Park Min-Young Separates Love From Marriage In ‘Love In Contract’

Park Min Young’s character in Love In Contract has been divorced a dozen times and she’s barely into her 30s. It’s not that Choi Sang-eun is hard to live with. It’s just that all her marriages are contractual. For a set sum she will pretend to be someone’s wife and that often includes filling out paperwork and walking down the actual aisle. She will marry clients to make their grandparents happy, to impress their friends or hide the fact that they really don’t want to get married.

Everything proceeds by the rules of the contract. Sang-eun goes home after contracted appearances and when the marriage has served its purpose she gets an uncontested divorce.

She’s mastered this bizarre way of making money to repay the debt she incurred growing up and now that she’s in her 30s, realizes she must soon retire. There are only so many wedding venues in Korea that she can get married in before someone recognizes her.

She plans to escape her life and head for Canada with her gay roommate, who is also one of her previous fake husbands. Sang-eun and Woo Gwang-nam, played by Kang Hyoung-suk, have become close friends.

Only one thing holds her back—her last client, Jung Ji-ho, played by Go Kyung-po. The very quiet Ji-ho only wants to dine with her three days a week, rarely speaks to her, and yet he tugs at her heartstrings. He’s either mysteriously traumatized or so secretly obsessed with her that he’s dangerous.

Added to the mix is the actor Kang Hye-jin, played by Kim Jae-young. The actor’s life is complicated by the number of women who always fall in love with him, but he’s still pining for his first love, who might turn out to be Sang-eun. In true k-drama fashion he becomes the next door neighbor of her final fake husband.

The drama’s premise is light and frothy, but the story is not without shadows. There’s a murder, some stalking, and, as Sang-eun’s roommate says, she seems to be allergic to happiness. The love triangle in this drama has dark quirky elements that make it hard to know what to expect. A real marriage or murder? As a fun aside, the tvN drama also makes lots of vague and not so vague references to other dramas, Goblin, Squid Game, You Who Came From The Stars and Eternal Monarch.

As the queen of romantic comedies, Park always manages to make her co-stars look good and this drama is no exception. Her last role was in Love and Forecasting with Song Kang and before that Her Private Life with Kim Jae-wook.

In this drama she creates chemistry with Go Kyung-po, who previously appeared in the dramas Private Lives and Strongest Deliveryman, and can be seen in the film Seoul Vibes. Her other co-star, Kim Jae-young, played an obsessive artist in Reflection of You and appeared in the dramas Beautiful Love, Wonderful Life and Secret Boutique. Her onscreen roommate, Kang Hyoung-suk, can be seen in Lost, Hometown Cha Cha Cha and Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol.

The drama airs on viki.com.