Link: Eat, Love, Kill

Review

My rating: 8.5/10

I really enjoyed Link: Eat, Love, Kill - it wasn't perfect but it was a solid watch. It’s a very good serial killer mystery that does a phenomenal job of making so many of the characters slightly psychotic. This made the “who could it be” aspect much more difficult, as I could genuinely see multiple people being capable of violent acts. This was often revealed in darkly humorous situations that fit the storyline perfectly. 

There are a couple of romances, including of course the main romance between Eun Gye-hoon (male lead) and Noh Da-hyun (main girl), and they all are paced believably and completely feasible. The show is exciting enough that I didn’t find any episodes unnecessary or boring. If you like murder mystery-type dramas, darker humor, and a darker overall tone—or if you’re a fan of either of the main actors or the supporting cast—you would enjoy this. It was well-acted and well-scripted, a really solid offering in this genre.

Spoilers

One of the things that bothered me the most was Noh Da-hyun’s (main girl) total lack of self-preservation. She knows she has a stalker/killer after her and she just walks down dark alleys completely oblivious. Her mother who is so concerned for her still just waits for her worried when simply sending someone to walk with her would have made anything bad happening less likely. It’s hard for me to buy that she would put herself in so many powerless situations all the time. Having a stalker is terrifying, wise people do not put themselves in situations where they could be alone with their nemesis, but she did it time ana again. Her lack of self preservation was further evident toward the end when she does get attacked by the killer, she’s not going full force, which doesn’t make any sense to me. She’s scared but she’s fighting for her life, so that was a little bit disappointing.

There were also quite a few storylines that were started and I didn’t feel were ever completely resolved, like around the stalker. One thing that was really confusing was how he kept gifting her that box with all these items in it, and then it turned out later one of the items was a scarf. Given his girlfriend (who he had more likely than not murdered), he never really got that direct tie. He just knew he was going out with her, said the weird thing to the sister about her not coming back, and then they find her body—but it never directly linked it to him. That left an open question of whether he did that and kept that souvenir from her like a killer keeps items of their victims. Were the rest of the items in that box souvenirs from other victims of his? Anyways, it just completely drops out as if it’s no big deal, and I felt like that was a huge deal. Wanted to see him at least questioned in that case (maybe they would have found out about other victims) but we never got that loop closed.

Then you have the killer guy. I realize they were little kids so they didn’t want to go into too much detail, but it wasn’t clear at all why he took the little kids in particular. Most serial killers pick a type of victim, but for him it was like little kids and then older people. Why those little kids specifically, or was it just any little kids? Did he just want to end somebody and little kids were easier victims? I mean, I know you can never fully know what a psycho’s true motivation is, but usually there’s at least somewhat of a psychological profile to it, and that was completely lacking. He wasn't accused of being a pedophile, didn't show him creeping around little kids, but they seemed to be implying he was—so was he a pedophile or a killer? It’s just weird that we didn’t know more. I know they were trying to carefully approach the subjects, but we never knew what really happened to the sister or what happened to the dad. Since they were buried near each other we can assume the dad discovered who it was and wound up getting killed himself. We never got to know how they ended, and that sounds morbid but you kind of want to know. It just is part of the overall profile of the killer—of how and why, some of their motivations—so that was frustrating.

It’s also hard coming from a culture where self-defense is an acceptable thing if you ever have to use force. It was hard to understand how the mother (Noh Da-hyun’s mom) was in so much trouble when she was not only defending her daughter (Noh Da-hyun) but she was also defending the police officer who was about to get shanked by a chisel. To me, it was proof that such laws are pretty ineffective because they were always disarming themselves with other things—which you would if you couldn’t use a knife or a gun, then you would find other things if you felt in peril, which is exactly what they were doing. So you don’t end people ending other people; you just change what they choose. I have watched a lot of true crime and I would be very concerned about hammers. So, the self-defense and what constituted a weapon were very much outside of my own culture.

If anything, I did like that surprise with Noh Da-hyun’s (main girl) mom’s husband—Noh Da-hyun’s dad obviously was abusive to her, and the grandmother chose to take her daughter-in-law as her daughter rather than maintain a super close relationship with her son. I thought that was very admirable of her.

Korean guilt is always a hard thing for me to process because they feel guilty about different things than we might. Like, I could understand Noh Da-hyun (main girl) feeling guilty for letting go of the sister's hand, but for anyone else to even minimally blame her for that—was weird. It looked like the sister deliberately shook her hand to break the grip. In any case they were children and who can judge what they do when they are running from a monster. Usually it’s self-blame, but others understand the circumstances. Same thing with the mother getting rid of the second kidnapper, she felt guilty over that. Like she should turn herself in. I mean it was a crime in her culture but I get the police officer's perspective. Since we do not know the motivation of the second kidnapper, maybe he was a pedophile so she Freddie Kruegered him. We just don't know. Eun Gye-hoon (male lead) was mad at her for not turning herself in because he felt like somehow that would’ve helped them find his sister, which really wasn’t true at all at that point. It was two separate things. And you had a mother who came upon a situation where someone had hurt her daughter. Of course she wasn't in her right mind.

With the older man that left main guy's twin sister in the road when she asked for help, I was just flabbergasted. Like, what crazy adult would ever leave a child who said to please help as they had a bad person chasing them? It just showed how many morally gray and downright psychotic people there were in that little town and that little community. I was glad she haunted him—if anything, he needed to be haunted even more. He should have had every child that died of such crimes haunting him. What he did was unimaginably horrible, and he was partially responsible for the murder.

I also found it extremely annoying just how many times they broke it off. One time was really frustrating because Eun Gye-hoon (male lead) had just said how he couldn’t live without her, then he finds out that the mom dispatched the other kidnapper and didn’t tell, which might’ve helped lead to the sister. I don’t know, but it was so weird because you would’ve thought they would understand that everybody in that situation was so dramatically affected. But it was another break up. She broke up with him before because seeing her knowing she let go of his sister's hand might be too painful for him. So, they broke up any time it got hard. It makes you wonder for their future. So, it chilled the romance a bit for me. I felt like that wasn't what defined this one as much or set it apart it was more the mystery and dark comedy. The whole link thing was weird too. A large portion of their reltationship she didn't know, or didn't believe, he could feel her emotions. So, it might it sort of a meaningless plot point. It was better when she could feel his emotions too. It was more important in the beginning.

Eun Gye-hoon’s (male lead) mom was just horrible. I didn’t find it excusable—she lost her child and then was such a cold, unfeeling person to her other child. It made no sense, and she blamed him and treated him horribly because his sister had passed. He was a child, a little kid—it was not his responsibility to look after his younger sister to that level. I mean, he was the sibling; siblings fight all the time and go and do things. My older sister made it a point to ditch me. So I never found her a redeemable character. I was glad she came back around eventually, but I was still like, lady, you’ve got a lot of making up to do. You were completely cold and horrible, and all the emotional damage your son experienced was because of you.

I was also very disappointed because with it in the title, I thought there would be more about the restaurant and the food and preparing the food, but that was such a background part of everything. It was this restaurant that always seemed on the verge of opening. I was like, oh come on, open already. Thankfully we did eventually get to see it open, but it was weird because it seemed like it should’ve been a bigger part of the story and it just wasn’t. Also, with the son-in-law that knew how to cook, I thought it was weird that he didn’t teach his future mother-in-law how to cook better. She could’ve had a Korean restaurant across from his very successful European restaurant. It would’ve actually helped both businesses and it would’ve insured a better livelihood for his mother instead of her seeming like she was gonna rely on her daughter for financial support. I mean, fair, but at the same time, why not have two successful ones?

Overall, still a very enjoyable watch despite these frustrations!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Overview

Number of Episodes: 16

Average Runtime per Episode: ~65-70 minutes (around 1 hour 5 minutes)

Country of Origin: South Korea

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Mystery, Melodrama, Thriller (with crime elements) 

Synopsis 

A chef haunted by his twin sister’s disappearance years ago opens a restaurant in the same area and suddenly finds himself emotionally linked to a woman whose feelings he experiences as his own. As they navigate this mysterious psychic bond amid danger, stalking threats, murder investigations, and personal traumas, the connection forces them to confront the past, protect each other, and explore unexpected emotional intimacy in a story that blends heartfelt romance with suspenseful twists. 

Main Characters

•  Eun Gye-hoon (Yeo Jin-goo): Talented chef who opens a restaurant tied to his missing sister’s case; experiences the emotional link and drives much of the mystery and protective instincts.

•  No Da-hyun (Mun Ka-young): Unlucky woman whose emotions become linked with Gye-hoon’s; faces personal struggles, a stalker, and becomes central to the unfolding events.