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Pierce Conran

This article contains mild spoilers.
Lead cast: Jung So-min, Jung Hae-in, Kim Ji-eun, Yoon Ji-on
Latest Nielsen rating: 5.55 per cent
In Love Next Door, the romantic Korean drama starring Jung So-min and Jung Hae-in, a pair of childhood friends and former neighbours reconnect when one of them returns home after a long stint overseas.


Exhausted from her work and having second thoughts about her impending marriage, Baek Seok-ryu (Jung So-min, Alchemy of Souls) returns to the nest to regroup. Meanwhile, Choi Seung-hyo (Jung Hae-in, D.P.) is hard at work setting up his new architecture firm.
The two pick things up right where they left off, but what that means is that the unresolved feelings between them when Seok-ryu suddenly left for America remain unuttered.
Thus Love Next Door, much like last winter’s Welcome to Samdalri, was poised to be a story about two childhood friends who have to get over themselves and their troubles before getting into each other’s arms.
Indeed, the story has progressed in that direction, but unlike Samdalri and other series like it, that has not been the most compelling part of this show.

Love Next Door, as more clearly suggested by its Korean title (Mom’s Friend’s Son), is also about mothers and the sacrifices they make for their children, the desires they have for them and how those desires can twist into an aggressive kind of love.
Given that she returns without a job or fiancé, Seok-ryu is not welcomed home with open arms. She knew she wouldn’t be, and thus spends much of the first episode avoiding her mother Na Mi-sook (Park Ji-young, Revenant).
This is the first of several instances of family members – mostly Seok-ryu – keeping secrets from Mi-sook.
Each time she quickly finds out – things do not usually stay secret for long in K-dramas – resulting in loud confrontations at home, often involving the flustered Mi-sook reaching for an at-hand household item to beat whoever has been keeping secrets from her.

This happens when Mi-sook’s husband, Bae Geun-sik (Cho Han-chul, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha), comes clean about a debt he racked up after being conned by fake YouTubers. But the biggest blow-up is once again caused by Seok-ryu when the truth about the stomach cancer she was diagnosed with and recovered from three years earlier is revealed.
These instances render Mi-sook irate and violent, but the intensity of her reaction is dictated by how much she cares for her family. Her heart isn’t in the blows she doles out, but in the hugs and tears that quickly replace them.
Mi-sook’s love for her daughter is continually challenged. She and her husband worked hard at their low-income jobs to give their children a chance, and Seok-ryu appeared to thrive. She excelled in school and went to America to work in a world-famous corporation, where she was all set to get married.
During her break at home, she finally realises what she really wants to do. Much like Kim Tae-ri’s protagonist in the feel-good, food-themed movie Little Forest, she wants to cook, using fresh and traditional ingredients.

Given that her parents have slaved away all this time at a snack shop, this is the last thing they want to hear from their daughter. But her mind is set and they are forced to come to terms with it.
The family aspect of Love Next Door is surely the show’s strongest suit, but that does prompt the question of why it so easily outshines the main romance. After all, this is a romantic K-drama headlined by two hugely popular young stars.
Jung Hae-in, who is also lording over the Korean box office this month in the hit action-crime film I, the Executioner (a sequel to the earlier hit Veteran), has been in a number of strong dramas of late, including D.P. and Connect, and he has acquitted himself well in shows that were not quite up to par (Snowdrop).
Unfortunately, Love Next Door has not been a compelling showcase for Jung’s star qualities. Seung-hyo is aloof and talented, just like many a K-drama romantic lead, but there’s a lack of charm to the character, not to mention a lack of definition.

Ten episodes in and we still haven’t got a sense of who he is and Jung still has not found a way into the character.
Like many romantic K-dramas, the series also showcases a secondary romance, between Seung-hyo and Seok-ryu’s paramedic friend Jeong Mo-eum (Kim Ji-eun, One Dollar Lawyer) and journalist Kang Dan-ho (Yoon Ji-on, Serendipity’s Embrace).
Their characters aren’t particularly well integrated into the narrative, but their courtship, based on themes of courage and mutual trust, has been more compelling than that of the leads.
With six episodes to go, it’s time that the leads come into their own and take over their own romantic drama before it leaves them behind for good.
Love Next Door is streaming on Netflix.


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