I’m all for casting Namgoong Min (Falsify, Chief Kim) as a handsome guy. It might be the world’s most generic description of K-drama hero (others that come to mind are rich guy, cold guy, or geeeeenius guy), but you can’t argue that he doesn’t fit the part. SBS has a new drama in the works called Handsome Guy and Jung-eum, an opposites-attract romance between a man who’s got love completely figured out and a woman who’s made it her life’s mission to fall in love.
The new series will be penned by writer Lee Jae-yoon of Tamra The Island and My Unfortunate Boyfriend, as well as the movies Red Carpet and Professional Mr. Baek. It’s about a man who has parsed every theory there is about love, and a woman named Jung-eum whose greatest dream in life is to be married. I’m getting the sense that he’s a love guru while love is a mystery to her, which just makes me eager for the inevitable twist when he falls for her.
Namgoong Min’s agency confirmed that he received the offer to headline, and released a statement saying, “The plan and the script were fresh, so he is considering it favorably.” The casting reports don’t offer more details about the characters or plot, but I don’t expect Namgoong Min to sign on to a drama with a two-dimensional hero, not after his hot streak as a quirky leading man in Falsify, Chief Kim, and Beautiful Gong Shim, which came after his hot streak as a psycho villain in Remember–Son’s War and Girl Who Sees Smells. The man’s just on a long streak, so let’s not mess with it, okay?
Handsome Guy and Jung-eum is being planned for a May broadcast on SBS, following Wednesday-Thursday dramas Return and Switch: Change the World.