A flawed but entertaining and emotional ride.

Con man deceives blind girl into thinking he's her deceased brother. This premise just screams melodrama. And like many melodramas, it's full of ambiguous characters, tearjerking situations and unbreakable bonds. In my opinion, That Winter, The Wind Blows is not that original since it's based on an already established work, but among so many "Cinderella" dramas out there, it sure stands out as a demi-original but overly unlikely kind of drama.

I like to begin my reviews with positive things I have to say, so let's just start: The camera work, the scenarious and everything about the picture of this drama was plainly beautiful. The atmosphere becomes heavy when it needs to be heavy, and also light and endearing when need be. Amazing work of the director, also, the close ups on the right place just made me stare in awe at so much detail put on the scenario.

Also, I have to praise Jo In Sung and Song Hye Kyo for their amazing acting. In Sung not only gave Oh Soo all sides of his personality, but much more. The way he cockily smiles but then suddenly cracks down in tears is simply amazing. His chemistry with Hye Kyo was superb, and you can really believe that those two are pained, lost individuals that find comfort on each other. And Hye Kyo...oh, for a moment I thought she was really blind. Seriously, her interpretation is so perfect that if you don't know that she can see in real life, you would actually believe they hired a blind actress.

Kim Tae Woo was perfect as well. I began the drama really hating his character, but as episodes passed by I started to feel for him, and appreciate his inner turmoil. That's something only a good actor can do. And props to Bae Jong Ok, another ground breaking performance. However, I would've liked if her motives and backstory were better explained because the way they did just seemed all over the place.

Props for Kim Sang Beom as well, he made a cute pairing with Eun Ji. However, althought I really love Eun Ji, in this drama I didn't really feel her character. It was like she wasn't even that necessary to the plot except to have a third partner in crime who helped from time to time. Also, she was annoying at times and to be honest, althought she's a good actress, I would like to see Eun Ji playing another type of girl/personality.

Another thing I didn't quite like was how sometimes the drama was too self explicative. The audience is not dumb, we can clearly see what's happening so there's no need for overexposition. Mainly the way they did, turning the explanation very difficult and sometimes confusing. For example (SPOILER), when Oh Soo finds th room where Young makes her video diary all trashed, it was obvious that Young did all that since she was the last person on that room. It didn't take a genius to guess that, so the demi-flashback shown was unnecessary.

Other miss was how progressively draggy and, dare I say, boring the drama became. I have to give a little of slack since the plot doesn't give much to work with except interactions between characters, however I could picture this drama having 14 episodes and still being the same. Many conflicts were somewhat unecessary, and sometimes they threw characters we barely even knew that ended up changing the whole story, in a very confusing way.

If this is rewatchable? Yeah, but maybe after some time like six months or even a year, not something you would want to rewatch more than twice.

All in all it's far from perfect, but entertaining and emotional enough to keep you hooked. It's not an unforgetable drama even though sometimes it tries too hard to be, but also not quite forgetable because you can still rewatch and feel for the characters.