After nine years of working tirelessly as an executive secretary to pay off her family's debts, Kim Mi-so (Park Min-young) decides to quit her high-pressure job so she can start living her life. She wants to do all the things she's never had time to while working in her demanding position, like date, find a nice guy to marry and start a family. She informs her narcissistic boss, CEO Lee Young-joon (Park Seo-joon) that she's quitting for personal reasons, and begins the process of finding her replacement.
At first Young-joon appears to take the resignation in stride, but he's stunned. Mi-so is so much a part of his life that he can't imagine being without her. To tempt her to stay he offers her some serious new benefits, including a promotion to director, but she refuses. He becomes determined to find out the real reason why she's decided to quit, and stop her. Once he learns she wants to get married, he tells her to keep her job and proposes to marry her himself. He's dumbfounded when she turns him down flat, but not for long. He decides to romance Secretary Kim during her last month at the company, and persuade her to stay and accept him as a husband.
As characters Mi-so and Young-joon are both comically over-the-top, as she's a legend of secretarial perfection, and he's so much in love with himself there's no room in his heart for anyone else (or so we think.) As the series goes on we gradually learn why Young-joon is actually so attached to Mi-so, and the nightmarish trauma from childhood that they share. Add to this mix Young-joon's handsome but hostile brother, Mi-so's older sisters who hate Young-joon, a delightful bunch of co-workers who are in the midst of two other budding romances, and you have the recipe for a wonderful k-drama.
I've always liked Park Min-young, but watching her act this demanding part in four-inch-heels and pencil skirts just blew me away. She runs in those outfits, which all women know is almost physically impossible. She's the perfect Mi-so, too; I can't imagine any other actress pulling off this part with such grace. Park Seo-joon has been called the master of romantic comedy, and this series proves it without a doubt. He's so funny at times I almost laughed myself into the hiccups. Aside from the fact that he's a big, beautiful guy, he also portrays an amazing range of emotions in a character that seems at first as shallow as a puddle.
As for the romance, expect lots of hand-holding, hugging and fairly chaste kissing, but also a couple of love scenes that are actually pretty racy for a k-drama (basically PG by our standards.) The real draw are some of the scenes the main characters have together as their relationship changes from boss and secretary to young lovers. I thought the final proposal was the best and most beautiful romantic scene I've ever seen.
I bought this series on DVD from Amazon because it's not available on Netflix, but you may be able to find it on another international streaming site. This fan-made video gives some cute highlights of the series if you want to see more:
Comments