Reel Tastes & Travels – a light dose of entertainment to wake you up

Eps 1-2 Review: ‘The Chaebol Heir‘

In today’s world where AI is slipping into every facet of our lives and the fate of companies are rising and falling based on how quickly they adapt, this series feels very apt. It revolves around Seo Mi-rae (played by Jisoo), a jaded webtoon producer with a non-existent dating life, who gets roped into beta testing a new dating simulation game called Boyfriend on Demand. 

Boyfriend on Demand is a seriously impressive piece of tech that offers a completely immersive experience to the user. Preloaded with nine hundred ‘boyfriend’ characters, the user can experience the fantasy dates of their dreams. Given that the characters lean into various romance archetypes and appear to be derived from popular fictional characters, I can kind of see the appeal even if the actual idea seems a bit iffy to me. But who amongst us (at least for fans of the romance genre) has not fallen in love a bit with a dashing character on page or screen. And perhaps more relevantly, who amongst us has not wanted to escape into a fantasy world for a bit with no cares and nothing to do but live in the moment and enjoy the experience. 

Mi-rae’s first foray into the game pairs her with Choi Si-woo, a chaebol heir who coincidentally is based on the lead character of the hit romance webtoon that Mi-rae has been roped into producing. At first, she’s resistant and finds the character over-the-top and cringey but slowly she starts to relax and enjoy herself. 

Unfortunately, in the real world, things aren’t quite as hunky-dory. The aforementioned webtoon that Mi-rae has been assigned to sounds like a great career opportunity, right? Sadly, it’s popularity is waning and it comes attached with an extremely temperamental creator with a reputation for fighting with her fans and making her producers’ lives hell. 

Not to mention it’s in a genre that Mi-rae has little time for. There are references sprinkled throughout of a past boyfriend who broke up with her and is now engaged. From what little we’ve seen so far, it looks like his treatment of her contributed significantly to her jadedness.  So then how will she successfully revive a romance webtoon when she herself has so little faith in the idea? That’s where Boyfriend on Demand comes in. By removing the need to have to guard her heart or worry about the future, it allows her to see past the cringe and rediscover the magic of romance. With Choi Si-woo, the appeal lies in the idea of being able to kick back, leave aside your daily struggles and enjoy being taken care of. Sure, it takes the form of an unrealistic ‘sky’s the limit’ shopping spree but that’s just the fantasy coating around the basic idea of having someone to take care of you and to lean on. 

Now that’s all well and good and I’m excited to see what tropes future characters will bring out. But where’s the actual romance? There’s actually very little of it in the first two episodes. There’s a rival producer at work, Park Gyeong-nam who I assume is the actual male lead (if only by virtue of being only eligible non-VR male character so far!), but they have limited interactions so far. The show has a fairly complicated premise though, so I understand the need to focus more on the set-up at the start. I imagine as it progresses and Mi-rae becomes open to the idea of romance, her relationship with Gyeong-nam will evolve as well.

First impressions: A breezy show that promises to have fun with the typical romance tropes. Bit light on actual romance for a romcom but a likeable enough main character to make me continue watching.

Stray Musings

• I love a female lead who is invested in her job and extremely competent at it such as Park Min-young’s art director in ‘Her Private Life’, or Lee Sung-kyung’s PR head in ‘Shooting Stars’. It’s still early days but given the amount of time spent at her office and working on the webtoon, I’m hopeful they will showcase this through the show. 
• When Mi-rae is reading up about the game, there’s a passing reference to concerns of how the dating simulation could fuel online/VR addiction. An intriguing idea. Not sure how well it’ll meld with a romcom but I’m curious if they’ll circle back to this later on.
• There’s a 50-hour limit on dating any specific character in the game. Is that to reduce the risk of addiction or just to encourage users to continue to engage more with the game rather than settle on a character early on?