Take a top romance actor who hates women and a woman who goes after cheating men to turn the tables on them and show them what they’ve been doing to other women and what do you get? Romance? You’d probably say no, but YES, for the Korean series on Netflix called Love to Hate You, that is EXACTLY what happened.
Yeo Miran is a new lawyer for an entertainment company and Nam Kang Ho is a top drama/romance actor who meets at a party thrown by the law firm for their clients. Miran is convinced that Kangho is a bad guy who takes advantage of women and is determined to find out how she can out him, making the extra effort to get closer to him to do so. Kangho, on the other hand, takes Miran on as a fight instructor for his movie after discovering her street-smart fighting skills, using the fact that she is also a lawyer assigned to him to his advantage. In the process, the two learn more about each other and eventually fall in love.
Looking back on this series, I don’t think that it made that much sense to me how these two fell in love. I don’t think that they put in enough scenes to justify exactly how it happened. It seemed like with Kangho being a woman hater to the point that he can’t stand even touching them, it was enough to say he fell in love just because he can touch her. That was so weird for me. If a man told me that he fell in love with me because he realized he could touch me without feeling like he would throw up, I would be running in the opposite direction. Wouldn’t you?
Then, of course, there was Miran, who hated the guy so much because of what she assumed of him. Then suddenly, once she found out she was wrong, she was in love(?). Again, so weird! Despite all that, however, I did like seeing these two when they were already in the relationship phase. I think that the writers did better with that part, to be fair.
As with any drama, this romance needed some complications. Kangho was starring in a movie with his ex-girlfriend. The press found out that Miran had been with a lot of men before Kangho, and it affected both their careers. He wanted to marry her, but she didn’t want to get married. It caused a strain in their relationship. Not to worry though, as with most dramas, everything worked out for everyone in the end.
I found some good supporting characters for this show and some back stories interesting. I wish they could have tackled the part about Miran’s parents more because it seems there was more to that story that made her the kind of woman that she was. That whole dynamic with her father is very telling about her opinion of men in general. It would have also been good to see more about the romance between Miran’s best friend and Kangho’s manager/best friend. I felt that this happened a little too late in the show so there wasn’t much about them to see because the show was already ending by that time. If the series had more than ten episodes, they probably could have done that.
Love to Hate You was a good enough drama to watch if you were just passing the time doing something else. It’s not as good as some of the romantic comedies (or dramas) I’ve seen so far but it’s not that bad either. I thought it was cute, casting-wise, that Kangho’s best friend/manager was played by Kim Jihoon while Kangho’s ex was played by Lee Joobin. Both actors worked together on another Netflix series: Money Heist Korea. I recognized both right away and I thought it was amusing to see them in this show together in roles very far from the ones they had in Money Heist.
This series is cute and entertaining, but don’t expect too much from it when you start watching. It was nice, even if it did not give me the kilig feels that I wanted in a rom-com. It did, however, give me the inspiration to start watching rom-com Korean dramas again, which I’ve given up on lately. So, if only for that, this is an OK show to watch!
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