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This review may contain spoilers
Our Sticky Love — Do We Only Believe in Second Chances When They Are Fictional?
I saw quite a few harsh reviews of Our Sticky Love, particularly people saying that twelve episodes were too much, and I honestly don't agree with everything I read. I understand some of the criticism because the drama occasionally takes its time when a few scenes could have been shorter, but I think reducing it to an overlong romantic comedy misses what the story was actually trying to do. For me, this wasn't simply about an amnesiac prosecutor falling in love with the man pretending to be her boyfriend. It was about second chances, and almost every important character was given one. That is probably why the slower pace didn't bother me nearly as much as it bothered some viewers. One review even argued that the story had a natural stopping point around episode ten and that the final two episodes stretched things out, which I can understand. But binge-watching twelve hours in a weekend also changes how pacing feels. Something designed to let characters settle, reflect and slowly reconnect can feel repetitive when consumed without much distance between episodes.
Not every romance needs to move like an American thriller. Sometimes watching a drama is supposed to be relaxing. French and other European television and cinema have long been comfortable allowing silence, ordinary conversations and apparently insignificant moments to remain on screen, and I don't automatically consider that bad pacing. I do think Our Sticky Love could have been tightened in places, but "slow" and "badly written" are not synonyms. The creators are interesting in that regard. Writer Mo Ji-hye still has a relatively short credited television portfolio, with You Raise Me Up being her other major drama credit, so I can understand why some transitions and secondary plots feel less polished. Director Kim Jang-han, however, is not really inexperienced: he previously directed Do You Like Brahms?, You Raise Me Up and My Demon. His preference for emotional atmosphere over constant momentum therefore feels more like a directing style than simply someone not knowing how to pace a series.
At the centre of everything are Jung Hae-in and Ha Young, and I thought they were fantastic together. Jung Hae-in has reached a point in his career where he can make a character appealing without constantly reminding us that he is acting. Tae-ha is funny, protective and sometimes painfully awkward, but underneath all of that is someone who has spent years believing certain parts of his life cannot be repaired. His relationship with Eun-sae gradually becomes another chance to imagine a future instead of simply surviving his past. I also laughed when I saw people comparing Jung Hae-in physically with Cha Eun-woo, because what exactly are we supposed to prove with that comparison? They are attractive in completely different ways and belong to different generations of actors. Anyone who has followed Jung Hae-in's career—and, yes, remembers some of those shirtless scenes—already knows the man has absolutely nothing to be envious of. More importantly, he is not here simply to look beautiful; Tae-ha needed warmth, physical credibility as a former boxer and enough vulnerability to make his devotion believable, and Jung Hae-in gave him all three.
Ha Young surprised me even more because this is her first major romantic-comedy leading role after years spent largely in supporting parts. Eun-sae could easily have become unbearable: she is intelligent, privileged, suspicious and literally living inside a lie created by the man she will eventually love. Instead, Ha Young makes her funny without making her stupid and vulnerable without making her helpless. Critics who did enjoy the drama also singled out her comic timing, and I really hope this leads to more substantial leading roles because she proved she can carry one.
But the performance that affected me the most belonged to Heo Sung-tae. Gosh, he was scary. Baek Sang-gil initially appears to be exactly the kind of character Heo Sung-tae can play almost effortlessly: powerful, controlled and capable of horrifying violence without needing to scream every five minutes. Yet the final episodes ask much more from him. The monster slowly discovers that the young man he has manipulated, threatened and eventually prepared to destroy is actually his own son, the child he abandoned when he chose ambition and crime over the woman he loved. That revelation changes everything without magically making him a good person. His final moments were beautifully acted because several emotions existed at once. There was fear, regret, love and the horrifying realisation of what he had become. He finally understood that the cycle he created had reached his own child, but by then his chance to actually become Tae-ha's father had already disappeared. Watching an actor communicate that much while crying without turning the scene into exaggerated melodrama genuinely made me cry with him. And yes, Heo Sung-tae has received recognition for this kind of work. He won Best Supporting Actor at the 2022 APAN Star Awards for Squid Game and Insider, won a KBS supporting-actor award for Bloody Heart, and received major nominations including Baeksang recognition for Squid Game. His career is full of difficult, often unpleasant men, which makes the emotional vulnerability of Baek Sang-gil's ending even more impressive.
That ending is also where the entire drama finally came together for me, because second chances had been hiding everywhere from the beginning. Tae-ha gets another chance at love and at building a family after wasting part of his life inside a criminal organisation. Eun-sae gets another chance at life itself, but also an opportunity to discover who she is without her career, money and social position defining every decision. Other characters receive second chances in relationships, friendship, health and work. Even Jo Maeng-suk, the village shaman, fits the same idea. Her greed damages the gift she depended upon and disconnects her from the spiritual identity around which she built her life, yet the ending gives her another route back through tarot and the return of her intuition. It is funny, but it isn't meaningless. Even the comic side character is being told that losing something through your own mistakes does not necessarily mean you are condemned forever. What matters is what you do when the second chance appears. Some characters recognise it. Some almost miss it because of pride, fear or jealousy. Baek Sang-gil understands his too late, which is why his ending is so much sadder than a conventional villain simply receiving punishment. He could have had love, a son and another life, but every earlier decision gradually closed those doors until the only thing he could still do as a father was stop himself from destroying his child. That is why I think people concentrating only on the romance can miss quite a lot of what Our Sticky Love is doing. The love story is important, but family is everywhere too: biological family, chosen family, friendships that become family, and the possibility of creating something healthier than what you inherited. A second chance does not erase what happened before. It simply gives you one opportunity to decide whether the past will determine what happens next.
Unfortunately, discussion around Ha Young became complicated by something completely outside the drama. Shortly after release, historical records concerning her great-grandfather, physician Ahn Sang-ho, became the subject of controversy. Her agency initially called the allegations groundless, then apologised after confirming a 1916 record listing him as a council member of the Daejeong Chinmokhoe, and Ha Young subsequently apologised for having spoken proudly about family history without knowing the complete historical context. Planned promotional interviews involving both Ha Young and Jung Hae-in were cancelled as the controversy grew. I am not going to turn a drama review into a debate about Japanese colonial history, because it deserves a much more serious discussion than a paragraph attached to a Netflix romance. I also cannot prove that every negative review of Our Sticky Love was influenced by that controversy, and it would be unfair to dismiss legitimate criticism that way. The mixed reception existed for genuine reasons too, particularly around pacing and how the different plots were balanced.
But I do have a problem when criticism of an actor's work becomes criticism of something an ancestor did generations before that actor was born. Ha Young can be judged for what Ha Young says and does, including how responsibly she discusses her own family history once new information becomes available. She cannot travel backwards in time and make decisions for her great-grandfather. That distinction actually connects strangely well with the drama itself. Our Sticky Love repeatedly asks whether people must remain trapped by the mistakes of the people who came before them. Tae-ha certainly does not become responsible for Baek Sang-gil's crimes because they share blood. Why should that principle suddenly disappear when we stop watching fiction and start looking at an actress? Being descended from somebody who made morally compromised choices does not create inherited guilt. Nor should Ha Young have to prove that she is "Korean enough" because of a man who lived generations earlier. If anything matters now, it is what she does with her own life and what she chooses after learning more about that history.
Final Thought
Our Sticky Love is not a perfect drama, and I don't need to pretend it is simply because I enjoyed it. Some scenes could have been shorter, the balance between romance, comedy and crime occasionally becomes uneven, and a more experienced scriptwriter might have given certain secondary stories greater momentum. But twelve episodes did not feel pointless to me because the story wasn't only waiting for Jung Hae-in and Ha Young to kiss. It was giving people chances. A chance to love someone again. A chance to become a family. A chance to rebuild a career. A chance to survive illness. A chance to repair a friendship. A chance to admit that you were wrong. Even a chance to become the father you should have been years earlier, although Baek Sang-gil discovers with devastating cruelty that some chances do eventually expire.
That is what stayed with me after the romance ended. Life occasionally gives us another opportunity to correct something we damaged, but there is absolutely no guarantee that it will offer a third. Maybe that is also why I find some of the reaction surrounding Ha Young so uncomfortable. If a drama spends twelve episodes reminding us that people should be judged by what they choose to do with the life they have been given, perhaps we should be capable of extending the same reasoning to the actors once the credits stop rolling.
Not every romance needs to move like an American thriller. Sometimes watching a drama is supposed to be relaxing. French and other European television and cinema have long been comfortable allowing silence, ordinary conversations and apparently insignificant moments to remain on screen, and I don't automatically consider that bad pacing. I do think Our Sticky Love could have been tightened in places, but "slow" and "badly written" are not synonyms. The creators are interesting in that regard. Writer Mo Ji-hye still has a relatively short credited television portfolio, with You Raise Me Up being her other major drama credit, so I can understand why some transitions and secondary plots feel less polished. Director Kim Jang-han, however, is not really inexperienced: he previously directed Do You Like Brahms?, You Raise Me Up and My Demon. His preference for emotional atmosphere over constant momentum therefore feels more like a directing style than simply someone not knowing how to pace a series.
At the centre of everything are Jung Hae-in and Ha Young, and I thought they were fantastic together. Jung Hae-in has reached a point in his career where he can make a character appealing without constantly reminding us that he is acting. Tae-ha is funny, protective and sometimes painfully awkward, but underneath all of that is someone who has spent years believing certain parts of his life cannot be repaired. His relationship with Eun-sae gradually becomes another chance to imagine a future instead of simply surviving his past. I also laughed when I saw people comparing Jung Hae-in physically with Cha Eun-woo, because what exactly are we supposed to prove with that comparison? They are attractive in completely different ways and belong to different generations of actors. Anyone who has followed Jung Hae-in's career—and, yes, remembers some of those shirtless scenes—already knows the man has absolutely nothing to be envious of. More importantly, he is not here simply to look beautiful; Tae-ha needed warmth, physical credibility as a former boxer and enough vulnerability to make his devotion believable, and Jung Hae-in gave him all three.
Ha Young surprised me even more because this is her first major romantic-comedy leading role after years spent largely in supporting parts. Eun-sae could easily have become unbearable: she is intelligent, privileged, suspicious and literally living inside a lie created by the man she will eventually love. Instead, Ha Young makes her funny without making her stupid and vulnerable without making her helpless. Critics who did enjoy the drama also singled out her comic timing, and I really hope this leads to more substantial leading roles because she proved she can carry one.
But the performance that affected me the most belonged to Heo Sung-tae. Gosh, he was scary. Baek Sang-gil initially appears to be exactly the kind of character Heo Sung-tae can play almost effortlessly: powerful, controlled and capable of horrifying violence without needing to scream every five minutes. Yet the final episodes ask much more from him. The monster slowly discovers that the young man he has manipulated, threatened and eventually prepared to destroy is actually his own son, the child he abandoned when he chose ambition and crime over the woman he loved. That revelation changes everything without magically making him a good person. His final moments were beautifully acted because several emotions existed at once. There was fear, regret, love and the horrifying realisation of what he had become. He finally understood that the cycle he created had reached his own child, but by then his chance to actually become Tae-ha's father had already disappeared. Watching an actor communicate that much while crying without turning the scene into exaggerated melodrama genuinely made me cry with him. And yes, Heo Sung-tae has received recognition for this kind of work. He won Best Supporting Actor at the 2022 APAN Star Awards for Squid Game and Insider, won a KBS supporting-actor award for Bloody Heart, and received major nominations including Baeksang recognition for Squid Game. His career is full of difficult, often unpleasant men, which makes the emotional vulnerability of Baek Sang-gil's ending even more impressive.
That ending is also where the entire drama finally came together for me, because second chances had been hiding everywhere from the beginning. Tae-ha gets another chance at love and at building a family after wasting part of his life inside a criminal organisation. Eun-sae gets another chance at life itself, but also an opportunity to discover who she is without her career, money and social position defining every decision. Other characters receive second chances in relationships, friendship, health and work. Even Jo Maeng-suk, the village shaman, fits the same idea. Her greed damages the gift she depended upon and disconnects her from the spiritual identity around which she built her life, yet the ending gives her another route back through tarot and the return of her intuition. It is funny, but it isn't meaningless. Even the comic side character is being told that losing something through your own mistakes does not necessarily mean you are condemned forever. What matters is what you do when the second chance appears. Some characters recognise it. Some almost miss it because of pride, fear or jealousy. Baek Sang-gil understands his too late, which is why his ending is so much sadder than a conventional villain simply receiving punishment. He could have had love, a son and another life, but every earlier decision gradually closed those doors until the only thing he could still do as a father was stop himself from destroying his child. That is why I think people concentrating only on the romance can miss quite a lot of what Our Sticky Love is doing. The love story is important, but family is everywhere too: biological family, chosen family, friendships that become family, and the possibility of creating something healthier than what you inherited. A second chance does not erase what happened before. It simply gives you one opportunity to decide whether the past will determine what happens next.
Unfortunately, discussion around Ha Young became complicated by something completely outside the drama. Shortly after release, historical records concerning her great-grandfather, physician Ahn Sang-ho, became the subject of controversy. Her agency initially called the allegations groundless, then apologised after confirming a 1916 record listing him as a council member of the Daejeong Chinmokhoe, and Ha Young subsequently apologised for having spoken proudly about family history without knowing the complete historical context. Planned promotional interviews involving both Ha Young and Jung Hae-in were cancelled as the controversy grew. I am not going to turn a drama review into a debate about Japanese colonial history, because it deserves a much more serious discussion than a paragraph attached to a Netflix romance. I also cannot prove that every negative review of Our Sticky Love was influenced by that controversy, and it would be unfair to dismiss legitimate criticism that way. The mixed reception existed for genuine reasons too, particularly around pacing and how the different plots were balanced.
But I do have a problem when criticism of an actor's work becomes criticism of something an ancestor did generations before that actor was born. Ha Young can be judged for what Ha Young says and does, including how responsibly she discusses her own family history once new information becomes available. She cannot travel backwards in time and make decisions for her great-grandfather. That distinction actually connects strangely well with the drama itself. Our Sticky Love repeatedly asks whether people must remain trapped by the mistakes of the people who came before them. Tae-ha certainly does not become responsible for Baek Sang-gil's crimes because they share blood. Why should that principle suddenly disappear when we stop watching fiction and start looking at an actress? Being descended from somebody who made morally compromised choices does not create inherited guilt. Nor should Ha Young have to prove that she is "Korean enough" because of a man who lived generations earlier. If anything matters now, it is what she does with her own life and what she chooses after learning more about that history.
Final Thought
Our Sticky Love is not a perfect drama, and I don't need to pretend it is simply because I enjoyed it. Some scenes could have been shorter, the balance between romance, comedy and crime occasionally becomes uneven, and a more experienced scriptwriter might have given certain secondary stories greater momentum. But twelve episodes did not feel pointless to me because the story wasn't only waiting for Jung Hae-in and Ha Young to kiss. It was giving people chances. A chance to love someone again. A chance to become a family. A chance to rebuild a career. A chance to survive illness. A chance to repair a friendship. A chance to admit that you were wrong. Even a chance to become the father you should have been years earlier, although Baek Sang-gil discovers with devastating cruelty that some chances do eventually expire.
That is what stayed with me after the romance ended. Life occasionally gives us another opportunity to correct something we damaged, but there is absolutely no guarantee that it will offer a third. Maybe that is also why I find some of the reaction surrounding Ha Young so uncomfortable. If a drama spends twelve episodes reminding us that people should be judged by what they choose to do with the life they have been given, perhaps we should be capable of extending the same reasoning to the actors once the credits stop rolling.
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