Can this Love be Translated?

When Translation Fails But Love Doesn’t: A Spoiler-Filled Look at Netflix’s Divisive Rom-Com

I went into Can This Love Be Translated? expecting the Hong sisters’ usual magic—the same writers behind Hotel del Luna and Alchemy of Souls don’t usually miss. What I got instead was one of the most polarizing K-dramas of 2026: a show that’s either a “masterpiece” about emotional language barriers or a “cautionary tale of squandered potential,” depending on who you ask

. After bingeing all ten episodes (yes, Netflix dropped them all at once on January 16, 2026), I’m still not sure which side I’m on—but I can’t stop thinking about it.

The Setup: Lost in Translation (Literally)

Joo Ho-jin (Kim Seon-ho) is a polyglot interpreter fluent in Korean, English, Japanese, Italian, and more. He’s emotionally constipated but linguistically perfect—until he’s hired to interpret for Romantic Trip, a reality dating show pairing Korean superstar Cha Mu-hee (Go Youn-jung) with Japanese actor Hiro Kurosawa (Sota Fukushi). The twist? Ho-jin and Mu-hee met years ago in Japan’s Shonan region, before she became a global zombie-movie sensation. She remembers; he pretends not to.

Here’s where the spoilers start. Mu-hee isn’t just an anxious actress—she has dissociative identity disorder (DID), manifesting as her alter ego “Do Ra-mi” (the name of her breakout zombie character). Do Ra-mi isn’t a performance; she’s a trauma response. When Mu-hee feels unsafe or too happy (which triggers her fear of abandonment), she switches. This isn’t revealed until midway through, which explains why Mu-hee seems to oscillate between hot and cold with Ho-jin: sometimes she’s flirty and bold (Do Ra-mi), sometimes she’s withdrawn and scared (Mu-hee)

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The Twist: Trauma as a Third Language

The Hong sisters use the “childhood trauma” device heavily. Mu-hee’s mother poisoned her father and tried to poison Mu-hee when she was a child; Mu-hee escaped by climbing over a balcony. She was raised by abusive aunt and uncle who lied about her parents being dead (her father actually survived and lives in China; her mother is in LA). This trauma created Do Ra-mi—an alter who represents the mother Mu-hee both lost and fears becoming

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The reality show Romantic Trip becomes a bizarre therapy session. Ho-jin translates Hiro’s romantic advances to Mu-hee while silently falling for her himself. In a meta-narrative that’s either brilliant or uncomfortable, the show asks: Can you translate love when the person you’re speaking to doesn’t even share a single internal language with themselves?

The Ending (Spoilers Ahead)

After Mu-hee discovers her father is alive and her mother’s location, she temporarily breaks up with Ho-jin to “find herself” in Los Angeles. When she returns at Christmas, they meet at an observatory. In the finale’s most talked-about moment, Mu-hee uses the Papago translation app to tell Ho-jin “I missed you” in all four languages he speaks. He responds by kissing her—the “universal language” she’d joked about earlier when she flipped him off

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Hiro, meanwhile, gets a surprisingly dignified exit. His unrequited love for Mu-hee (or was it Do Ra-mi? Even he’s confused) pushes him to audition for an English-language film, suggesting growth rather than just heartbreak

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The Pros: What Actually Works

The Chemistry is Electric
Kim Seon-ho and Go Youn-jung could read IKEA assembly instructions and make it feel like foreplay. Their scenes together—particularly the quiet moments where Ho-jin waits for Mu-hee to switch back from Do Ra-mi—carry a tenderness that transcends the script’s messiness. As one IMDb reviewer noted, “Kim Seon-ho gives Ho-jin a quiet gravity…the kind that makes small gestures feel profound”

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Visual Poetry
This is luxury tourism porn masquerading as television. Filmed in Japan’s Shonan beaches, Alberta’s aurora-lit winterscapes, and Tuscany’s historic centers (Siena, Montalcino, Florence), every frame looks like a travel magazine. The cinematography isn’t just pretty—it’s thematic. Characters separated by windows, screens, or language barriers are visually framed apart until emotional breakthroughs dissolve the physical barriers

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The Premise is Fresh
In a sea of forced-proximity office romances, a show about the mechanics of communication—how words fail, how context shifts meaning, how listening is an act of translation—feels intellectually engaging. The scene where novelist Kim Yeong-hwan tells Ho-jin “There are as many languages as there are people” hits harder than most K-drama philosophical musings

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The Cons: Where It Stumbles

Mental Health as Plot Device
This is the big one. The Hong sisters use DID and childhood trauma as narrative seasoning rather than treating them with the gravity they require. Critics and viewers with mental health backgrounds have called this out: “I am disgusted by the use of childhood trauma and DID as a plot device, and a form of audience manipulation,” wrote one DramaBeans reviewer

. The alter ego Do Ra-mi is convenient for romantic tension but potentially damaging for DID representation.

Pacing Whiplash
The first three episodes are a breezy, funny rom-com. Episodes 4-7 slow to a crawl with repetitive “will they/won’t they” misunderstandings. Then episodes 8-10 suddenly become psychological thrillers. As one IMDb reviewer put it: “The genre itself feels a bit confused…That tonal shift wasn’t handled as smoothly as it could have been”

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The “Netflix Translation” Irony
In a delicious bit of meta-commentary, viewers have slammed Netflix’s English subtitles for being inaccurate and losing nuance—“rage-baiting them into learning Korean,” as one Reddit user joked. For a show literally about precise interpretation, having subtitles that mistranslate key emotional scenes is either poetic or pathetic

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Ratings & Reception: The Divided Verdict

Can This Love Be Translated? sits at approximately 8.2/10 on IMDb from over 1,100 reviews, though scores range wildly from 1/10 to 10/10

. On Rotten Tomatoes, critic reviews are sparse but audience reactions are polarized.

The Love:

• “Masterpiece…Kim and Go have electric chemistry. The theme of translating love is unique and refreshing”
• “The best romance of 2026…sophisticated, heartwarming, and internationally resonant”
• “Not just a romance—it’s a reminder that love itself is a language”

The Hate:

• “A cautionary tale of squandered potential…filled with tired clichés and repetitive misunderstandings”
• “Netflix just paid a large sum for Chanel and Italian tourism promotional video…vast, empty shells”
• “Comfort viewing, not a soul-sticker…shallow, leaving me feeling that watching it to the end was a waste of time”

Final Verdict

Can This Love Be Translated? is a Rorschach test. If you come for escapist romance, the mental health themes feel jarring and exploitative. If you come for psychological depth, the rom-com tropes feel shallow. But if you meet it on its own messy terms—a show about how we’re all speaking different languages even when we share vocabulary—it’s undeniably affecting.

Is it the Hong sisters’ best work? No—that’s still Hotel del Luna. Is it worth your weekend? If you’ve ever felt like your heart speaks a dialect nobody else understands, probably yes. Just maybe watch it with the Korean audio on and the subtitles off. After all, as the show itself suggests, some things can’t be translated—only felt.