Romance is in the air and there are no avoiding K-dramas when it comes to a perfectly cooked story of romance! We have had high school romances, workplace romances, and even fantasy ones! There is no stopping the stories that articulate those dopamine-laced emotions. Love has no age, status or bar. It just… happens! And it just happened to be the lead of the K-drama I’m going to talk about in this article. We’ve seen him in Hospital Playlist as the cold-hearted cardiac surgeon, as a passionate songwriter in When the Devil Calls Your Name, and as a baseball player in Prison Playbook, among others and now we get to see him as a mathematics teacher in Crash Course in Romance! I am talking about Jo Kyung Ho, whom we have all come to love for his stellar acting and performance in each drama.
Starring opposite Jo Kyung Ho in Crash Course in Romance is Jeon Do Yeon whom we have seen in dramas as a tired woman in Lost, a dutiful wife, an attorney in The Good Wife, and a bubbly diplomat in Lovers in Prague, among others. Crash Course in Romance tells the story of a love that blooms between Nam Haeng Son, a former volleyball player turned eatery owner and Choi Chi Yeol, a sought-after math tutor at a private coaching class. But there is more to their story than just their jobs. As the drama has entered its second half in the story, let’s take a look at how it has fared so far!
Crash Course in Romance is an unconventional story of a romance between an unlikely pair of adults. Nam Haeng Son and Choi Chi Yeol perhaps would not have crossed paths in another universe, but here they have and they have a long way to go. Nam Haeng Son is Hae-ee’s aunt but Hae-ee has been in her care since Hae-ee’s mother and Haeng Son’s sister left her. Hence, Hae-ee started addressing Haeng Son as a mother instead. The two have made up a story that Hae-ee’s father is in the Philippines running a business. In her younger days, Haeng Son was a promising national-level athlete but responsibilities made her give up on that dream. She started taking care of Hae-ee, her autistic brother Jae Woo and also the eatery that her mother left behind. Since she began shouldering responsibilities, she has kept her needs to the very last. She is a doting mother to Hae-ee, a strict sister to Jae Woo and a compassionate friend to Young Joo, who also runs the eatery with Haeng Son.
Choi Chi Yeol is the most sought-after math tutor for high school students. He is infamously dubbed as the ‘one trillion won man’ for he makes that sum every year because of the high demand and expensive nature of his math classes. He promises stellar scores for every student who attends his classes and he firmly delivers his promise too. He also suffers from insomnia and an eating disorder. But one fine day, he is able to eat the food his assistant got, without throwing up. The food turns out to be from Haeng Son’s eatery. He is surely surprised at this turn of events and makes it a point to always order food from Haeng Son’s eatery.
But there is more to the show than just this. Crash Course in Romance highlights the hypocrisy, extreme competitiveness and jealousy of the parents who want only their students to get good scores. It shows how education has become a business for many, how private tuitions overshadow school and cause a rift in the classic teacher-student relationship. The private tuitions earn in truckloads and the fame that comes with it becomes a status symbol for the students attending those classes. In addition to that, it also shows the classicism that the students and their parents have to face. Those from the upper classes find it unsettling when someone from below their class gets to sit at the same table as them. The show also makes a good commentary on parenting which is toxic for children. Instead of reprimanding the children for their mistakes, the parents instead sing the same tunes and encourage their behavior. For instance, Su-a is a top-scoring student in her class, but she is engulfed by jealousy and insecurity when Hae-ee starts to rise to her rank and after a point leaves Sua-a behind in the ranking. Then again, we also have the classic trope where a child is forced to pursue a certain study field by the parent for that field is attached to the name and fame of the family. Sun Jae is forced by his lawyer mother to pursue the sciences despite his interests lie elsewhere.
No K-drama is complete without a mystery connected to the leads and also proves to be potentially threatening. And Crash Course in Romance has ample to keep you guessing! Choi Chi Yeol has a lot of admirers but at the same time, he has a lot of haters too. In this world of the internet and social media, there is no shortage of chat forums for lovers and haters. Choi Chi Yeol’s past has a dark incident which led him to start his life afresh. In the present, he has a group of haters who are jealous of the success and fame he has. There have been a few murders in the days after Choi Chi Yeol crossed paths with Haeng Son. These murders are of those people who have been behaving incorrectly with Chi Yeol. Chi Yeol is of course in the dark, but as we saw last week, Young Min’s murder proved to be a starting point for unravelling the mystery behind these happenings.
Another trope that a romance K-drama is incomplete without is the past connection between the leads. During their younger days, Haeng Son and Chi Yeol’s paths crossed when Chi Yeol used to have food at Haeng Son’s mother’s eatery. That food sustained him throughout his school journey despite having a difficult life at home. No wonder Chi Yeol can eat food prepared by Haeng Son! The chemistry between them is also palpable. There is a sweet innocence in their budding romance. Both are mature adults who have to shoulder responsibilities and have thrown themselves into their work. Dating is something not even on their minds, but the time that they spend together is making the tables turn. When Chi Yeol offers to tutor Hae-ee privately after she was falsely kicked out of the academy, Haeng Son shows her gratitude by preparing sets of delicious meals for him. As any romance story leads, they too started with bickering and misunderstanding but over time that bickering turned flirtatious unbeknownst to both! These feelings of admiration and adoration for another person are new to both of them. They did not tap into those in their younger days so it just seems improbable to them that they too have a shot at love at their age.
No romance story is complete without any hiccups and there sure are several coming Nam Haeng Son and Choi Chi Yeol’s way. With the murder investigation going on, the jealousy and toxic competitiveness of the parents for their children’s education, and also the difference in their lifestyles, Chi Yeol and Haeng Son’s romance has quite a few tests to ace. Like a tough math equation that is solved after multiple tries, their romance will hopefully move beyond the parent-teacher meeting and move on to something more meaningful in their lives. The balance of mystery and romance is just right in this drama. Considering how the show airs on weekends on Netflix, Crash Course in Romance is perhaps just what you need when you want to bite your nails over a whodunit but also bask in the rosy glory of romance.
ALSO READ: Bromarble: Lee Seung Gi, Yoo Yeon Seok and Lee Dong Hwi to star in new series based on Monopoly game
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