There is no doubt that this K-drama entitled Her Private Life (她的私生活) has a lot of fans, especially among the women-folk. After all, it is a rom-com and pairs a pretty Park Min Young with a good-looking Kim Jae Wook. That is already enough to attract a sizable amount of viewers. But does this drama actually lives up to its hype? Her Private Life review below will reveal more about this show. I have to say that I enjoyed watching it and I shall tell you why in the review.
Episodes: 16
Type: Romantic comedy
Aired: April 2019
Images Credit: tvN
The Cast
- Park Min Young as Sung Deok Mi
- Kim Jae Wook as Ryan Gold/Heo Yoon Jae
- Ahn Bo Hyun as Nam Eun Gi
- One as Cha Shi An
- Park Jin Joo as Lee Seon Joo
Main Characters
Sung Deok Mi
Deok Mi is a senior curator at Cheum Museum of Art. At work, she is a competent and hardworking curator. But in her private life, she is a hardcore fan of Cha Shi An, a member of a K-pop group. She runs a very popular fanpage, Shi An Is My Life, whereby she will go out of her way to take photos of her idol and post them on the website. All these is done secretly as the director of the museum where she works is against fangirling.
Deok Mi’s character is depicted as warm and happy. Her home is filled with Shi An’s pictures and momentoes. When she is feeling down, fangirling will lift her spirits. She also has Eun Gi and Seon Joo to share her fangirling secret and life’s problems.
Ryan Gold
Ryan moved to the US and grew up there when he was adopted by a couple at the age of 7. He is a talented artist who has retired for 3 years due to a sudden inability to draw after coming across a painting by Lee Sol that moves something within him. But he is still much sought after for his ability to see value in paintings.
Ryan comes across as self-confident but can be aloof to strangers. But he has his own insecurities to handle due to the feeling of being abandoned at an orphanage when he was young. He still has bad dreams about it from time to time.
Nam Eun Gi
Eun Gi is a judo expert and like a brother to Deok Mi although they are not related. He is raised by Deok Mi’s parents because his own mother was having issues in her personal life when he was born. However, they do keep in close contact and both mother and son share a great relationship. Although he bickers often with Deok Mi from young, he is loyal and protective of her.
Cha Shi An
Shi An is a cute K-pop idol with lots of female fans. He follows Deok Mi’s fanpage and looks forward to the things that she posts about him. Shi An lives one floor below Ryan and often bumps into him. They share an unexplained bond despite him being a pop star. Like Ryan, he is also a collector of Lee Sol’s paintings.
Lee Seon Joo
Seon Joo is a good friend of Deok Mi. She is rich and runs her own cafe near the museum. She is also a fan of Shi An but has to stop her fangirling activity with Deok Mi after she got married and became a mother.
Synopsis
Meeting Ryan
Deok Mi and Ryan first met at an art auction. They were both bidding for one of Lee Sol’s paintings. Ryan wanted it because he feels a personal connection to the painting while Deok Mi was hoping to get it as a birthday gift for Shi An as a gesture from his loyal fans. So, they were caught in a bidding war that ended with Ryan owning the painting.
Later on, Deok Mi bumped into Ryan again at the airport while taking pictures of Shi An. They collided and fell to the floor. In the confusion, she lost her fangirling notebook that consists of details on Shi An and this was picked up by Ryan. As it turns out, Ryan is her new director at the museum. While she knows who he is, Ryan does not recognize Deok Mi as she was wearing a cap and a mask during her collision with him at the airport.
Fake Relationship
As they work together for a planned art exhibition of paintings collected by celebrities, they got to know Shi An. Due to a coincidence, Shi An was rumored to be dating Deok Mi. This caused his fans to get angry at her. One of them is Sindy, who started to stalk Deok Mi. To kill the rumors off, Ryan suggested that they pretend to date.
The story starts to get interesting from here. How would they handle the fake relationship as Sindy became an intern at the museum and Eun Gi began to show a romantic interest in Deok Mi? And why is Ryan and Shi An so interested in Lee Sol’s paintings?
Her Private Life Ending (Spoilers Alert!)
Being a rom-com, it is only to be expected that the final episode will have a happy ending. Ryan managed to resolve his childhood issues and found both his mother and the woman who abandoned him at the orphanage years ago.
Ryan & Deok Mi’s Past
Initially, Ryan thought that his mother was the one who left him at the orphanage. But his mother just left him to play at a park while she went to meet someone regarding her artwork. She painted using the name of Lee Sol. On the way back to pick him up, she met with an accident and was unconscious for days.
Also at the park that day was Deok Mi and Eun Gi. When Ryan’s mother didn’t turn up, Deok Mi’s mother took him in and looked after him for about a month. It was Deok Mi’s mother who eventually dragged him to the orphanage and abandoned him there. She did that because she couldn’t cope after losing her own son to an accident.
Deok Mi and her younger brother were on the way to kindergarten when the bus they were in was hit by another vehicle. Her brother died while Deok Mi suffered from memory loss after the incident. She couldn’t remember her brother and the family pretended thereon that the brother didn’t exist at all to preserve a semblance of normalcy and happiness at home. When Deok Mi’s mother went back to the orphanage for Ryan later, he had already been adopted.
Lee Sol’s Paintings
The paintings that stir Ryan’s feelings are of colorful bubbles. There are 9 in the series. Shi An is interested in the paintings because Lee Sol is his mother. That means Ryan and Shi An are actually half-brothers. They managed to get their hands on 8 of them. The last one was given by Lee Sol to a church years ago when she lost Ryan. It was a painting of Ryan blowing bubbles and hanging it in a church building was her way of asking God to bless the child that she lost.
Ryan & Deok Mi’s Love Story
Ryan and Deok Mi’s fake relationship progressed to a real one as they started to develop feelings for each other. Ryan also found out that Deok Mi is the owner of Shi An’s fanpage through a few clues. With her fangirling activities no longer a secret with Ryan, they began to open up to each other more and more. With Deok Mi’s support, Ryan also began to paint again.
Viewers will also get to see Ryan proposing to Deok Mi and the drama ends where it all started – in an alley where they pretended to kiss so that Seon Joo could take their pictures and show that they are dating to ward off Shi An’s fans. When it comes to the final scene for the drama, the kiss at the alley is real this time around, of course!
Her Private Life Review : Is This The Best 2019 Rom-Com K-Drama?
Many fans would definitely see Her Private Life as the best rom-com for 2019 despite the year being just halfway through. I have to admit that it would be a romantic drama that is hard to beat because of the pairing of Kim Jae Wook and Park Min Young. Basically, you won’t be giving high marks for the plot but you will be swept along by the explosive chemistry between the two leads. Watch the behind-the-scenes (BTS) clips and you will understand why you will miss Her Private Life when it concludes. In fact, some fans find the BTS to be even more romantic than the scenes in the drama itself!
Thanks to the nature of the story, it allows the two characters to express their feelings in a very sweet and tender way. So, together with the off-the-roof chemistry of Kim and Park, the drama will fulfill viewers’ expectations of a very loving couple for a romantic comedy. In this aspect, Her Private Life beats What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim – the tenderness and supportive nature of the two lovers just overwhelms you in the former.
While Ryan and Deok Mi as a couple is very adorable to watch, Her Private Life is also refreshing for its handling of a romantic drama. There are no unnecessary big arguments, jealousies, tantrums or break-ups that are so common in such shows. Instead, it moves along based on how to be an understanding, supportive, and communicative partner. Contrast that to rom-coms such as Put Your Head On My Shoulder and you will see the difference in maturity in the relationship. Park and Kim nailed their roles very well to portray such a matured couple in the drama.
Where It Disappoints (With Spoilers)
The plot pertaining to Ryan’s past is nothing original. In fact, the link to a childhood problem gets kind of old. The last 2 to 3 episodes that suddenly brought up Deok Mi’s brother and her subsequent memory loss are unnecessary to me. I guess they have to throw it in to explain why she did not know that Ryan is the kid from her childhood. Anyway, the background story to their past just isn’t that realistic because Ryan was 7 at that time – old enough to give others clues about his mother and where he lives.
Furthermore, Deok Mi’s private life as a diehard fan of Shi An remains a secret. Shi An was never told who was the owner of Shi An Is My Life fanpage. In fact, he was sad when the page was put on hold as Deok Mi started to get more involved with Ryan and subsequently had to move to New York for a year for work. Thus, the fangirling topic kind of dropped off halfway too when it is supposed to be the theme of the drama. I don’t know why they couldn’t put in a scene to reveal the secret to Shi An because that would be interesting to watch. After all, Deok Mi is his brother’s girlfriend and future sister-in-law.
I also feel that Eun Gi’s sudden romantic interest in Deok Mi is kind of awkward. He has been like a family member since they were brought up together. I guess it is a way to give some competition to Ryan and competing for a girl is almost always part of the plot in a romantic drama.
My Verdict
Yes, Her Private Life is worth watching to me. But don’t put high hopes on the plot. Watch it for the romance and kisses. The chemistry between the two leads will make your heart flutter with sweetness all around. The kisses are not so much about sex or a lead-up to a bed scene but they are more about love, passion, and tenderness of the moment. So, it is easy to get emotionally invested as you watched their romance unfolds.
A word of warning though. I find the first few episodes to be a little cheesy. The fangirling thingy leads to much daydreaming that is over the top. Sit through all that and you will find that it gets better from around episode 4 onwards. The kissing starts from the end of episode 6 and begins to heat up in episode 8 onwards. Also, you can swoon over Ryan Gold as the perfect boyfriend. Happy watching!
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