K-drama Review: What's Wrong With Secretary Kim?

What's Wrong with Secretary Kim? is a fun, quirky office romance that will make you both laugh and cry. Highly recommended! Read on for a more detailed review, as well as what writers can learn from the show.

English Title: What's Wrong with Secretary Kim? (2018)

Writer: Jung Eun-young

Director: Park Joon-hwa

Length: 16 Episodes

Tropes: Office Romance, Slow Burn, Sibling Love Triangle, Childhood friends

My Score: 4/5

Description: When his secretary, Kim Mi-so (Park Min-young) unexpectedly resigns, arrogant and egocentric corporate executive Lee Young-joon (Park Seo-joon) will do everything he can to change her mind - including proposing marriage.

If you enjoyed this show, then watch: Her Private Life (same female lead), She Was Pretty (same male lead), Romance is a Bonus Book, Love Next Door.

I recently rewatched this show, and it was just as good as the first time, if not better. It's a must-see K-drama, especially if you enjoy RomComs that give you all the feels. The leads have great chemistry, the script and pacing are excellent, and What's Wrong with Secretary Kim? also features two of my favourite things: strong sisterly friendships, and a humorous friendship between the hero and his best friend.

The story mixes a little tragedy and some emotionally-angsty scenes with comic secondary characters and plot lines. As with Crash Landing on You, the pacing is excellent - the perfect balance between tragedy and comedy to control the viewers' emotions. Despite the sometimes heart-wrenching main storyline, this is a feel-good romance with an HEA that is guaranteed to leave you smiling and glad that you watched it.

There's a big cast of secondary characters, and a number of sub-plots, but it's the main storyline that will keep you riveted. I'm trying hard not to give spoilers here, but I love that the show keeps the viewer guessing episode after episode about what really happened in the past, and which of the two brothers is the one Kim Mi-so remembers from her childhood, without feeling like the reveal has been dragged out too long.

On my second viewing I also realised that Kim Mi-so's parents in the flashback scenes are played by the lead couple from Because This Is My First Life, which was the previous show by the same director (Park Joon-hwa). A cute little Easter egg!

So why didn't I score this K-drama with a perfect 5 stars? 

• On Netflix, the subtitles go out of sync with the visuals for several scenes at the end of episode 10, making it hard to keep up with the story.
• There are a few exaggerated slapstick moments (and, as you may have guessed from reading some of my other reviews, I'm not a big fan of contrived comedy) including the classic but cheesy heroine-tripping-into-the-hero's-arms moment (Though I did enjoy that this show also included a gender-flipped reverse of this!)
• The hero starts out over-the-top and a little unrealistic.
• Finally, the last episode feels a little "tacked on" after the main conflicts have been wrapped up - though I've subsequently learned that this is common in many K-dramas. (I'm looking at you, When the Phone Rings!)

But these were just minor issues and would not prevent me from watching the show again (and again.)

It's hard to pick a favourite scene, as there are so many, but Secretary Kim has two of the best proposal scenes I've seen (the Coca-Cola confession is certainly a most creative way to confess love!) and this one is just so cute:

Finally, why do I regularly recommend this show to writers?

• The backstory. Secretary Kim is an excellent example of how to reveal back story, teasing it out with a little more information added in each episode to slowly build the full picture and keep the viewer guessing without growing bored.
• It's also a great example of how to transform a character from unlikable and unrelatable into a character we love, understand and root for. The hero's character transformation from egocentric CEO into an ideal "Book Boyfriend" is not instantaneous or brought about by a single major "wake-up call" but rather made up of many small moments that slowly offer us glimpses into his motivation and change our view of him, as well as showing how he himself changes.
• The romance story structure is a little different from what we western romance readers and writers usually expect. We're used to a third act break-up and the love interests only coming together as a couple at the very end of the story. [Small spoiler alert ahead!] In Secretary Kim, the love interests become a couple around episode 9 (just past the halfway mark) and the remaining episodes show them navigating the remaining conflicts, both internal and external, together as a couple. This unusual and unexpected story structure shows that we writers do not have to hold ourselves to rigid traditional structures in order to create emotionally satisfying and engrossing stories.

If you've watched What's Wrong with Secretary Kim, what were your thoughts? What were your favourite moments in the show? 

If you haven't yet watched it, check out this excerpt from the first episode to see if it's something you might want to give a try. (And you should!)