(Updated Review January 2023)

I rewatched this drama last year, and it ended up being a pleasant ride down memory lane. Radiant Office has its flaws, there’s no denying it, but there’s also a lot of heart to be had with this story. That reason alone makes Radiant Office worth watching at least once, in my opinion.

My advice is don’t expect this drama to go in quite the same way as most Kdrama’s of it’s time and genre. The office politics are pretty standard fare (and pretty boring, honestly), but everything else about the story kind of goes its own way. A subtle romance without all of the big hallmark moments we typically expect, a delightful main trio of friends who cheer each other on while also making mistakes but always making amends, and this ever-present spirit of perseverance and determination and belief in one’s ability to overcome struggles. But best and most important of all, a determined and principled female lead who when faced with the prospect of her life being cut far too short, chooses to take it as an opportunity to make the best of the days she believes she has left.

And maybe cause a little righteous trouble while she’s at it, lol.

I’ll say here that a lot of people complain about the last three episodes of this drama, and for understandable reasons. There’s some rushing in the finale, and a particular character finds out some very serious and heartbreaking news pretty late in the story, which some felt should have been brought up sooner and handled a little better. But after my rewatch, I have a deeper appreciation for what the writer was doing, and I now think the episodes played out mostly as they should have.

The other big complaint you’ll probably hear is that the romance is too subtle. But while it is subtle in some ways, it’s not really in the way you might think. There’s pretty consistent build up between the leads throughout the drama as they each gradually come to like each other and slowly find themselves forming a relationship. I think a lot of people missed that a relationship was forming between them, because there aren’t any conversations addressing the changes in their relationship until the finale. But in some ways, it’s sort of truer to life, as many relationships happen gradually over time without all of the grand gestures and pointed conversations we’ve come to expect in dramas. My only complaint about the romance is that we deserved a better kiss at the end. He gives her a mild peck, and that is simply not sufficient, lol.

It's interesting to think about this drama now, 6 years later, considering it was written by a contest winner. It seems they never went on to write anything else, and I often wonder what happened to them. Why did they never write anything else? I assume getting into the industry is quite hard and winning a contest wouldn’t necessarily mean they would go on to lead more of their own dramas. In fact, that probably was always unlikely. But I still wonder if the experience at least got their foot in the door, or if this drama was the only time they got to work on anything. Hopefully, Radiant Office was the beginning and not the end of their drama writing career, and maybe someday in the future, we’ll see this writers' work again.

Now wouldn’t that make a great story?