One evening, Oh crashes into Ki on the street, her handbag spilling on the ground. Ki picks up her gun (actually a lighter) and Oh tries to hide behind him when her ex-boyfriend director comes chasing after her. When he starts tugging on Oh’s arm, Ki levels the fake weapon at his head.

Standard romantic K-dramas are built within a fairly constrained framework. Typically, this involves a handsome, aloof and rich young man and a determined young woman without power or connections. A meet-cute ensues, where the woman is usually flummoxed by the man’s arrogance and the man is intrigued by the scrappy woman.

Their worlds collide – normally hers is absorbed by his, which is full of treacherous family members – and just as they look to be moving to couple status, secondary love interests, but this time she is rich and he is poor – toss a wrench in the works.

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Each new romantic drama is essential a variation on a theme, and what makes them stand out is the chemistry shared between the leads, and the original details used to spice up the cliched setting. Run On stands out for the unusual jobs (and strange hobbies) of its characters and a secondary romantic plot that hasn’t threatened the main coupling (at least not six episodes in).

Film fans will likely get a kick out of catching the show’s many references, which start at the fictional Annam International Film Festival. Filled with foreign guests, it’s filmed at the location of the Jeonju International Film Festival. A Bong Joon-ho lookalike walks the red carpet and Ki’s mother’s nickname is an allusion to actress Jeon Do-yeon.

At one point, Oh explains that she was inspired to become a translator after hearing the line “Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up.” The provenance of this inspirational quote, fitting for a plucky young woman such as her? Batman Begins . Beyond that, 2001: A Space Odyssey , Casablanca, ET and more are all referenced in the first few episodes.

Another reference that will likely become more important is sports agent romantic drama Jerry Maguire. Ki has his own sports agent, Seo Dan-a (played by Sooyoung of Girls’ Generation), but the show is also described as being about him becoming a sports agent, though this plan isn’t set in motion in the first three weeks’ worth of episodes.

The surprise MVP in Run On’s opening run is surely Kang Tae-oh as Lee Young-hwa, the young painter who gets sucked into the orbit of Dan-a. Kang is bright and appealing in the role, landing the show’s cutest moments, which likely would have been grating with a weaker performer.

Oh may have an interesting job, but as a character she’s prickly and dry, and fails to stand out, especially with Shin in the role, who has played several similar characters in the past.

Im, who has excelled in films like The Attorney and The Merciless, fares a little better as Ki, though the character’s motivations (justice warrior?) are murky at best and his behaviour is baffling rather than cute and off-the-cuff, as it was probably intended.

There are a few decent running gags and a change of residence for one of the main characters picks things up after a while, but for the moment, what Run On is missing is a destination worth dashing off to.

Run On is streaming on Netflix.