The Interest of Love

Realistic relationships? Just an overly sugarcoated toxic scandal.

The story was supposed to be about the romantic relationships of four people in the same workplace. I expected so much when I saw the gist, and the character backgrounds.

An average bank clerk who is quickly going up the ranks because of his good performance.
A charismatic young assistant manager who is all about her independence and self-reliance.
A young security officer of the lowest rung trying to achieve his dream of joining the police force.
A high school graduate trying to fight her way up in a discriminatory workplace, to become more than a replaceable labourer.

How did these 4 people's lives turn out to become a romance sob story in the hands of writers and directors?

From the overused OST, locations, art pieces, to the strikingly similar portrayal of the 4 main characters, was extremely off putting. I don't think I have enough fingers and toes to count the amount of scenes with Ahn Su Yeong walking or sitting with that blank lost look with the same OST in the background. I almost lost it when I saw people describe this drama to have portrayed relationships realistically, because I just want to know what kind of rose tinted worlds do you guys live in?

No relationships are like this. This was supposed to be a melodrama, emotions are supposed to run high, conflicts highlighted, with raw feelings and actions dramatised. There was nothing like that in here. Even during a critical scene like the one where Sang Su finds out Ahn Su Yeong slept with his best friend, the same sad romantic music played, and he right afterwards, Sang Su just kept up his lover boy act. Like I get he is supposed to be hopelessly in love, but is it even possible for someone to act that way?

Sang Su likes someone else but is dating his junior from college, and it wasn't like Mi Gyeong and him had no chemistry at all. But he is just shown as hopelessly in love with Su Yeong to the point that he was just wavering everyday. His struggles with Mi Gyeong and the reality of a possible miserable married with her could have been highlighted, and we could have gotten more backstory on him, but nothing connected. His mother was just a character that was there to emphasise his feelings towards Su Yeong.

Su Yeong just ended up buckling to the pressure and discrimination of society and love failure. And like every other character with a failed love life, ends up opening a cafe. The writer gave so much about her background and family, but never explored into her character itself, and the personality was all soft and wrong. She always had this I am depressed about life look, while I imagined someone like her to have a stronger personality. It is no easy feat to become a senior bank clerk without going to college, but everything is focused on the romance. And do you know how expensive it is to run a cafe in a city like Seoul?

Jeong hyun that boyfriend, also could have had a great story coming to terms with finances and the reality of the world and trying to get to his dreams through all that. But it gave me a really bad feeling that his success came from following the instructions of a girl he liked, and had no mind of his own, other than to feel ashamed by his circumstances. In reality, he would have never made it that far with that attitude of his.

Mi Gyeong's relationship with her father could have been the highlight of her storyline, but what was that really sorry conclusion? She just accepted it like that? I had expected her to have a strong personality different from Su Yeong but strong. Someone that understood the privileges she had given how much she preached about independence. In fact, I agreed with that friend of hers who called her out at that wedding banquet. Thought herself as better than others.

Overall, it was consistently slow and boring with such a disappointing storyline. I get this is a romance Melo, but life is not just all romance, rain and tears...honestly disappointing. The only character I liked was that office worker who got pregnant with her third child at the end. There was something so down to earth and straightforward about her character I couldn't help but appreciate.

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The most tortured non-romance ever!

It was like watching an endless train wreck. You keep watching thinking there has to be an upside to this story, but it never happens. You just get sucked further down a rabbit hole of a depressing storyline . Kudos to the principle male lead for excellently portraying the most heartsick, forlorn, long suffering character imaginable. This had to be exhausting for this actor to play this tortured role, but he really pulled it off. He was one of the few characters I liked and could emphasize with, aside from the young boyfriend that was used and discarded. I really grew to despise the character that was the female lead. I found her to be arrogant, heartless, deceptive and selfish. The clingy, privileged, wanna-be girlfriend was another irritating character. The soundtrack was the only redeeming factor in this drama.

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Very slow dreary slice of life

This drama moves incredibly slowly and seems to be centered around stereotypical kdrama misunderstandings and missed timing in romance. That could be fine if handled well, but the misunderstandings so far stretch through countless episode after episode, without resolution, while just adding ever new ones to the pile. After awhile you stop rooting for the 1st leads to resolve their misunderstandings and start to root for them hooking up with the second leads instead who look better together, meet cuter than the main leads do and who seem much better suited for each other.

Spoiler alert! .............................. So now I have watched all episodes and my review numbers don't change but now will add some final thoughts. Most Kdramas I don't think much about afterwards, but this show is nothing if not memorable. The lives of the four main characters are changed forever by a single moment of hesitation by one lead.

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The Interest of Misunderstandings

Looks like it's about a huge hot steaming pile of misunderstandings between the love interests. I've only seen the ML in Mr. Sunshine and Narco Saints. He really shone in his role in Mr. Sunshine, my GF thought it is worth a try with this series because of that. At this point, I'm not sure what to make of this. It is slow for sure. By the first four episodes, the story should sink their claws into the viewers to keep them engaged. It kind of meanders and you don't really feel much between the ML and FL. Are we supposed to root for them? It goes straight to the ML having a crush on the FL, he timidly tries to go after her; some misunderstandings take place which shuts the whole thing down. Since their love story is supposed to be the main arc of this romance drama, it would be better if episodes were dedicated to the build up and process of him falling in love with her instead of through a flashback of how she was helpful to him when he started at the bank.

The scene where she trips and falls into the SML arms accidentally, it felt like a good long while before she disengages herself from him. It was used as a plot device to add to the whole hot pile of misunderstandings. It could have been more realistic since people who aren't close to each other don't linger like that and it was not clear if she was attracted to the SML for her to pause like that. The trope of tripping and falling into the man's arms is so overused in the KDramas and CDramas. At least he didn't catch her by the waist and swung her around in slow motion while the love ballads are played in the background and the confetti falls.

The actors and actresses acted well in their parts and have good visuals but so far the story is missing some key ingredients.

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OVERRATED - FRUSTRATING - ANNOYING

This should be the most overrated dramas of 2023. Really frustrating leads who is surprisingly annoying.
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The story:
It's a dumbass story where it portrays a pathetic male lead who is really in love with the female from the very beginning but somehow when he had a chance to date her he was lost in this frikin' imagination/doubt which was really childish.
The female lead is just a b***ch. This frustrating human is really damaged. She has no clue what she wants & she keeps on playing mind games with people around her. Especially the two male leads. She knows that the male lead really loves her yet she petends like she doesn’t.
Both of these losers got someone who strongly loves them but these dumbs don't know who they should love. The second leads are really the ones that deserves love but they are kind of off also. Especially the male one.
Genre:
It's not a romance genre. It should be cheating genre. Everone is cheating with someone else. Everyone is hiding something. Literally everyone.
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Rating: Frustrating/10

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Bad script+ good acting

I had very high expectations from this one, the acting of ml and both fls is pretty good so is the chemistry of ml with both fls..
Sml character is with no backbone and very medicore acting..
But the main point is that, in trying to show realistic romance it has become too unrealistic and draggy to watch..
Almost no character development and pretty static story from start to end.. it was first time for me that a drama with 16 ep with almost 1.5 hr episodes has this little progression in the terms of storyline..
Don't watch , if you are not a fan of the actors..

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This show is just a roller coaster of emotions

Alright so I started watching this show and I didn’t like the FL character at first as she came across as being very cold and just plain rude. But I needed a filler show so I went back to it and binge watched it which I regret don’t do that ever. This show is basically about two people who are in love with each other but because of fear, pride and cowardice they don’t get together and end up dating other people to mask their feelings so they can move on. Obviously that balm backfires and they end up cheating on those two people with each other and hurting them and each other in the process. What I hated the most about this show was that when the couple could have been together they didn’t get together. But suddenly when the love became forbidden they realized that they are so right for each other and ended up hurting two people and cheating. I also hate the fact that in the show they never outrightly acknowledged that they cheated together. In fact the FL lies about cheating with the guy’s best friend in order to push away her current boyfriend and ML. Which makes no sense to me as she ended up hurting that poor guy badly and ML came back to her anyway. Which was a dumb decision considering he had just learned that she allegedly slept with his best friend but he did not even ask questions. In the end it seems like when the guy was confident to be with her she just kept running away. My conclusion is she was trying to make herself suffer as she felt she did not deserve to be happy after what she did especially considering her mother was a cheater too. But it teaches a good lesson that when it comes to love you should not do anything that will cause you to have regrets. I really hated how both ML and FL just had this thing for hesitating like little kids. I feel like this show was such a drag I skipped through that last few episodes because it was annoying you could figure out what they would say at this point because it was the same thing over and over again. I feel like this showe could maybe have been shorter 8 episodes. Or they could have used that time better. I don’t know how many times the FL ran away, I don’t know how many times times ML broke up with his girlfriend. I don’t know how many times that guy failed his police exam and we never understood why he kept failing and suddenly when the girl leaves he passes. Which I hated their relationship because the guy felt useless as he could not provide anything for her and as he felt insecure because of ML he goes out and buys a ring and then he gets offended that she doesn’t wear it or does not seem genuinely happy but he knew their relationship was dead anyway. They also made him seem a little too innocent but as ML said he seemed happier and more relaxed with other people, that girl was basically her provided. Also, the girl who came onto ML she never acknowledged her stupidity of going out with him when she knew he didn’t like her, and she said that she could fill in the gap of love for the both of them which was so naive. It was also annoying that they made the guy out to be sincere and that he couldn’t do anything without being convinced but then he dated a girl he didn’t like, cheated on her and could not get with the girl he liked because he was too much of a coward to express his love. Overall the acting was actually really good, ML and FL portrayed a passionate love and you just wanted them to be together and find happiness and you could even just see emotions in their eyes. The supporting characters was good but some of the storylines on the side didn’t make sense. I hated the fact that the ML and FL would make decisions based on what people say. The final episode made no sense to me it was just another drag. Episode 16 was a waste of time they still hadn’t learned from their lesson not expressing their love which was clearly present. The guy searched hi and low for her and when he got to see her he did nothing but all her with the loan like what? They just walked up the hill to go eat pork cutlets like okay all this for that?

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Give me my time back

I should have known from episode 1 that this series was not for me. I love fairy tales, happily ever afters, empowering, concrete endings and etc but I can also enjoy a decent bitter sweet series but this one was one of the worst experiences for me in the supposed romantic genre. In all fairness, just because the word love is in the title should not grant automatic permission to be placed in the romance genre. Whew!!! This was a depressing toxic mess.

We have a male and female lead who clearly like each other but they never get together. Why? The FL got issues…….
Just because she’s calm and quiet doesn’t redeem her at all.

ML like female lead, very evident. She goes through great lengths to push him away, only to slightly give hope again. So what you’ll view is a man in love with a woman getting disregarded, then given hope, then being hurt and pushed away. No dating. Just a guy falling in love with someone who got emotional issues. Never really getting accepted.

From the female standpoint she didn’t do anything g wrong by not being with a guy.

From a viewers standpoint we watch a sincere mans ‘ affections get trampled. The end.


There’s no healthy love here. There’s no dating. This is one of those experiences someone has gone through that you remember but it’s certainly not something you’d want to watch.

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Hits and Misses

I had high hopes for this show. Although slow moving, I thought it would definitely pick up after Episode 10. Seemingly, it took a dive! Instead of picking up steam, it reversed to being slower and without direction. Unfortunate, since the acting is really great, and Sang-Su (played by Yoo Yoon-seok), is the greatest kisser on Kdrama tv. I became a fan! He makes it appear so authentic! That’s why it’s so disappointing, because the writer doesn’t grow the characters. Still, there are periods of great scenes (Hits), and potential storylines that were left inside an incubator (Misses). “The Interest of Love” needs to be rehabilitated with a second season (6-8-12 Episodes) to bring closure to the characters. Here’s hoping!

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