The highly anticipated summer rom-com, Junho in Suits King the Land, is finally here! It’s got blockbuster stunts, the oldest of old school tropes, and enough marshmallowy fluff to stuff a sandwich. In short, it’s the rom-com 2024 has been looking for. But who am I kidding? This enemies-to-lovers tale reeled most of us in with a foxy face – and I promise there’s also enough tie straightening and wristwatch action to make it worth your while.
EPISODES 1-2
Well, it’s finally happened. The drama fates have aligned and given me the matchup I’ve been waiting years for: Junho is the male lead — and I get to cover the drama. And if that wasn’t enough, we’ve also got the flirty dance pair from MBC’s Music Festival uniting on screen as our OTP. Our premiere week delivers everything it teased: light fare, feel-good fun, and Junho in designer duds with a pretty ‘do. And you know, that’s really all I want from it.
Our story opens in 2015 at the King Hotel. Our leading lady, CHUN SA-RANG (Yoon-ah) is interviewing for a temporary position, where she’ll get to clean butt sweat off the workout machines in the hotel gym. She’s poised and bubbly, with a can-do attitude and a relentless smile — even when the heel snaps off her shoe on the way in the door and she has to pop it into her pocket.
At the same hotel, but operating in another universe, our hero, GU WON (Junho), is parachuting to work. He jumps out of a plane and lands on the hotel’s roof with immaculate precision. The camera catches our lead at all angles, zeroing in on his coolness, as he drops his gear, straitens his suit, and walks along confidently — until, the phone call: he’s actually on the wrong building. Lol.
The introduction to our leads tells us everything we need to know about the drama’s humor. Our characters are flawed — and we’re meant to laugh at them. Whether it’s physical fumbles or over-confident flubs, these idols are here to entertain.
In our first setup situation, we learn that Won is the heir to the King Hotel and his father has sent him to learn the ropes from the bottom up. We see him join a lineup of new interns in one of the hotel’s bureaucratic departments. No one knows who he is and he’s clueless and pouty as he searches the internet for how to use a copy machine.
But before we can write him off as just some chaebol dolt, we see him defend his fellow intern, NOH SANG-SHIK (Ahn Se-ha) when Sang-shik is blamed for a mistake that’s really their manager’s fault. It turns out that Won is a moral guy with a firm sense of justice who has no problem speaking up on others’ behalf. So when his backtalk gets him fired on the first day, he walks out — and takes his pitiful co-worker with him, offering him a full-time job as his righthand man. The spirit of the underdog is strong in this one, and I knew I’d love this drama as soon as I saw this scene.
Won’s life is not all rosy, though. Our first (and, so far, only) antagonist is his half-sister, GU HWA-RAN (Kim Sun-young). Won has been living in the U.K. and his noona would love to send him right back there. She already occupies a high position at the hotel and plans to take over someday. In her mind, Won is her competition – a truth their father solidifies by saying that either sibling could be his successor. And so, our central conflict is as tried and true as they come, even if Won doesn’t actually give a hoot about taking over the hotel.
Hwa-ran hands Won a room key and tells him to stay at the hotel rather than at the family home, which gives us the perfect setup for Won and Sa-rang to have their first encounter. Sa-rang is over the moon, having landed the hotel job, where she gets to put up with metaphorical crap from guests all day and then clean up their literal crap later.
On one occasion, she’s sexually harassed by a guest in the gym and we get to see our heroine’s gumption when she marches over to him and speeds up his treadmill until he tumbles off it and onto the floor. Except, there’s been a mixup. She spotted her target because of his t-shirt — but Won happens to be wearing the same one, and it’s our hero who’s toppled onto the floor instead.
After this brief meeting, our leads don’t cross paths again for another seven years. In the equivalent of a calendar flip, we breeze across time, witnessing snippets of Sa-rang and Won from 2016 through 2024. Sa-rang’s temp gig has become a permanent promotion to the lobby, where she’s the smiling face of the company. It was always her dream to be a King Hotel concierge and now she’s living out her fantasy, even earning the “best talent” award.
During this time, Won returns to London, completes an MBA, and lives an altogether Bruce Wayne lifestyle in a massive estate with a single butler. Sang-shik accompanies him abroad and becomes “Secreatary Noh” and the two develop a close friendship and brotherly banter. One day, Won decides to return to Korea after receiving a letter from an unknown sender. It seems there’s a mystery surrounding his mother, whom he’s never met, and he goes back to claim his place at the hotel and dig into the past – because it just wouldn’t be a proper tropefest without our hero’s childhood trauma acting up.
The next time our leads meet it’s in another horribly cringey scene, where Sa-rang is sent to Won’s room to grab his phone while he’s not there. She’s got a serious stomachache and can’t help but to use the toilet before she leaves. But (of course) Won returns and sees her through the transparent walls of his bathroom. He spins around, turning his back on her, as she yells, “Don’t look!” He responds, “I wouldn’t even if you asked me too!” And it’s this kind of baseline humor that drives the drama, and only works because it’s delivered by these leads.
To make matters worse, Won remembers Sa-rang from the incident on the treadmill all those years ago and demands an apology for both then and now. Sa-rang still thinks he’s the pervert who harassed her and refuses to apologize. Luckily, it’s not long before all this gets sorted and she realizes it wasn’t him, but the interactions serve to get these two all riled up and disliking each other – and also permit Junho some sultry stares that are meant to show contempt but somehow come off as seductive.
In one such angry interplay, we learn that Won hates fake smiles (also due to mama trauma, I think) and he tells Sa-rang not to smile around him — even though it’s company policy to be bright and cheery all the time. This actually gives Sa-rang a break because she’s tired of having to be inauthentic around him. She’s been smiling through gritted teeth, and now she doesn’t have to.
And this is where the drama really shines. It has the typical things we might expect about a rich, educated guy colliding with a woman who doesn’t have a four-year degree, but it also digs a little deeper. Sa-rang has two best friends, that are also her housemates, and all three women work in the service industry with catty co-workers, egotistical bosses, and sucky customers. One, KANG DA-EUL (Kim Ga-eun), works in a duty-free shop, while the other, OH PYUNG-HWA (Go Won-hee), is a flight attendant. They vow to treat their employees better than they were treated when they move into higher positions, and there’s an undercurrent here about changing work standards and getting rid of outdated traditions.
The best part is that our hero is at the center of this move toward change. In another gratifying underdog scene, a famous actress staying at the hotel asks Sa-rang for a free upgrade to a suite. Sa-rang tells her it’s against their policy and the actress starts yelling in the lobby, demanding the room but refusing to pay extra. Won intervenes and Sa-rang is surprised when he tells her to call security and kick out “the nation’s mom.” Won doesn’t care who she is — she’s rude. Junho’s demeanor is everything here and I feel so satisfied every time he puts his hand in this entitled person’s face.
Our premiere week ends with Won and Sa-rang flying off to Jeju together to shoot a promo video for the hotel. It’s a live event and Won’s father reminds him that stock values are riding on the broadcast’s success. But, up to her villainous antics already, Hwa-ran switches Won’s interview questions minutes before the shoot, intending to sabotage him.
The more salient point about the trip to Jeju is that when Won sees Sa-rang strut into the airport, out of uniform and full of confidence, he already looks like a goner. She’s oblivious to his stare, but later, she has a moment of reciprocal awe when Won arrives for the broadcast with a strut of his own. And, with just two episodes down, the seeds of like have been planted.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t turn away. We were promised big budget summer fun and that’s what we got. But, I’m happy to report, it’s not exactly how it seemed in the trailers during all that endless promotion. I had the idea that Won would be a regular entitled jerk like all our drama heroes of yesteryear — only melting down once he affixed on the warm eyes of the leading lady. What we saw this week is that Won is a principled guy who uses his privilege to stand up for people who have less of a voice than he does. And his tiffs with Sa-rang mostly began because she accused him of doing something he didn’t do. This could go astray pretty quickly, but I’m hopeful we’ll get to keep our highly likable male lead just the way he is.
Apart from that nice surprise, we’re tripping over tropes in this drama and I can just feel a childhood connection at that hotel somewhere in our leads’ pasts. So far, the beats are visible from a mile away and the jokes feel pretty canned — and yet, it’s funny. Both Junho and Yoon-ah seem on the verge of laughter at any second, like they’re trying not to break character, and I can’t help but smile because they seem like they’re having so much fun. We could talk all day about acting abilities or script strength, but I’d rather just buckle in and enjoy the ride on this one — it’s an easy watch that’s also very easy to look at.