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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Lee Se-young, Kentaro Sakaguchi
Japanese characters generally do not come off very well in Korean films and dramas. Many of them seek to vilify Korea’s eastern neighbour for the atrocities committed under Japanese colonial rule in the first half of the 20th century.
Mining the tensions between South Korea and Japan has often been a recipe for box office success; look no further than Korea’s all-time box-office No 1 The Admiral: Roaring Currents. Given that Netflix’s latest tentpole is the new season of Gyeongseong Creature, the recipe clearly has not changed much 10 years on.
Perhaps this is what makes the comparatively modest drama What Comes After Love, starring Lee Se-young (The Law Cafe) and Kentaro Sakaguchi (The 100th Love with You), such a breath of fresh air.


Shot in Tokyo and Seoul, this tender drama follows the romance that blossoms between a young Korean woman and a young Japanese man when they meet in the Japanese capital, before dying, and then catches up with them when they meet again by chance as young professionals in Seoul five years later.
The show is pure melodrama from the very beginning and makes no apology about it, opening on a rainy night with wistful music and a teary-eyed protagonist. Then the episode’s title card comes up, which reads: “Do you believe that there is a love that doesn’t change?”
To reveal the reason for those tears, and the secret behind the cryptic title card, the story whisks us back to 2019, when Korean student Choi Hong, played by Lee, touches down in Tokyo with a glimmer in her eye and a spring in her step.
All that energy isn’t quite enough for her to lift all her bags through the subway turnstiles. After they pop open on the street, a young man comes to her aid. This is the first time she meets aspiring writer Jungo Aoki, played by Sakaguchi.

In contrast to the antagonistic meet-cutes that tend to dominate K-dramas, a mutual attraction seems to develop on the spot, but since Hong’s friend is there to whisk her away, nothing comes of it immediately.
Since Hong has gone to Japan expressly against her mother’s wishes, she needs to find a job to pay her rent. After a long and fruitless search, she walks up to a noodle restaurant that is seeking a part-time worker. However, she has competition, and he happens to be Jungo.
The pair are forced to don aprons and face off to earn for the day. While Hong eventually wins out, Jungo impresses her by coming to her aid when she is berated by a racist customer.
With the show’s producers committed to bringing them together, fate brings a third chance when Jungo winds up finding a job at a food truck on the same street.
One thing leads to another, and the pair become an item, but before we know it, the show transports us from Hong’s halcyon days in springtime Tokyo to her present in wintry Seoul five years later.

We can tell that Hong’s life is gloomy because her lively curls have been replaced by mopey straight hair.
Hong works as an editor at a publishing house and is dating a handsome young man that her family adores, but the spark has gone from her eyes.
Her life is about to change once more when her father asks her to fill in for an interpreter who is supposed to meet a Japanese author at the airport.
Although he now uses a different pen name, the writer is none other than a grown-up Jungo, who is also in a relationship and noticeably gloomier than when we last saw him.
The show is adapted from a novel of the same name co-written by Korean female author Gong Ji-yeong and Japanese male author Hitonari Tsuji, which became a hit in Korea when it was published in 2005.

While the motifs and emotions may verge on being trite and obvious, What Comes After Love spins its saccharine story with a soothing simplicity. In that way it’s a bit like returning to a cherished holiday destination and taking the scenic tour to revisit the sights, without venturing off the beaten track.
Lee and Sakaguchi share decent chemistry – there is a certain stiffness to their performances which works early on. The real test will come with the eventual rekindling of their characters’ romance in the weeks to come.
What Comes After Love is Sakaguchi’s first Korean production, but it is not his first connection to the world of K-dramas, having starred in the 2018 Japanese remake of the hit Korean drama Signal, playing the Lee Je-hoon role.
What Comes After Love is streaming on Viu.


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Kentaro Sakaguchi (left) and Lee Se-young in a still from What Comes After Love.

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Lee Se-young as Hong (left) and Kentaro Sakaguchi as Jungo in a still from What Comes After Love.

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Lee Se-young plays a South Korean student who has a romance in Tokyo with Kentaro Sakaguchi’s aspiring writer. They part, then reconnect


Lee Se-young plays a South Korean student who has a romance in Tokyo with Kentaro Sakaguchi’s aspiring writer. They part, then reconnect.
