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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Dating Agency: Cyrano" Episode 3

The first successful pairing of the show is established with a very unlikely revelation that clearly establishes love as a two-way street. This may not sound like much, but recall that one of the big draws to "Cyrano Agency" was how it presented relationships as being essentially two-sided, even though the Cyrano set-up normally only shows us one side. A very passionate, implausible side to be sure, but such is the nature of storytelling.

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Interestingly, everything I've written so far about the characters being deranged still fits into this. Even though the focus on "Dating Agency: Cyrano" is clearly comedy, there seems to be a tacit acknowledgment that there's this basically crazy element to love that we're actually kind of conditioned to expect and want, and that this desire for outrageous excitement and action is surprisingly universal. This is clear not just in the ending to the first pairing, but also in the set-up for the second one.

The new client is possibly even crazier than Byeong-Hoon. Granted, he is a high school student, and thus may be forgiven some for having such ridiculous ideas about what romantic love is supposed to be. Still, it's one thing to lounge around writing bad poetry and love letters. It's quite another to initiate as much sheer subterfuge as he does in pursuit of teen romance- and this is before hiring professional actors to stage stuff.

"Dating Agency: Cyrano" is, at this point, deliberately taunting the viewer with implausible situations. I know objectively that everything happening is really ridiculous and I shouldn't believe any of it- but something about this drama just forces me to keep going along with it. A lot of it may just be Choi Soo-young's performance as Min-Yeong. There's just such a strong deliberate belief there that it drags me along with her- or maybe the person who runs the wardrobe room is just really skilled. I really have no idea.

Here's what I do know for sure. For all the various absurdities of the set-up, the screenwriter clearly understands the one part of high school romance no one ever figures out at the time it's going on. And that's that we all have these really dumb romantic fantasies, and it's only by the rarest, luckiest circumstances that they actually match up with what someone else wants. So, reconciling this awful dilemma with kids whose romantic impressions are so vaguely formed that they, well, they believe getting the Cyrano Agency involved in the first place is a good idea? This, ironically enough, is a job for the Cyrano Agency.

Review by William Schwartz

"Dating Agency: Cyrano" is directed by Kang Kyeong-hoon, written by Shin Jae-won and features Lee Jong-hyuk, Choi Soo-young, Hong Jong-hyun and Jo Yoon-woo.

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