To All the Guys Who Loved Me is a fantasy romantic comedy about a career woman (Hwang Jung Eum) who wants to stay single because of bad experiences in her past lives and a man (Yoon Hyun Min) who wants to change the type of relationship he’s had with her in their past lives through his love.
Hwang Jung Eum plays Seo Hyun Joo. She is a webtoon PD that has no desire to marry. Then she gets involved with the mysterious CEO of a pharmaceutical company who seems very interested in her.
Yoon Hyun Min is Hwang Ji Woo. He is the CEO who goes to great lengths to be part of Hyun Joo’s life as he opens up career opportunities for her and seems to share a past connection with her.
Next is Seo Ji Hoon as Park Do Gyum. He is a webtoon writer that is close to Hyun Joo. The two grew up together, but he has long had one-sided feelings for her.
Then we have Han Seo Yoon (Jo Woo Ri) who works at Ji Woo’s company and has a crush on Do Gyum. Finally, there is Seo Yoon’s mother, Kim Seon Hee (Choi Myung Gil), who is a powerful woman with big plans to marry off her daughter to Ji Woo.
To All the Guys Who Loved Me is a mostly light romantic comedy with a dash of fantasy. The fantasy element involves past lives with Hyun Joo and Ji Woo being connected over multiple lifetimes.
The drama has a lot of humor that is on the silly side which is something I enjoyed. The plot is pretty basic, but it moves forward slow and steady. It was enough to keep me engaged with a huge help coming from the silly and fun nature of the show.
We do have a love triangle in the drama. It’s clear that main couple is Hyun Joo and Ji Woo, but Do Gyum is an important person in Hyun Joo’s life and has strong feelings for her. I thought that Hyun Joo and Do Gyum had a really nice connection, but it never had a romantic charge to it.
On the other hand, Hyun Joo and Ji Woo had a more romantic connection, but it takes a long time for them to come together as a couple. One thing to keep in mind with this show is that Ji Woo really doesn’t make very good choices regarding Hyun Joo. He’s not very logical and lets his love for her cloud his judgement in a big way.
I definitely felt a bit perplexed at times as to why he seemed to want one thing but his actions were counter to that. I just chalked it up to major confliction within him that made him act illogically at times.
There is a more serious side to the series involving the past lives and their effect on the present. Mystery surrounds Ji Woo and his intentions. This part of the story is peeled back slowly with a just snippets given at a time.
As we learn more about what happened in the past, more of the serious elements come forth and create some tension and angst in the present. The latter third of the drama definitely has some angsty parts and the main villain to contend with. Even then, To All the Guys Who Loved Me maintains its humor throughout.
This drama has a lot of supporting characters, but sadly, I didn’t care for many of them. The only ones I really liked were Hyun Joo’s parents. They were on the annoying side, but in a fun sort of way.
Also, a big character plot point for Hyun Joo involves her concrete plan to never get married. I didn’t feel this was handled as well as it could be. It’s rooted in some very logical things that she experienced in the past, but the deeper we went in the drama, the sillier it seemed that she clung onto it so hard. Of course, it’s completely up to her to not want to get married, but her reasoning seemed off, and it just didn’t make sense in context of how the drama ended.
ENDING SPOILERS BELOW:
We get a happy ending all around with this one. Our villain, Seon Hee, failed at her revenge plan. We didn’t exactly get justice, but she regretted what she did (and she did a lot!) and repented.
Hyun Joo and Ji Woo end up together. Then we get this weird anti-marriage ceremony to end the drama. They exchange rings, have a fancy ceremony with friends and family, and proclaim their love for each other and how they will spend their lives together. Basically, everything a typical marriage ceremony would involve. But they aren’t married and never will be.
Again, couples by no means have to get married, just in the context of the show and how she pretty much overcame all the issues she had that led to her not wanting to get married in the first place, this whole thing seemed weird and didn’t make sense. Oh well, happy endings all around though!
END OF SPOILERS
I have to give major props to the soundtrack of this show. It was fantastic! So many great songs from emotional ballads, to upbeat fun, to the background music. It was just what I like in an OST. For me, a great OST elevates my enjoyment of a drama quite a bit since it really draws out the emotions as well as adds to the fun atmosphere.
Overall, To All the Guys Who Loved Me is pretty standard kdrama fare, but the fun nature of the show with just enough of an engaging fantasy plot combined with actors I really enjoy and a great OST helped make this a very nice watch.
My Rating: 7.5/10
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