Looks like Yeo Jin-gu (Circle) will be jumping from one drama set to another: SBS’s upcoming Reunited Worlds held its first script reading recently, which sounds kind of late considering the show is scheduled to premiere in less than a month. The show has also added Lee Shi-un (My Sassy Girl) and Kim Ga-eun (Jackpot) to its supporting cast, as Yeo Jin-gu’s high school friend and younger sister, respectively.
I will never say no to more Yeo Jin-gu, but I find it mildly amusing that he’s going from one drama with two timelines as a character that’s presumed dead for a time, directly into another one with essentially the same premise. Though, tonally, I don’t expect Reunited Worlds to be anything like Circle, since it’s described as a fantasy rom-com, which Circle certainly isn’t. He will be playing Sung Hye-sung, who should be 31 years old, but returns from the “dead” as the 18-year old he was when he supposedly died.
He will reconnect with Lee Yeon-hee’s (Hwajeong) character, 31-year old Jung Jung-won, who has been a chef’s assistant for the past five years in order to realize her not-so-dead best friend’s dream of becoming a chef in his stead. Jung Jung-won is described as bright and tomboyish, and coupled with her impressive loyalty, I think I’ll enjoy her character in spite of my reservations about Lee Yeon-hee. Here’s also to hoping that IOI’s Jung Chae-yeon (Drinking Solo), who plays Jung-won at 18, will develop a solid onscreen bond with Yeo Jin-gu so that the emotional weight carries over to their reunion 13 years later.
The third leg of our requisite love triangle is Ahn Jae-hyun’s (Cinderella and the Four Knights) Cha Min-joon character, a handsome, gentle chef-restaurateur who will fall for Jung Jung-won. After watching his stints on New Journey to the West and Newlywed Diaries, I was honestly kind of impressed by his cooking, so I won’t have any trouble believing him as a chef.
Lee Shi-un and Kim Jin-woo (Remember—Son’s War) will play Hye-sung’s buddies from high school, and I wonder if the men will have younger counterparts too, a la Lee Yeon-hee and Jung Chae-yeon. Although it might be pretty funny as a visual gag if they played their high school selves as well. Yeo Jin-gu’s two younger siblings will be played by Kwak Dong-yeon (Moonlight Drawn By Clouds) and Kim Ga-eun, who I’m sure are in for a big surprise when their long-dead older brother shows up at their door, possibly younger than they are in the present. If nothing else, I’m pretty excited for all the age-identity-etiquette conflicts that’ll arise from Hye-sung’s return, and I hope they mine as much comedy from the premise as they can.
SBS’s Reunited Worlds will follow currently airing Suspicious Partner and premiere in the Wednesday-Thursday slot on July 19.
