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My Secret Romance korean drama review
Completed
My Secret Romance
33 people found this review helpful
by AudienceofOne
Mar 7, 2020
14 of 13 episodes seen
Completed 9
Overall 2.0
Story 1.0
Acting/Cast 5.0
Music 4.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
You know when you start writing a review and you realise you may as well be writing about every third-rate Korean rom com? Well, that's this show.

People will love it if they like that sort of thing, even if it's not even the best example of it. But if you're tired of everything about the setup and execution of romcoms then strictly avoid. The worst thing about this show is that it was made in 2017 but feels much older in how regressive it is.

Candy is here in all her incompetent, self-absorbed, whiny victimhood and she falls for Chaebol in all his asshole finery. Candy is a nutritionist, not like that matters either to her or anyone else. Especially not to the writer who seems to have only a vague notion of what nutritionists do for a living. It's just a new way to throw her in the path of Chaebol, with whom she shared a (naturally drunken) one night stand three years before. Can't have anyone thinking she's a slut by letting her choose to sleep with a guy when she's sober.

At the beginning of the show, there was quite a nice connection between these two characters. Both were incompetent losers even if one of them was a rich one. But when the show shifted forward three years, any goodwill from their initial interactions was quickly lost as he uses his position of authority to bully her and she acts like both a martyr and an idiot about it - not necessarily in that order. Episode after episode involved him ordering her to bring him food and then either abusing, insulting or harassing her when she did. She endured, as Candy does, and still liked him even after all of this. Dude must have been amazing in the sack. That's the only explanation.

There's a second female lead in this. I don't even need to tell you about her - you already know. Get a life, old-school second female leads. You're pathetic. There's a thing called feminism. It's well over 100 years old. You might have heard about it. It'll help.

There's also a second male lead. You've met him too. He's perfect and in love with the female lead but at least he never Nice Guys her so he has that going for him. He deserved to be in a better show.

While Asshole Chaebol at least retains a core of vulnerability that allows you to keep some sympathy for him as a character, Candy is endlessly self-absorbed and wedded to victimhood, especially around her mother and the dreaded S.E.X. on account of being a good girl and not one of those sluts.

One of the show's biggest fakeouts revolves around Candy's little brother whom she treats as a burden and refers to as "her dog" so people won't discover the scandalous fact that he exists. These are not her finest moments in a show filled with extremely poor behaviour on her part. One of my chief gripes about romcoms is that they only include sex if they want to do a pregnancy fakeout. I was willing to give the show credit for not going there except - oh no, it went there! Not only did it include it but it executed it in the most annoying, most sexist, and most horrible way possible.

Basically, this show is a quintessential old-school Korean romcom dripping with sexism and misogynism, double standards, nun/whore dichotomies and a female lead who is as annoying as she is useless. Her actions especially in the final episode are teeth grindingly annoying.

Some people who love this kind of thing will no doubt be annoyed by how much I hated this show. I just think it's a shame that shows like this are still being made.
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