Thoughts on K-Drama: So I Married an Anti-fan (2021)

I haven’t been all that interested in watching Korean dramas for a while now. But I decided to check this out due to the casting of SNSD’s Sooyoung. Now I had a period of about 15 years where I stopped paying attention and listening to K-Pop and this was the generation where SNSD was at the height of their fame. So I’m not a fan of SNSD but I like Sooyoung’s personality. You can tell she’s very confident and her confidence come from growing up in a wealthy household. I wanted to see how she would do as an actress.

So I Married an Anti-fan is based off a Korean novel that was adapted into a webtoon (manga). There is also a movie version that was a collaboration between China and Korea where the female lead is Chinese and the male lead is Korean, played by EXO’s Chanyeol. A note of interest: the second female lead in the movie (the equivalent of the drama’s Oh In Hyung) is played by Seohyun (another member of SNSD). The premise of the story is very intriguing but for some reason, I wasn’t crazy about the movie despite being an EXO fan at the time. I felt like the female lead looked too old and Chanyeol didn’t have the male lead quality that I was looking for. Both characters didn’t feel lovable to me at all. So when I saw that there was a new drama of the same title, I didn’t care to take a look at first.

The female protagonist in the story is a reporter named Lee Geun Young. She’s sort of at the bottom of the ladder as she ends up doing all the work no one else wants to do. She wants to push back and give everyone a piece of her mind but she tells herself to be patient. She witness her boyfriend, a restaurant chef, is cheating on her with another man. In her mind, she confronts him and hits him with the bouquet he bought her (which is not the right bouquet). But in reality, she calmly walks over to her cheating boyfriend, takes the bouquet in his hand (whom he was going to give to his lover) and tells him that this is her bouquet before walking away. She finally gets an assignment to cover an opening of a new club. There she ends up seeing the male protagonist, Hoo Joon, being aggressive towards an unknown female. Hoo Joon is a top star and very well loved by everyone. Hoo Joon catches her peeking at him and breaks her company-provided camera although she tells him that she didn’t take any photos. She ends up vomiting on him from all the alcohol she had consumed. She apologized for puking on him but also wants him to also apologize for breaking her camera as she felt she was didn’t do anything wrong. When he finds out that she is a reporter, they get into an argument as he believes she’s a trashy paparazzi. Lee Geun Young ends up losing her job when Hoo Joon tells his manager who won’t do the special with the magazine that Lee Geun Young works for. To appease him, they fired her.

Lee Geun Young has had it with being patient and kind and decide to announce to the world what a two-faced person Hoo Joon really is as he had caused her to lose her job. In one incident in front of the entertainment company, she gets beat up by his fans. He intercepted and helped her up, playing the role of a considerate artist who cares for all fans, even his anti-fans. But when the two are alone again, he’s despicable. A production team comes up with a reality TV show called “So I Married an Anti-fan” in which they asked both Lee Geun Young and Hoo Joon to participate in. Both decline but Lee Geun Young is in need of money so she agrees. However, she finds out that Hoo Joon declined so she went to look for him to ask him to agree. He refuses. However, his fremeny JJ tells him that he likes to concept of the reality TV show but will have Oh In Hyung be the anti-fan instead. He tells Hoo Joon that he has a way to force him to participate with Oh In Hyung in So I Married an Anti-fan. Due to this threat, he tells his manager to accept the reality show but only if the anti-fan is Lee Geun Young.

A little backstory on Hoo Joon, JJ, and Oh In Hyung: the three of them were trainees under the same entertainment company. Hoo Joon and Oh In Hyung were in love and dated. Hoo Joon and JJ were really good friends. JJ comes from a rich family and his father bought him his own entertainment company so he asked Hoo Joon to join him. Hoo Joon tells him that their current company had invested a lot in him so he won’t leave. When JJ tells him that Oh In Hyung had already agreed to enter his entertainment company, Hoo Joon knew that Oh In Hyung would have a better chance at debutting so he tells JJ to take care of her. By the beginning of show, JJ and Oh In Hyung are in a relationship, JJ has enmity towards Hoo Joon. Oh In Hyung seems to have lingering feelings for Hoo Joon and vice versa.

Lee Geun Young and Hoo Joon start shooting the reality show together. Both of them prank each other but the show purposely cut the footage to show Lee Geun Young as devious and trying to kill Hoo Joon. This cause his fans to hate her, going so far as to assault her. Eventually Hoo Joon start changing towards her when he finds out that she wants to leave the show.

I’m currently on Ep 8. Can’t wait to watch more!