When Life Gives You Tangerines ending explained: IU, Park Bo-gum’s Korean romance drama crafts its own kind of ‘happy’ ending

South Korean actors IU and Park Bo-gum star in When Life Gives You Tangerines which released on Netflix in March 2025. (Image via Instagram)

If there’s one takeaway from the Korean drama When Life Gives You Tangerines—starring singer-actor IU (My Mister), Park Bo-gum (Reply 1988, Encounter), Park Hae-joon (The World of the Married), Moon So-ri (A Good Lawyer’s Wife) and Kim Seon-ho (Hometown Cha Cha Cha)—it is to find happiness in the little things, all through your life.

Towards the end of When Life Gives You Tangerines, when Yang Geum-myeong (IU) asks her mother Oh Ae-sun if she’s really so happy to have her book of poems out, Ae-sun replies with what has become a refrain in the series by this point: Yes, I am. I am just so happy. By this time in the story, Ae-sun has lost many loved ones—some of them dying tragically young, and she has overcome some daunting odds. And yet you know that her happiness draws from an old and deep well, fed by her one-big-love.

Directed by Kim Won-seok (Misaeng, My Mister) and written by Lim Sang-choon (When the Camellia Blooms), the series—for those who haven’t seen it yet—begins on Jeju in 1951 and follows the love story of Oh Ae-sun and and Yang Gwan-sik. (The story arc is some 70 years, and there are many actors who play the lead part: the child Ae-sun is played by Kim Tae-yeon, young Ae-sun by IU; and the older Ae-sun by Moon So-ri; Lee Cheon-mu plays child Gwan-sik; Moon Woo-jin, teen Gwan-sik; Park Bo-gum, young Gwan-sik and Park Hae-joon appears as middle-aged Gwan-sik in the series).

Ae-sun is bright but poor, and she has had some very bad luck in her early years. Gwan-sik, from age 9, is inexplicably drawn to Ae-sun and follows her around—miserable to see her misery, and desperate to alleviate it in any way he can. Ae-sun and Gwan-sik marry young. Misfortune follows them. They lose much, but their devotion to each other never waivers. In the end, their love story, from age 9 to their 60s and 70s, is life-affirming and uplifting in a way that perhaps only good romance stories can be.

Make no mistake, the series is a real tear-jerker. That the couple find happiness in the face of what appears to be an unusually tragic life, seems miraculous, but also rings true: Life goes on, and if you are lucky to have a great partner, you could be in for a great ride.

When Life Gives You Tangerines last episode

The final episode of When Life Gives You Tangerines dropped on March 28 on Netflix. The story of two island kids who build a whole life together, ends with one of them dying and one of them fulfilling just one of their many hopes for their life. The episode is an ode to the never-say-never attitude that can move mountains—sometimes.

What the series does not do, is give in to any moralizing. Yes, diligence pays, it shows you, but it can't negate the health effects of a lifetime of putting the body through hard labour. Yes, love conquers all. But when one’s kids get in trouble, or when the economy collapses, there’s hurt all around first.

The final episode draws it title ‘Here’s to All You’ve Been Through’ from a poem one of the leads writes. Nearly 90 minutes long, the episode is an acknowledgement of and an ode to hard work, goodness, devotion and love. There is sentiment, but not sentimentality. Life goes on for the living, and the survivors find purpose and meaning in every stage of life. What can be more life-affirming than that. (Fair warning: expect to be moved to tears.)