What a cool coincidence that two high-traffic Korean actors have binge-worthy romcoms which have been hits since the holiday season: Jang Ki Yong’s Dynamite Kiss (Netflix) and Choi Woo Shik’s Would You Marry Me (Disney+).
Watch them to chill—the great escape from the daily news that sucks and from your daily stress. They’re not dark or mind-boggling—they’re comedies, but they’re romcoms that don’t dumb you down. They’re series with no plot twists that test your credulity; I really can’t take anymore “Netflix-fied” K-drama that’s simply unbelievable and gimmicky, no matter what parallel universe you’re in. Real life is hard enough, why do mental calisthenics?
What makes these two series entertaining is, first and foremost, their actors are among the most versatile and charismatic in K-drama, no matter the roles. Apart from having their own bestsellers, what’s interesting is that these two starred in a 2017 hilarious, quirky series The Boy Next Door (YouTube), where they played two incidental neighbors whom the entire building romantically link and, with one mishap after another, mistake for a gay couple. The roles are so out-of-the-box for idol-genre actors—young at that; it must have taken guts for the emerging heartthrobs they were then to do such onscreen persona. And they did so with hilarity and class. The series could be considered as forerunner of the BL genre. As early as then, The Boy Next Door showed the self-confidence and gumption of Jang Ki Yong and Choi Woo Shik in tackling unconventional roles, and their ability to inject nuances into the character.
Dynamite Kiss
14 episodes
Starring Jang KiYong, Ahn Eun Jin
Netflix
This romcom could be cheesy (especially in the last episodes), yet it stopped a heartbeat-short of cloying, thanks to the acting and chemistry of Jang Ki Yong and female lead, Ahn Eun Jin (Hospital Playlist).
Ahn Eun Jin plays a civil service exam repeater (Go Da Rim) who couldn’t land a good job. She gives her family no reason to brag about her, especially not her sister about to marry a hot shot from a well-off family (or so they think). Her sister—they’re only two siblings—has to keep Da Rim away from her wedding, without making the disinvite obvious. She gifts her with a trip to Jeju coinciding with her wedding.
Go Da Rim hides the hurt and pretends to look forward to the trip—why not, might as well use this as chance to forget her assholic boyfriend who’s just cheated on her while insulting her—an “overblanched piece of spinach,” he says to her face. So off to Jeju she goes. Incidentally, the ex-boyfriend is Korea’s most sought-after AI designer.
Behind-the-scene shot of Jang Ki Yong during shoot of ‘Dynamite Kiss’ (Official IG of Jang Ki Yong)
Jang Ki Yong is a finance investment top gun (Gong Ji Hyeok) who’s out to land a megabucks deal with a Middle East magnate (yes, that stereotype), but first, he must throw into the package the hiring of Korea’s coveted AI designer, our female lead’s ex—who will be in a high-ticket event in Jeju. So off to Jeju he goes.
As early as the first episode the paths of our OTP cross—in Jeju island, on the oceanfront, to be exact. Da Rim—her good samaritan character established this early in the series—just happens to be standing facing the ocean right at that moment, and espies the solitary presence of Ji Hyeok. She thinks mistakenly that he’s out to drown himself. She dashes and dives for him to save him—they end up in the hospital, she befuddled and he so irritated. Only the beginning.
They end up billeted in the same Jeju hotel, run into each other at breakfast and into Da Rim’s ex, the star AI designer. Not wanting to lose face before her ex and his new squeeze, Da Rim introduces Ji Hyeok as her—you guess it, this is K-drama trope—boyfriend. Recognizing the AI designer—his prey—Ji Hyeok jumps at the chance to play pretend-boyfriend. The stage is set, literally, for this pretend-romance—in a high-glam event with fireworks and all. This is where the “dynamite kiss” happens (fireworks-lit sky, lips locking, get it?), which the all-work-no-play character of Jang Ki Yong will never get over; this is the chaebol son’s first hot kiss, would you believe (cannot).
(Incidentally, to K-entertainment followers, episode 1 has a headturner moment when Lee Seok Jin of Jinny’s Kitchen fame makes a very funny cameo in the breakfast scene.)
Jang Ki Yong’s Ji Hyeok is left only with the feeling of that dynamite kiss because just as when our OTP is about to get intimate in the hotel room, Da Rim gets an emergency family call and dashes out, without saying goodbye. The two are separated, with him left wondering where she is and why she literally ran away from their relationship.
He begins his search of her, but also makes a drastic life change for himself. To force his father into giving his mom a divorce and thus save her from an oppressive marriage, he has to acquiesce to the demand of his father, the chaebol, to drop his lucrative career, go work for the family conglomerate, and marry the daughter of his fellow chaebol.
Ji Hyeok indifferently joins the dad’s baby products business—and falls right into the trap of his scheming half-sister who doesn’t want him in the empire at all. In her takeover plot, she assembles a team of unqualified moms in the guise of product development—which Ji Hyeok is made to head, a sneaky set-up for failure.
Meantime, Da Rim, now deeper in debt to pay off her family’s loans, turns desperate for a job. She applies in the rookie team in Ji Hyeok’s firm—by declaring herself a mother of a toddler. For this fake resume, her old-time neighbor—played by the idol-handsome Kim Mu Jun—a widower photographer, and his cute son, come in handy.
She gets accepted in Ji Hyeok’s ragtag team of moms with no work experience. How she and Ji Hyeok will finally come face to face (will they, in the job interview) is the build-up to suspense.
After he meets her in a desperate search only to learn that she’s a mom, he turns spiteful and asks her to resign and proceeds to make her job hell for her.
The cliffhanger happens towards the end. Just when you think the love story is on cruise mode
How they can find romance in their weird office setting is the oblique story. The more Ji Hyeok suppresses his feelings and becomes mean to her, the more she digs her heels in because she needs to keep her job to survive.
The cliffhanger happens towards the end. Just when you think the love story is on cruise mode, you get a jolt. The dialogue between them on why she lied is so touching, and it has to be the skilled actor in Jang KiYong to save the scene from being melodramatic.
This physical-comedic role for Jang Ki Yong is so different from his enigmatic, romantic character in My Roommate is a Gumiho, or the oddball guy in Sweet Sour, or the killer in Kill. (His Atypical Family didn’t hold my interest.) It takes a versatile Jang Ki Yong to save this series from being slapstick or a mush. His good looks preserve that romantic persona even through the clumsy scenes. He certainly knows how to max out that handsome face for that close-up—on top of his acting skill, of course.
Jang Ki Yong is as engaging here as he is in his fan meets (we enjoyed his Manila fan meet).
The last episode gets fancy, so made-for-fandom cinematic. The ending is…cute, very cute.
Would You Marry Me
12 episodes
Starring Choi Woo Shik, Jung So Min
Disney+
If you still have any doubt that Choi Woo Shik is one of the most charismatic Korean actors in K-drama, just watch this romcom series in Disney+.
And—it doesn’t hurt that his romance partner is Jung So Min, who we loved in the vintage My Father is Strange (2017) and in the recent Love Next Door (2024). Even her support role in My Roommate is a Gumiho we found endearing.
We can’t think of any series or movie where Choi Woo Shik doesn’t draw you in; not only is he versatile, he has also the most natural screen presence. Such master of underacting—whether it’s in the Oscar winner Parasite, the loveable series Our Beloved Summer, Melo Movie (2025), or the reality series Jinny’s Kitchen which takes the team to places like Mexico and Iceland.
Choi Woo Shik and Jung So Min (Official IG of Choi Woo Shik)
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that to us ARMYs, he’s the good buddy of BTS V and a member of the famous Wooga squad (with Park Seo Jun, Park Hyung Sik, Peakboy) who are in the In The Soop: Friendcation series.
In Would You Marry Me, Jung So Min plays a down-in-your-luck design entrepreneur Yoo Me Ri who ends up needing a fake husband so she can claim the raffle prize of a tony townhouse in an upscale village. And by hilarious turn of events, that fake husband material just has to be Choi Woo Shik as Kim Wooju, the heir to Korea’s bakery empire.
Kim Wooju happens to have the same name as Me Ri’s fiancé (already registered husband) whom, just in time, she discovers to be cheating on her. By then their marriage is already registered, they file for divorce, which Me Ri has yet to register. So on paper, at least, she needs his name—the raffle is for married couples.
The entry scene of Choi Woo Shik is signature CWS charm. His Kim Wooju character flies home to Korea, back to his doting grandmother, the founder and head of the business empire. Kim Wooju grew up, studied and lived in the US—exiled there by his clan after a tragic accident that claimed the lives of his parents. His grandfather blamed him, a child, for the car accident.
It is this fatal tragedy that serves as a whodunit plot in what should otherwise be a simple comedy.
The camera sure knows when to zoom in on that expression that is a masterpiece blend of naivete and naughtiness
Landing on the airport, Choi Woo Shik turns on the charm in that closeup—the camera sure knows when to zoom in on that expression that is a masterpiece blend of naivete and naughtiness.
He spends his first days in Korea chilling and camping. In far contrast, Jung So Min’s Me Ri is on a free dive to disaster and misery—the marriage-divorce, the debts incurred by her sister who mortgages their family home. And making her a loser with capital L—the apartment lease she took out with her ex turns out to be a con job.
The opposite situations of our OTP are hilarious enough. Their first meeting makes it even more hilarious. They bump into each other—literally on the street. Choi Woo Shik has really mastered the cute physical acting of the underdog and the bullied. He’s really funny. In this early episode the pair shows terrific comedic timing in what must be one of K-drama’s funniest and most imaginative first physical OTP encounters—Woo Shik’s Kim Wooju as do-gooder and Jung So Min’s Me Ri as a drunken mess.
Then eureka—Me Ri realizes Wooju has the same name as her ex, and they only have to present themselves as a couple before the raffle organizer, the big property developer.
Beyond the jackpot prize of a townhouse, their lives intertwine professionally, and as you’ll find out gradually, in the childhood tragedy that haunts Kim Wooju all his life. The past links them traumatically.
While the first episodes crack you up—especially once the couple find out that the no-nonsense executive behind the raffle is their townhouse neighbor and the couple have to resort to wearing couple shirts (very Korean)—the latter ones turn the series into a riveting story.
The plot twist unravels a sinister crime. Yet the warmth of a love story persists to the end—how they discover that they are each other’s first love.
Choi Woo Shik is really conqueror king of the screen (big or small), especially in this case where Jung So Min is his queen.
