Review of Destined With You / 이 연애는 불가항력

For past two months, I’ve been obsessed with dramas starring Rowoon. I think he’s one of the few idol actors who’s actually pretty decent at acting, and so far all of the dramas (minus She Will Never Know, I had to drop that drama pretty quickly because of how mundane and boring it was) I’ve watched with him in it have been stellar.

So when I saw Destined With You was coming to the American Netflix with two episodes dropping at a time, I knew I was going to be in this for the long haul.

And to give context, I don’t really watch shows like this. I prefer to binge watch dramas after they’ve already been fully released, just so I don’t have to stop and have a dedicated time each week to watch the new episodes dropping.

I was a bit weary when I saw that Rowoon was starring with Jo Bo-ah though—her acting has been hit or miss for me. I do say I think she’s okay in this drama, although she feels kind of stiff in certain moments.

Let’s get into the review!

A government worker gets tangled up supernaturally with a lawyer after she’s sent to inspect his family’s abandoned land.

I will say, there is some major clickbait at the beginning of this show to lure you into thinking it is what it is about. So in the beginning there’s a live streamer who gets himself murdered at an abandoned house in the woods, and government worker Lee Hong-jo is sent to the property to evaluate what exactly is going on here.

She’s struggling with her private life and team right now as well, as they constantly go out after work and don’t bother inviting her, despite the fact she tries to be liked by her coworkers.

When she heads out onto the property, she passes out in the middle of the building, and when she wakes up, she finds a strange man standing in front of her. It turns out to be Jang Shin-yu, a lawyer who also works for the same government.

He’s a rich boy whose family owns the land, but he’s been afflicted by a curse where a bloody hand appears on his face and his health is spiraling down every time it appears.

After she realizes who he is, he ends up giving her a box that he thinks is the secret behind his curse. Turns out it’s a three hundred year old spell book and she decides to cast a love spell to get another government worker to fall in love with her.

But fate doesn’t work out, and Shin-yu ends up consuming the love potion. Many episodes are about him simping after her despite being engaged to the mayor’s daughter, who is also cheating on him with another guy. And, as it turns out, this girl is Hong-jo’s high school bully.

We forget about the bloody hand for several episodes unless Shin-yu needs a moment where doubles over in pain or goes to the hospital, and the drama ramps up.

Hong-jo’s coworkers lust after him, the other government worker moves downstairs to her, and a creepy flower shop guy starts stalking her at every possible moment of the day.

Shin-yu also starts actually falling for her, and we learn that his curse is because they were fated lovers many years ago tragically and violently split apart.

The rest of the series then becomes about how they might repeat their fate, and Shin-yu’s now angry ex-girlfriend decides to enlist flower shop guy to get her revenge, making murder almost become part of this equation.

I found this show to be quite the whiplash to be honest because of this, as the final half of the show really checks all of the boxes off for trying to get to the next level of what tropes and insanity this show can go through.

Overall Thoughts

I will say, I watched the show all the way through and thought it was pretty entertaining. Rowoon obviously is one of the highlights for me (totally not biased), but I wanted more from Hong-jo as a character.

I think I wanted more from the show in general because of how it ends up adhering to a lot of gender based tropes that I was like hmmm about.

The plot also really feels like a mismatched quilt at times, and while it didn’t make me stop watching, I was scratching my head in certain moments trying to figure out how we got to this point.

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