Love Your Enemy (2024)

All the Tropes and All the Charm..

Skipping Love Your Enemy means missing out on some pretty solid writing and acting.. You might have seen losers in love before.. But this drama takes silliness to an entirely new level.. That said.. I have to admit I genuinely enjoyed their relationship.. There were a lot of unexpected heartfelt moments in the drama..

I started watching for JJH.. But the cast surprised me.. I really loved the supporting characters... They delivered great performances.. And the story has its moments.. The comedy was on point.. No unnecessary side plots or gimmicks.. Even the second male lead was well written.. Which is rare in kdramas.. He wasnt annoying at all.. Well not until his last scene..

One of the standout elements in Love Your Enemy is Seok Jiwon’s character design.. Particularly his integrity.. It adds so much depth to his character.. He was truly admirable throughout the drama..

For me the highlight of the drama was their younger version.. Their teenage relationship.. It was so well written.. And the actors really portrayed it with such authenticity.. Honestly they deserved a couple of episodes just for themselves..

Overall.. Love Your Enemy is a refreshing drama.. It has all the tropes.. Childhood friends, Childhood sweethearts, Enemies to lovers, Workplace romance and Second chance romance.. It delivers great humor and a no nonsense storyline.. Easily one of the best romcoms of 2024..

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Ever bake cookies and forget to add sugar?

A bit of insight in to your author: although it may shock readers that writing reviews for MDL doesn't pay much (although the good vibes it provides are prodigious), the day job for your humble reviewer is running a cafe. Years ago, patrons complained that a batch of blueberry muffins were not so enjoyable. So the baker and this writer sampled one and, sure enough, it tasted like blue spotted cardboard. Or rather, it tasted like stale blue spotted cardboard. It was absolutely dreadful and, after retracing her steps, the baker realized she hadn't added sugar due to being preoccupied with something else. Lesson learned. Without all the ingredients, baking can go pretty horribly wrong.

Flash forward to present day (or more recent day) and the production team of "Love Your Enemy" followed a similar path. The ingredients they remembered - a solidly likable and skilled cast, a basic scenario that is regularly beloved by drama watchers, somewhat well-worn but compelling enough characters, a terrific backstory with wonderful teen versions of the main characters, secondary story arcs to complement the main plot with extra tension, laughs and potential romance, and a warm and delightful grandparent actor & character. The ingredient they forgot - any kind of coherent narrative to pull these things together.

Jung Yu Mi and Ju Ji Hoon don't put forth their best work here. Neither seems naturally suited to straight romantic comedy but they are capable actors and are engaging, particularly in the Enemies/Not Lovers Yet Phase. Even when that phase passes, there's never a moment where the two are grating but it isn't a raging inferno of nitro hormonal glycerine between them either. The supporting cast is above average, from Kim Jung Young's mom to the school faculty to the current generation of high school students. What doesn't particularly land is the performance by the villain (cast member not revealed so as not to spoil), a completely unnecessary part for Baek Hyun Joo as a school principal and a flop of a potential third spoke of a love triangle with one of the most bland performances of recent memory by Lee Si Woo.

One of the bright spots is Kim Gab Soo who sparkles as one of the warmest and most likable grandparent figures of recent vintage.

But the standouts are Oh Ye Ju and Hong Min Ki who play the teen versions of the Ji Won main characters. It helps that they have the best dialogue by far of any part of this show, but the actors are both charismatic and work extraordinarily well together. The scene where Oh Ye Ju's Ji Won falls and her friends try to get get Hong Min Ki's Ji Won to carry her to the nurse's office and what follows is some of the very best high school amour (although not quite at the level of Shin Eun Soo and Choi Hyun Wook from "Twinkling Watermelon").

Tragically, the backstory features heavily only through a few episodes and then the script malfeasance skyrockets. The primary romance never strays from anything but the most generic track. And the subplots that appear and then are dropped or concluded in the most glossed over manner possible are legion.

Kim Ye Won's Ji Hye interferes with the main characters but it amounts to nothing and no hard feelings.

Two characters are battling severe depression and exhibiting potential suicidial behavior but it's just forgotten and they're just fine moving forward.

Two supporting school staff members have a romance but it's literally dropped in so haphazardly in the later episodes that it could have been replaced with a static screen with a block caption reading "FILLER MATERIAL".

Three present day students appear now and then. Something about an honors class with meddlesome parents. Something involving a misogynist father from a main character's past. Something about a recently discovered family relationship. [shrug] There's no tension and no development and no point to any of them. Perhaps had the writers picked one and threaded it in on a regular basis from episode to episode, there could have been a potentially entertaining diversion. But these characters appear sporadically and are the stereotypical male jock, stereotypical female superachiever, the stereotypical kid with parents that want them to be a superachiever and a stereotypical dysfunctional family troublemaker.

There's one of the saddest attempts in human history to create a love triangle plot which is thankfully quickly abandoned.

The most frustrating is a second half reappearance by Oh Ye Ju's young Ji Won who has now graduated and is in a toxic office environment. But after a compelling setup with a deliciously repulsive antagonist, big conflict is teased and then the entire thing evaporates almost instantaneously.

Recommended? Well, it's better than a sugarless blueberry muffin and it's not at all unpleasant. But anyone that needs something stellar and captivating should keep looking.

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