A Meet-Cute In Red Ink Launches A Scandal In ‘The Real Has Come’

Gong Tae-kyung, played by Ahn Jae-hyeon, is an OB/GYN who is so loved by his patients that he even makes their babies smile. The kind and caring doctor seems to be the perfect man. He comes from a wealthy family and he’s handsome. He’s dating a beautiful TV anchorwoman. But he has one flaw—at least from the perspective of the woman he is dating. He doesn’t ever plan on getting married. It’s a condition he imposes on the women he dates. Any talk of marriage and the relationship ends. His solicitous manner is reserved for his patients. When his girlfriend proposes at the start of the k-drama The Real Has Come, he quickly breaks up with her.

Oh Yeon-doo, played by Baek Jin-hee, is a star teacher and lecturer. The sunnily optimistic and hardworking Yeon-doo thinks she has the perfect relationship and assumes her boyfriend will soon propose. Her boyfriend could not be more romantic. Roses, cake, and an engagement ring await her when she goes to meet him in a hotel room. Unfortunately, these tokens of love are not for her. Her boyfriend has been romantic with more than one woman. She dumps him with a cake to the face.

It’s a classic start to a k-rom-com, so you know the poor heartbroken heroine will do much better with the next guy she meets. The meet-cute is just waiting to happen and as it turns out the hotel she walks out of is owned by Tae-kyung’s family. She decides to take her revenge on her cheating ex by writing on what she thinks is his white car with a red marker. Only it’s not his. It’s the doctor’s. This meet-cute is written in red ink and the scandal it leads to makes him furious. He’s going to track her down and make her pay for the desecration of his expensive car.

Yeon-doo’s life is further encumbered by her well-meaning, loving family who keep creating messes she has to clean up. The last thing she needs is another person out to make her pay. Meanwhile the doctor is about to get sued by the woman he dumped and his soap-opera-worthy rich family is reacting in an overly dramatic way. No more scandals. Get married within a month, they tell him. Neither Yeon-doo nor Tae-kyung is in the best possible mood for a meet-cute. But that’s often when they happen.

This k-rom-com promises to be lots of fun with comic performance from two stars who have not appeared in many dramas lately. Aside from appearing in two episodes of the 2022 drama Curtain Call and the 2019 drama My Fellow Citizens, Baek has not seen much screen time since the 2018 drama Feel Good To Die. Ahn has not been seen in a role since the 2019-2020 drama Love With Flaws and the 2018 drama The Beauty Inside. He is perhaps best known for his role in the 2016 drama Cinderella and the Four Knights. The drama also stars Cha Joo-young as the secretary of Tae-kyung’s family and Jung Eui Jae as Yeon-doo’s cheating boyfriend.

The drama, written by Jo Jung-joo and directed by Han Joon-seo, airs on Viki in the US.