K-drama Love in Contract: Park Min-young leads high-concept romcom with one plot strand too many
- Love in Contract stars Park Min-young as Choi Sang-eun, a ‘single-life helper’ who pretends to be a wife for paying clients
- Bored of her role, she plans to leave for Quebec, Canada, when a mysterious superstar appears on the scene
Choi Sang-eun, the main character in the new K-drama Love in Contract, has an unusual job. She goes by the professional title “single-life helper”, which entails pretending to be a wife to paying clients.
As an attractive and poised young woman, she can be someone’s arm candy to show off during a high-school reunion, a partner for business meetings on the golf course, or more often than not a presentable wife to bring to the homestead and relieve any nagging family pressure.
Love in Contract illustrates one of the great paradoxes of Korean TV. Marriage to Mr or Mrs Perfect is the end goal of many a Korean drama, but while those unions appear fantastical, the marriages we see on screen before these stories reach their conclusions are also revealed to be social illusion.
Dramas seem to acknowledge that marriages are a social construct, often abused by those seeking advancement. The paradox is that these stories also dangle marriage in front of us as the ideal social state to aspire to.