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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Jung So-min, Choi Woo-shik
Latest Nielsen rating: 6.4 per cent
Jung So-min (Alchemy of Souls) and Choi Woo-shik (Parasite) tie the knot in the marriage-themed romcom Would You Marry Me. Or rather, they pretend to, as this is the latest addition to the subgenre of sham marriage comedies, following titles such as No Gain No Love and Wedding Impossible.
Matrimonial K-dramas are especially prone to trading in clichés, and this latest example is no exception. In fact, it positively gorges on them, leaving no space for surprise. If you think you have seen this before, you have – everything unfolds exactly how and when you would expect it to.


While this would be a death knell for many series, here it turns out to be a strength, owing to the bright lead performances, the sunny staging and the occasional detail that does break through the formula.
Case in point is the meet-cute between leads Yoo Me-ri (Jung) and Kim Woo-joo (Choi). Me-ri’s marriage has fallen apart and she has just learned that she is the victim of a renter’s scam. She drowns her sorrows and while tottering home blind drunk later that evening, she bumps into Woo-joo’s SUV.
He tries to help, but in her drunken fog she confuses him for her ex and goes berserk. As far as K-drama meet-cutes go, this is borderline tedious, but the scene wakes up – and so does Me-ri – when she sits down… on a cactus.
Woo-joo takes her to hospital, and the formula continues, but now with a little pep in its step. So how does this lead to a fake marriage?

Me-ri, who runs a small design company, discovered that her fiancé (Seo Bum-june, The First Night with the Duke) was cheating on her and promptly cancelled the wedding. The trouble is, they had already signed their marriage certificate, necessitating a divorce.
They had also recently moved into a new flat, all on Me-ri’s dime. So when the police tell her that the person who rented her the flat was not the real homeowner, she is left on her own, her hard-earned savings in the wind.
Fortune finally strikes shortly after her meet-cute, but with a catch.
She happens to win a long-shot raffle she had almost forgotten about, winning a luxury town house in a new development. To claim it, she needs to be a newlywed. Thankfully, she has the certificate to prove it, but the competition organisers are insisting she show up with her husband.

This is where Woo-joo comes in, because he happens to have the exact same name as her ex – hence her confusion during their drunken altercation. But why should he help her?
Woo-joo is the grandson of the chairwoman of the famed Myungsoondang bakery company. He has just returned to Korea to take up the position of marketing team leader.
His jealous cousin sets a trap for him as soon as he starts the job, and to fix it he needs to plead with a design company which, you guessed it, is the one run by Me-ri. Now they both need something from each other.
The coincidences, unlikely scenarios and clichés stack up from there – Woo-joo’s family rivals live in the same luxury compound, he has trauma stemming from his parents’ death in a car crash – but that is very much the point in a series trying to mine easily digestible comedy and drama out of recognisable scenarios.

It is the kind of show you can talk over while watching with your family, or glance back at while cooking dinner with no risk of losing the thread of the story.
The story is bound to slow down now that all the main pieces are set, so whether the show remains diverting will largely be up to the cast. Since the supporting characters are largely soapy caricatures, that means the heavy lifting will be done by Jung and Choi.
On that count, so far the show seems to be in steady hands. Jung is in familiar territory, having played similar characters on the big (Love Reset) and small (Love Next Door) screens, and once again finds an amiable middle ground between cute, downtrodden and stubborn.
Choi has had to do less heavy lifting in these early episodes, largely coasting on his ample charm, so his real test will come as his role beefs up in the coming weeks – but it is hard to imagine that he will not be up to the task.

All in all, it has been a pretty predictable yet passably pleasing start for Would You Marry Me.
Would You Marry Me is streaming on Disney+.


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Choi Woo-shik (left) and Jung So-min in a still from Would You Marry Me.

Jung So-min in a still from Would You Marry Me.

Choi Woo-shik and Jung So-min in a still from Would You Marry Me.

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Sticking to the fake marriage romcom formula is working so far for Would You Marry Me, starring Jung So-min and Choi Woo-shik


Sticking to the fake marriage romcom formula is working so far for Would You Marry Me, starring Jung So-min and Choi Woo-shik.


Disney+ K-drama Would You Marry Me: Jung So-min, Choi Woo-shik lead sham marriage comedy

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Sticking to the fake marriage romcom formula is working so far for Would You Marry Me, starring Jung So-min and Choi Woo-shik

Sticking to the fake marriage romcom formula is working so far for Would You Marry Me, starring Jung So-min and Choi Woo-shik