Review of Now, We Are Breaking Up / 지금, 헤어지는 중입니다

I had never known this drama existed until one day I was doing research for one of my MovieWeb articles about Korean dramas.

The more I kept reading into it, the more I decided I needed to watch this next. I don’t really care for either of the lead actors—in fact, I especially remember thinking that I didn’t care at all for Jang Ki-yong’s performance in My Roommate is a Gumiho.

When I was watching that drama, I genuinely thought his character only had two or three personalities because he was so wooden. I couldn’t figure out if it was a script thing, but having watched this now, I just don’t think I care for him as an actor.

Song Hye-kyo, though, is an excellent actor and I knew that going into it.

Because I knew the core of the story due to my research, I had an idea of what to expect, but, to be honest, finishing this drama was a massive struggle. Before I say too much, let’s just dive into the review then, shall we?

A fashion designer leader and a photographer meet and discover a connection between them in the past.

So this is a drama that’s heavily set in the fashion world. I think it does a good job in representing what goes on behind the scenes, although it does glamorize it a bit.

For context, I attended what was the best fashion college in the world when I was attending there and had plenty of industry experience by the time I had gotten out there, despite the COVID-19 pandemic getting in the way of my schooling.

I’d say this is a pretty okay depiction because of that. I didn’t hate it in that way. In the real world though I’d say it’d be a little more abusive in the American context. Lots of yelling and divas.

Anyways, Song portrays Ha Yong-eun, who had her start back when she was studying in Paris. Now the design team leader, she has a one night stand with a guy in Paris, only to meet him yet again when in Seoul.

This is Jang’s character: Yang Jae-gook.

He’s a renowned fashion photographer and she has to hire him, but the more time they spend together, she realizes that he’s the brother of her dead ex-boyfriend.

There’s an obvious attraction from these two, but when he starts appearing in her life even more, they can’t deny the sparks.

Throughout the drama a lot of the conflict relies on industry drama, such as a character giving up the team’s design to another team to try and get a promotion, and then there’s the entire dead ex-boyfriend and brother bit going on between these two.

From the very beginning the attraction is obvious and they don’t really try to downplay it, so the two main leads end up becoming a couple pretty early on.

However, there simply isn’t enough to me to keep this drama going for sixteen episodes.

I will admit, by the time I reached episode six, I was seriously bored with the drama. Nothing was happening, and the only character I found interesting at that point was Se-hun.

I think this could’ve worked a lot better as a drama that only ran for six episodes, but instead it was straight up a full drama series. Another key part about this drama was that I thought the acting was so bad.

I mentioned Jang before, and I expected this kind of performance from him. But Song Hye-kyo as well?

I couldn’t tell if there was simply no depth to her character or the fact she wasn’t pulling in a good connection with the character, which was shocking considering the last drama I had watched from her was Descendants of the Sun.

This combination ultimately made the drama extremely boring for me, and it was a pain to get through. But I watched it all, or I wouldn’t be giving a review on it.

Overall Thoughts

With the premise and setting, this could’ve been such a great show in the creative industry that’s also dealing with the themes of overcoming grief.

But this show simply didn’t work. Maybe it was the acting. Maybe it was the setup and production leading up until this point. It just didn’t work.

This is a drama you have to come in with very low expectations and an open mind, but I think then again, taste is subjective. I didn’t like this drama at all, but someone out there definitely does.

And neither of us are wrong. That’s why we should take reviews with a grain of salt and evaluate them fairly into our judgement.

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