So I Married an Anti-Fan (그래서 나는 안티팬과 결혼했다)
A review of the Korean drama So I Married an Anti-Fan (그래서 나는 안티팬과 결혼했다).
This drama was filmed in 2018 but wasn’t actually released until now, three years later. That’s insane to me. I will admit though, when I stumbled across this drama on Viki while the episodes were originally still being uploaded, I wasn’t very interested in the premise.
It’s such a big fanfiction trope that I couldn’t take it seriously, and that seemed to be a common theme throughout as I watched this. I couldn’t take it seriously at all. More on that later, but, surprisingly, I watched this drama in its entirety. I couldn’t even do that with the other drama I watched alongside it: Doom At Your Service.
I ended up having to drop that drama because I found it to be insufferable after a certain point. I didn’t love this drama, but I do have a lot of thoughts, so let’s dig deeper into that.
Content / Story
The plot driving this story is that our female lead is a journalist sent to cover a nightclub, where she meets a K-pop idol. They become enemies after she loses his job become of him, the media and his fans hate her, and then a broadcast company thinks it’s a bright idea to have them be fake married and whatnot.
She’s unemployed and has nowhere to live, and is now secretly living in the apartment that they’re filming in. All the while, the idol’s ex and her controlling CEO come into the picture, as well as other antagonistic forces (such as fandoms).
All of the characters are extremely toxic and poorly written; this is something I found to be an interesting trainwreck of sorts. Perhaps that’s why I ended up watching so much of this drama.
Our main couple isn’t exactly ideal; the female lead is a journalist, which requires a lot of headstrong nature and the need to be able to stand up for yourself and the work that you’re doing.
She does absolutely none of that. She just takes all of this abuse, and, while she is strong for being able to get through this, she doesn’t really do much to try and get her life back together. And what Hoo Joon did to her at the beginning of the series seriously is not okay nor is it relationship material. Once you watch it you’ll know what I’m referring to.
There’s this super weird power dynamic between the girl who is Hoo Joon’s ex and her manager, played by Chan-sung. It comes across as a control thing because Chan-sung’s character is supposedly in love with her but he’s also her CEO of the management company.
Then when things go south he threatens to ruin her. He shows up in a foreign country out of jealously because she’s near her ex, they’re manipulative as a couple, and there’s physical abuse. None of this is okay nor should it be romanticized.
There’s a lot of cliches and tropes if you can’t tell from the review already. The acting is also just okay in this one, I wasn’t that much of a fan nor was I wowed by the depth the actors added to the characters.
Overall Thoughts
It’s cute on a superficial level, but once you start paying attention and realize that some of the things going on seriously are not okay in 2021 towards women, this drama isn’t as cute anymore. For me, it was a good distraction, but then I couldn’t think about the drama too hard because then I’d get annoyed by the gender and power dynamics going on throughout the drama.
There are some wholesome moments, but the bad outweighs the positive here in my humble opinion. But because this isn’t my cup of tea doesn’t mean that someone else won’t like it! If you like romcoms and romantic tropes, then this is the drama for you.
