague return instructions. While he is in a new place with so much to take in, he forgets to complete his original task before returning home. Eun Ho faces danger many times due to his encounter with the crown prince. Yet this opportunity allows him to meet new friends, an old friend, and find love. While Eun Ho is our protagonist, there isn’t much depth to his character. We know that Eun Ho is a hard-working student who cares about his future. There are many instances where we see Eun Ho worried about his exams. He’s attentive to the people around him and honestly does care about how people feel – how he came to be close with Lee Heon. Even though Eun Ho has been threatened and treated roughly by Geum, he doesn’t lash back or is upset about it. It was Eun Ho’s open and honest personality that made Lee Heon fall in love with him.  

He plays a static character whose primary role is to finish saving Lee Heon and return to the future. Eun Ho, at its core, is already perfect in his bubble, and while static characters don’t always have to be boring, Eun Ho’s character pales in comparison to Lee Heon and Geum. While the writers could have given him an exciting element to spice up his character, we ended up not seeing much of Eun Ho outside of being the hero who saves the day.

Yoo Hyun Woo plays Crown Prince Lee Heon. Crown Prince Lee Heon is banished to live outside the palace, yet his brother, the King, is still threatened by his existence, and danger is always coming his way. However, we see that Lee Heon wants to live a peaceful life. He has never cared for the position and feels like he doesn’t belong to royalty. Lee Heon is willing to raise the white flag and make the sacrifices to live peacefully. He doesn’t smile much and has never been able to connect with anyone on a personal level before meeting Eun Ho. Lee Heon’s character is probably my favorite, or the idea of this character was my favorite. There’s a lot of emotional and mental trauma from being the crown prince he carries with him. He seeks peace and tranquility in a chaotic fight he never fought for. His attraction to Eun Ho started with sympathy in Eun Ho, who he saw didn’t belong. With that similarity and Eun Ho’s open and honest personality, Lee Heon emotionally connected with Eun Ho. 

While I liked Lee Heon’s character, Yoo Hyun Woo’s acting didn’t bring Lee Heon’s emotions to life, such as Lee Heon’s sadness and disappointment. Two emotional scenes that stuck out to me that could’ve been polished to make his character stand out more are at the beginning and the end of the series. The first one was during the assassination attempt, and the other was when he found out that his brother had made an official announcement of killing him. 

Geum is Crown Prince Lee Heon’s loyal bodyguard. He’s rough on the outside, takes his position seriously, and is a softie on the inside. While he doesn’t have as much screen time as Eun Ho and Lee Heon, we felt his love for Lee Heon, sense of duty and responsibility, and admiration for Eun Ho. It was easy not to be upset with him when he was aggressive towards Eun Ho to defend Lee Heon. In addition, it was also upsetting to see him willing to sacrifice his life to save them.

Conclusion

Personally, I think that this would’ve been a great manhwa or manga to read. If this was a manhwa, the lack of focus on the details could leave a lot to our imagination. As we get more and more short web dramas, I think many writers, directors, and producers of these shows forget that a good storyline is still needed. Even when crossed on time, a story can still show and capture viewers in a way that allows the show to feel conclusive but leaves the watcher yearning for more to be explored. This may come off a bit contradicting, but I’ve watched some web dramas and short movies where they’ve done just that: tell a conclusive story that just felt too short and left me wanting to see it develop into a whole series so that we can see more details. 

I wanted to give this web drama a higher rating because while it didn’t hit the spot, it had elements that I like from a story: time travel and a historical setting. The drama has tangible aspects that make it sound good but did not explore the idea well. While it wasn’t horrible, I feel like the production is an issue in the drama. It was easy to tell that there was a lack of props, sets, and background characters. The sets or locations often feel empty, but they paired it nicely with all the open areas to capture nice scenery or focus more on the characters and their conversations. If Tinted With You had better production, it might have added a little bit more charm to the drama. 

This web drama caters to BL lovers than having a beautiful story unfold. It makes sense as South Korea has only started to create more BL content. So, instead of fleshing out the plot to make it more dynamic, they slightly hit the nail to make it cater to younger audiences. 

The last point that didn’t drive it home for me was why Eun Ho time traveled. We didn’t get clear reasoning as to why it has to be Eun Ho who saves Lee Heon. Eun Ho is the painting owner and there was some indication that this is a time loop concept: the mysterious lady told Guem he had to stay behind to make sure that the painting gets buried for Eun Ho to discover in the future. However, when asked why it had to be Lee Heon, the mysterious lady said that Lee Heon was pitiful. So the backstory just felt lacking. Pitying a past figure that Eun Ho himself doesn’t know, it could’ve been any poor past figure and not Lee Heon. Not only could it have been any historical figure who deserves saving, but it could’ve also been anyone else who did the saving than Eun Ho. 

Even though Tinted With You is not something we haven’t seen before in the drama world, it’s still a cute story. I would like to see more of all three of these actors in the future. I hope that this is the start of many of their works in the acting industry! 

What were your thoughts on Tinted With You? If you want to share them, I’d love to read them in the comments below. 

_{Photo credits (all linked): Hancinema, IDOL ROMANCE_official}