Review of Love is Like a Cat / 사랑은 고양이처럼

In Fall 2024, I call this the season of Asian dramas. I was going through them like water, especially considering throughout the season I was what I dubbed “funemployed.” I was waiting for a visa for my Fulbright, but then the country ended up delaying it for an insane amount of time. At least I had this blog to focus on!

Anyways, as I just mentioned, I was watching a lot of dramas because of this. There was a focus on Korean ones because I had returned from Korea in mid-August after living there for a bit. I missed Korean language and culture, so I would watch these kinds of shows to remind me of what I had lost.

I was also more interested in Thai dramas, which the reviews of those shows will eventually come out on the blog. I have quite an extensive backlog to get through; this has been the focus of my endeavors as of late.

This is how I ended up watching Love is Like a Cat. I wanted something more low commitment at the time, and the shorter amount of episodes in this series was something that appealed to me.

Let’s get into the review before I start rambling too much!

During filming, a Thai male actor befriends the owner of a Korean pet daycare.

This show is unique because of a major element of its plot: the two male leads (this is a boy love show) are from two different countries. This means there are some elements of translation happening, especially as the characters are relying on earpieces at times to understand what the other is saying to them.

So our Thai male lead is Piuno, a major actor and superstar around the world. Seen as one of the biggest talents in Asia, he has a scandal currently happening. As we know about the entertainment world, especially in Asia, scandals can really ruin the careers of those working within the industry.

Piuno and his team get desperate to salvage his reputation, which means they’re searching for ways to keep him on the down low while also seemingly doing good for society. So what do they do? They sign him up for working at a pet daycare, which will also be filmed.

Big problem here: Piuno hates animals. I’d say at times he even has a fear for them judging by his interactions with some of the characters and animals in the series, but over the course of this brief show, he’s going to learn to like them fairly quickly.

It’s at this daycare though that he meets Dae Byeol, the director of the place. Despite this taking place in the daycare throughout the course of the series, we honestly only see a single dog in this entire joint. That dog Piuno is very afraid of, but Dae Byeol is going to use him as a crux to help Piuno get over his fears.

I mean we do eventually see what caused such a trauma for him, as he confesses to Dae Byeol at one point, but if you’re looking for more romance out of this show, you’re going to be severely disappointed. To me it came more across as ~ vibes ~ with a sprinkle of romantic elements every few episodes or so.

This is a short show, clocking it at a few hours max, so if you want a quick watch, this one moves fairly quickly. At the same time, the acting isn’t the best, so if you’re forcing yourself to watch it, it can feel like an eternity at times.

Overall Thoughts

I think you can kind of tease out my thoughts from what I wrote above: this show is poorly written, and if you’re looking for romance to keep the threads together, you’re not going to get that from this show. As someone who pretty much only saves romance for Asian dramas (I do not watch romance movies unless it’s on a whim), it’s usually excusable if it has a solid plot—but this show doesn’t.

The acting also wasn’t great, which made this painful for me to watch at times. The Thai actor and Korean pet daycare owner storyline could work really well, but it fell flat here in so many ways. Even the fact they had to communicate through a translator half the time was odd.

That said, I don’t think I could recommend this one. Maybe someone out there likes it, and neither of us are wrong because taste is extremely subjective. If you like it, feel free to drop a line and tell me why! I’m interested in knowing why.

Follow me below on Instagram and Goodreads for more.