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Pierce Conran

4/5 stars
Lead cast: Lee Sang-yi, Han Ji-hyun
Lee Sang-yi and Han Ji-hyun, who portrayed the secondary romantic coupling in No Gain No Love, which finished its run on Amazon Prime at the end of last month, return for a final hurrah in the inventive spin-off drama Spice Up Our Love.
Lee (Bloodhounds) and Han (The Penthouse) played corporate heir Bok Gyu-hyun and web erotic-novel author Nam Ja-yeon in the parent series and, while they reprise those characters here, they also portray a pair of other protagonists.


Reminiscent of shows like Extraordinary You and Dramaworld, this limited series hops between adaptation, fantasy and reality as it gleefully deconstructs the codes of Korean romantic dramas.
First, we are treated to a drama adaptation of Ja-yeon’s web-novel-within-the-drama Spice Up Our Love.
Stylised and evocative, this story concerns Seo Yeon-seo, also played by Han, a nutritionist who stands outside the restaurant she booked for her one-year anniversary with her boyfriend.
Fury written all over her face, she stands in a white lab coat splashed in red holding a knife.
Yeon-seo’s boyfriend is with a new sweetheart inside, but before she can make it inside to confront him she is wrestled to the ground by the police.

Yeon-seo’s fixation soon switches to the exasperating chief executive who constantly commands that she change her sausage recipe. After a drunken one-night tryst with a stranger, she is shocked to learn that she has just slept with her CEO, who she had never met in person before.
Here Kang Ha-joon, the chief executive, is played by Lee You-jin, who portrays Yeo Ha-joon in No Gain No Love, Ja-yeon’s crush at the beginning of that series and the inspiration for the character.
We then return to the world of No Gain No Love, where Ja-yeon is writing up what we have just seen. This takes place early in the previous show’s story. We next revisit the scene where Ja-yeon and Gyu-hyun met outside a police station. He is almost hit by a bus and Ja-yeon faints.
In No Gain No Love, Ja-yeon wakes up in a hospital bed. In this show, she is also in a hospital bed, but she has actually woken up in the world of Spice Up Our Love. Her hair has suddenly grown out and everyone is referring to her as Yeon-seo, including Gyu-hyun, who has turned into chief executive Ha-joon.

The initial set-up for the show is fine, but Spice Up Our Love really kicks off when Ja-yeon falls into the world of her making.
Since Ha-joon is infatuated with Yeon-seo, he never leaves her alone, but seeing as Ja-yeon despises Gyu-hyun – who was arrested for writing malicious comments on her web novel chapters – she tries desperately to get away from him.
Unfortunately, owing to the strict limitations of the medium in which the story exists, she is foiled time and again. She cowers in a bus when he looks for her outside, but it keeps returning to the same spot and the driver, who looks just like a doctor at the hospital, informs her that this is where the chapter takes place.
Taxi rides home take her back to work, and when she decides to jump off a hospital to exit this literary world, Ha-joon jumps up like a superhero to save her.

Ultimately, she realises she has to follow the rules of romantic dramas if she wants to make it out of hers.
Despite hating Gyu-hyun, she tries to seduce Ha-joon to reach the story’s obligatory happy ending. Of course, another invariable mandate of romantic dramas is that the female lead will always fall in love with the male lead, no matter how dimly she views him at first.
Despite being a writer fully aware of the codes she is playing with, Ja-yeon, as Seo-yeon, thus becomes swept up by a story of her own making.
This mirrors the journey experienced by anyone who loves a certain kind of story. The familiarity draws you in, offering you a comfortable and reliable experience. It does not matter that you know the couple will wind up together.

The endpoint is predetermined, but in point of fact it really isn’t the end. When one show ends we simply move on to the next, acquainting ourselves with familiar characters and starting all over again.
Spice Up Our Love makes this clear by the time Ja-yeon wakes up back in her own world. The real Gyu-hyun, who Ja-yeon hates, is right there beside her and we have already seen them get together in No Gain No Love. The circle continues, never to be broken.
Spice Up Our Love is streaming on Amazon Prime.


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This fantasy drama follows an erotic-novel author who turns into the lead character from one of her web stories, both played by Han Ji-hyun


This fantasy drama follows an erotic-novel author who turns into the lead character from one of her web stories, both played by Han Ji-hyun.


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Review | Amazon Prime K-drama Spice Up Our Love review: an inventive No Gain No Love spin-off

This fantasy drama follows an erotic-novel author who turns into the lead character from one of her web stories, both played by Han Ji-hyun