Watch it for Park Min-Young
Sometimes a show is made by the cast and not the story. This is the case with Her Private Life. This show is about Park Min-Young. She is just incredible in every single scene. Her facial expressions, the subtle shifts in tone, were always delicately done and yet so brilliant in creating a character suffused with this inherent warmth. I cannot emphasis how much I became infatuated with her acting. The only other actor who had an effect like this on me was IU in Hotel Del Luna and My Mister.
Min-Young's chemistry with Kim Jae-wook is incredible. The two fill the show with this beautiful, tender energy. Their relationship reminded me a little of Because This is My First Life but it works better here I think because both these characters are more animated. In fact what I appreciated about Kim Jae-wook was that he wasn't closed-off. I was worried that the trope of the quiet, good-looking man would lead to a wall-off heart and mind and episodes built around Park Min-Young's character trying to unravel his secrets but he was largely open and honest with her. This was refreshing because the show didn't need this as a conflict. Nor did it need the love triangle/square planted in the show but that's a predictable kdrama cliche you are now prepared for. I wish that amount of screen-time had been devoted to showing Kim Jae-wook's character troubled by his early memories.
The plot twist near the end isn't surprising. We all knew immediately why those paintings mattered to him, and that makes it more gratifying that we didn't waste an episode of him not telling Park Min-Young's character what we could all see.
The main blemish is the support cast. I simply wasn't sold on them and that was enough to make me score this a very high 8.5 rather than a 9. I think k-drama writers need better conflicts than love triangles that simply aren't plausible. There was something a little incestuous about this one because of how one of the characters was initially introduced to us in the beginning episodes. Once that was established, it was jarring to suddenly reconfigure it.
I would say though that Park Min-Young was consistently a 10/10 in this show. She made it extremely enjoyable and I'll always rewatch it simply for her acting.
Min-Young's chemistry with Kim Jae-wook is incredible. The two fill the show with this beautiful, tender energy. Their relationship reminded me a little of Because This is My First Life but it works better here I think because both these characters are more animated. In fact what I appreciated about Kim Jae-wook was that he wasn't closed-off. I was worried that the trope of the quiet, good-looking man would lead to a wall-off heart and mind and episodes built around Park Min-Young's character trying to unravel his secrets but he was largely open and honest with her. This was refreshing because the show didn't need this as a conflict. Nor did it need the love triangle/square planted in the show but that's a predictable kdrama cliche you are now prepared for. I wish that amount of screen-time had been devoted to showing Kim Jae-wook's character troubled by his early memories.
The plot twist near the end isn't surprising. We all knew immediately why those paintings mattered to him, and that makes it more gratifying that we didn't waste an episode of him not telling Park Min-Young's character what we could all see.
The main blemish is the support cast. I simply wasn't sold on them and that was enough to make me score this a very high 8.5 rather than a 9. I think k-drama writers need better conflicts than love triangles that simply aren't plausible. There was something a little incestuous about this one because of how one of the characters was initially introduced to us in the beginning episodes. Once that was established, it was jarring to suddenly reconfigure it.
I would say though that Park Min-Young was consistently a 10/10 in this show. She made it extremely enjoyable and I'll always rewatch it simply for her acting.
Was this review helpful to you?