[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Lucky Romance" Episode 9

Bonnie wears her heart on her sleeve, whereas Soo-ho is frequently cryptic with his feelings. The obvious difference between these two personality types is the main interesting aspect of "Lucky Romance", so I was relieved that this episode finally had these two engage in some extended casual conversations. This being an admittedly relative term. Bonnie getting emotional over her sister is casual for her, even if most people would rather do that in private rather than in front of their boss.

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Soo-ho being Bonnie's boss does add a complicated angle to the relationship, though. Strictly speaking he should have fired her for coming on to him in the first place. But Soo-ho is a kind sympathetic man who generally does not care to act that way because no one ever acts like it's important. And considering how Seol-hee's constant apologies frequently come off as insincere so it's easy to see why Soo-ho acts this way.

Seol-hee is helpful less as a character with her own dynamic role in the plot and more as comparison, because her personality really is the opposite of Bonnie's in pretty much every way. Thematically "Lucky Romance" has a lot of strong points like this. Probably the best moment of interplay between Bonnie and Soo-ho this episode is where she demonstrates how happy she is as a consequence of her rather nutty religious obsessions. Soo-ho still thinks Bonnie's beliefs are superstitious and crazy, but is starting to recognize that the positive effect they have on Bonnie is quite real.

I should note, though, that I'm still pretty skeptical that writer Choi Yoon-gyo is doing any of this intentionally, because so much of the rest of "Lucky Romance" is little more than filler. The whole employee retreat is mostly just an excuse for everyone to go ride on dirt bikes. Sure, the optics on that are neater than everyone hanging out at the office, although it sort of conflicts with the whole arbitrarily frontloaded deadline.

Yes, with each passing episode it becomes more clear that no one in the production team knows or cares about how video game development actually works. It might be easier to ignore these sections except that poor Geon-wook's main purpose in the story at this point is to bring up complications by being a famous celebrity affiliated with a video game. That's such a strange source for conflict I'm not even sure how to react to it.

Review by William Schwartz

"Lucky Romance" is directed by Kim Kyeong-hee-II, written by Choi Yoon-gyo and features Hwang Jung-eum, Ryu Jun-yeol, Lee Chung-ah and Lee Soo-hyuk.

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