Review | K-drama review: Nevertheless – Netflix romantic series offers frank view of sex and modern relationships

With its honest depictions of sexual tensions and LGBT feelings, Nevertheless struggled to find an audience in South Korea, but has done well internationally

The series is quite handsomely shot, which makes up for the hollowness of its narrative. For all its faults, it hints at more mature K-drama romances to come

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Han So-hee in a scene from Netflix K-drama Nevertheless, which offers a frank view of sex and modern relationships.

Published: 6:24pm, 24 Aug 2021Updated: 7:51pm, 24 Aug 2021

This article contains spoilers.

3/5 stars

Although K-dramas have started to be a little less shy about it, they still don’t show us a lot of sex – but they do love to dance around the subject. Characters can endure 16 or 20 episodes of yearning without so much as a kiss. Perhaps all that pent-up tension is what gives us the fiery misunderstandings that keep romantic leads apart until their climactic embraces.

Nevertheless, a college-set youth romance from JTBC airing globally on Netflix, doesn’t beat about the bush. Its lead character, Yoon Na-bi, played by The World of the Married breakout actress Han So-hee, definitely has sex. She’s meek and shy, and dresses modestly, but she was in a sexual relationship with an older artist as the story began and spends a lot of the show engaged in a casual fling with fellow art student Park Jae-eon (Song Kang).

Given the conservative society she lives in, Na-bi struggles with this relationship and before long pushes Park away – both because she misinterprets his interactions with another woman and because she fears the public stigma of being associated with a known playboy.