I watched this drama on Hulu.
So this show is supposed to be Korea’s version of Sex and the City. I laughed when I first started watching it because even the theme song was blatantly a rip off of Sex and the City’s theme. And though it definitely followed the Sex and the City format of womance and sitting around talking about relationships and sex, it wasn’t a carbon copy and it definitely had its own unique charm to it. My husband laughed because I was like “Well, they’ve got Carrie, and Charlotte, and Samantha but they left out Miranda, I guess because nobody liked her in the first place. Poor Miranda…” lol.
I felt like this drama was the perfect balance of humor and melodrama. The relationships in the show actually had meat to them as well, so they kept me engaged and interested. Plus the men were totally gorgeous!! I was so surprised to see the second lead from Goong (Kim Jeon Hoon), because I haven’t seen him in anything else and was not a huge fan of his character in that drama, and I actually didn’t think he was all that cute (I think partially because they dyed his hair weird colors and dressed him in clothes that were way too metrosexual for me lol). But time served him well because he was super attractive in this drama with a few crows feet around his eyes and dressed in normal manly adult clothes.
Of course there were lots of steamy scenes, nowhere on the soft core porn level of Sex and the City, but nonetheless super racy for a kdrama. That was kind of fun to see because I am American after all ha ha. I feel like it really showed a more realistic side to love and romance that most kdramas do not address. They dealt with the fact that people fall in and out of love and lust for each other, but that real love is commitment to a person who you trust and are comfortable with, and you choose to stay with that person even if it isn’t always easy. Having been with my husband for 7 years (and being very young when we first got together) before we got married I could relate to the main relationship story more than I have to any relationship in any kdrama. So I was really touched and really cried hardcore in the last episode. So needless to say I really LOVED every second of this very well made drama and I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
I took the following information from asianwiki.com
Plot
“I Need Romance” depicts the love lives of three 33-year-old single women ….
Sun Woo In Young (Jo Yeo-Jeong) is a 33-year-old concierge manager at a hotel. She isn’t married, but has a boy friend named Kim Sung-Soo (Kim Jeong-Hoon) who is a movie director. They have been dating for 10 years. Sun Woo In Young hopes her boyfriend will propose to her, but he doesn’t seem to have any plans for marriage. Meanwhile, In Young happens to kiss Bae Sung-Hyun (Choi Jin-Hyeok) at a nightclub. Sung-Hyun works at the same hotel as In Young. She later learns that Sung-Hyun is the son of the hotel’s president. When In Young learns her boyfriend Sung-Soo is slept with actress Kang-Hee, she informs him that she is breaking up with him and will date Sung-Hyun.
Park Seo-Yeon (Choi Yeo-Jin) runs an online clothing store named Y style. She has a freewheeling lifestyle and is active in pursuing her desired.
Kang Hyun-Joo (Choi Song-Hyeon) is a lawyer specializing in divorce. Her life has been controlled by her mother. From a distance, Hyun-Joo appears as a cold, arrogant woman with a perfectionist mentality, but actually she has a a cute personality and frequently makes mistakes. She is dumped by her boyfriend Kim Tae-Woo (Heo Tae-Hee) at the their wedding. Although they dated for 3 years the couple only has kissed. Kim Tae-Woo later tells Hyun-Joo that he only kissed her because he did not want to have sex with her.
Notes
- Related titles:
- I Need Romance 2 (tvN / 2012)
Cast
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| Jo Yeo-Jeong | Kim Jeong-Hoon | Choi Yeo-Jin | Choi Song-Hyeon | Choi Jin-Hyeok |
| Sun Woo In Young | Kim Sung-Soo | Park Seo-Yeon | Kang Hyun-Joo | Bae Sung-Hyun |
Additional Cast Members:
- Ha Hyeon-Ju – Yoon Kang-Hee
- Heo Tae-Hee – Kim Tae-Woo
- Kim Hyeong-Min
wishiwasasian.wordpress.com 
Ahhh, now I just want to rewatch. One of the best parts overall for me was the fact that they managed to have the main girl be believably in love with two guys – or at least be in two believeably real relationships. Of course, I love the the the most comfortable, trusting love wins over – but it’s so refreshing to see things come about in such a natural way. I’m almost ready to start watching INR 2012.. looking forward to it!
Yeah I liked that too, because it’s very realistic, though you love someone, when you are with them a long time it becomes less of a physical attraction and more of a loyalty and commitment and they are like your best friend. It is very possible to be attracted to someone else because sparks don’t always fly when you’ve been with someone that long. I am very glad she ended up with her long time boyfriend in the end though.
I loved this show, too, and was totally into the lead couple. Their relationship was something you never see in Kdramas–multi-faceted and realistic. In some ways, they’re where Eun Chan and Han Gyul would end up after 10 years together if they were real people. Maybe the electricity has died down, but it was replaced with something even better: knowing someone so well that they’re like a part of you. ::insert single girl sigh here::
The one thing this has on the new INR is cuter boys. (Although for some reason, I’m in love with the new Charlotte’s romantic lead. He so goofy cute, I can’t look away.)
It was touching because it hit on the things noone wants to talk about, that after a while you do become less physically attracted to someone and are sometimes attracted to other people, but real love is that loyalty and commitment to the person that is your best friend and your other half and knows you inside and out. That’s what’s wrong with marriages now, everyone expects there to be sparks and electricity all the time and they expect to never be attracted to another person and then when it happens they can’t handle it and they end up divorcing, and it’s very sad really that people don’t have enough integrity and will power to work at their relationships and to understand that you will go through periods of time where there is a lot of electricity, and periods of time where there are none, but that person will always be your best friend no matter if it’s there or not. I feel that the media has a lot to do with this and how they portray marriages and relationships as expendable and that if they are not always passionate they are not right, so it was nice to see a drama that told the truth and showed the long term relationship winning out in the end. Anyway, I will get off my soap box now lol.
I think the lead guy in 2012 is cute, but I thought he was really cute in Myung Wol too, though I like his hair a lot better in Myung Wol. I saw the episode where new Charlotte’s new guy shows up yesterday (and the random bear scene, I laughed so hard I cried. WTF?) I really like the main story with the leads in 2012, but I’m not getting as attached to the other girls as I did in the other one for some reason, I feel like they are not quite as dynamic. But maybe I will change my mind as I get further into the show.
I never watched Sex and the City – so I really have nothing to compare to.. occasionally a friend or cousin would be watching it when I was around, and I’d kind of ride it out until they’d watched enough for one day, but somehow I was never really got into it, or ever felt the urge to try and binge watch however many seasons they had out on DVD at the time. Of course, this was before I got into the habit of binge watching American TV shows in general (and well before my Kdrama fascination took over).
Don’t worry about your soap box – I occasionally give the same speech. 😉 It’s why I love INR so much. I mean, the title is: I. Need. Romance. but what does “romance” really mean? hot stuff and kisses with a new body? Or a good old-timey friend. I definitely married my best friend, so I completely get this point. :)))
I am a huge Sex and the City fan, have seen the whole series through twice and watched both the movies (though the second movie was disappointingly awful and a complete waste of time). But both of the INRs are distinctly different from it in their own way. They mainly are just using the format of a few single older women friends having their relationships/sex lives and then all sitting around discussing it together (and they are trying to make it racy like Sex and the City but they can’t get away with HBO levels of racy in Korea lol). And in both they did give the women certain quirky characteristics that are similar to the original Sex and the City characters, Carrie (free spirited), Charlotte(prim and proper neurotic mess), and Samantha(worldly and sex crazed), but left poor old Miranda out lol. It was the relationships between the women that made the show so compelling, and the first INR does an awesome job with that and the second one so far is doing pretty well with it too, though I was just saying for whatever reason I can’t get into the supporting friend characters quite as much as I did in the first one.
Glad someone agrees with me on society’s skewed view of romance lol.
Aww.. I only read the recaps for this and agreed with the recapper (forgot who it was, sorry) that the twist in the end was a bit sudden and annoying.
But your views make a lot of sense, specially since you have a long and meaningful relationship to base your opinion on. 🙂 In kdramas, it’s easy to root for the hot knight in shining armor and doubly difficult to see past the cliches and compare it with situations in real life.
Thank you for the reminder that lasting relationships are something you work on. Not something born from a few cute, accidental encounters.
It’s always fun to read different people’s opinions and interpretations of dramas because we view everything differently based on our own life experiences.
Whoa whoa whoa….. a racy k-drama? I need to watch this almost just for that alone. I didn’t think they existed! lol
I love the innocence of k-dramas. It’s refreshing since we never get that on American TV. But then again it’s nice to occasionally see something a bit more “racy” as you put it. After watching all of the innocence, the tiniest bit of sex or intimacy has so much more of an impact. More than being inundated with all the sex on American dramas. At least that’s how I feel.
I’m rewatching BBF again (I know not a favorite of yours, but I can’t help it!) and I had to rewatch some of the kisses from Playful Kiss just to remember that Kim Hyun Joong really knows how to kiss and not just give the close-lipped peck BBF shows us. lol
Yeah it definitely has more impact when you are used to not seeing a whole lot of physicality.
Tons of people love BBF lol, I am clearly in the minority, and I can’t even say anything because for some God awful reason that is unbeknownst even to me I still watch Secret Life of the American Teenager, which is so much worse then BOF lol.
I actually really liked playful kiss and i guess it did get a little racier than most of the teen dramas with the post marriage bed scene lol.