Kdrama 2018

 

What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim (Kdrama Review & Summary)

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• Genre: Romance, Office Romance, Comedy, Mystery
• Date Released: June 2018
• KDrama: 16 Episodes

Cast:

• Park Seo Joon as Lee Young-Joon
• Park Min-Young as Kim Mi-so
• Lee Tae-Hwan as Lee Sung-yeon (Brother of Lee Young Joon)
• Kim Byeong-ok as Chairman Lee (Father)
• Kim Hye Ok as Madame Choi (Mother)
• Kang Ki-young as Park Yoo-sik
• Pyo Ye Jin as Kim Ji Ah

 

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Episode 1

This is a classic love story of a boss and his secretary.

I have to admit I already love it based from the first episode and I can’t wait for more.

Kim Mi-So, or as she started thinking of herself as Secretary Kim, has been working for Lee Young-joon for nine years.  She lives and breaths Lee Young-joon.

Lee Young Joon is tall and very handsome, very particular with his suits and looks good in it and he is also the vice president of Yoomyoung Group.

But Lee Young Joon is on another level of vanity.  He is narcissistic.  He is so in love with himself that there is no place for any love-interest in his life.

He doesn’t touch any woman and certainly does not allow them to touch him.  He thinks that he is perfection in himself.

He was quite satisfied with his lot; with life and his work.

That is until a bombshell of a news has just blown up.

His most trusted and dependable secretary of nine years, the only one who can come within inches of himself, had handed in her notice to resign.

What is wrong with Secretary Kim?, this he asked himself and his best-friend, Park Yoo-Sik?

Park Yoo Sik, is a young president of his own company and  is Young Joon’s confidant.  Yoo Sik encourages Young Joon of his self-delusion of his perceived utter perfection. (To be fair, Young Joon is actually gorgeous 🙂 ) Between them they agreed that probably Secretary Kim is after a  promotion.

Young Joon was not the only one who was concerned about Secretary Kim’s resignation.  His parents as well were rather anxious.  They both know that their son is very exacting and hard to work with.

They are also rather perturbed that Young Joon is not showing any interest in women.

There was a funny scene when Madame Choi (mother) quizzing Secretary Kim if her son is… is… is …is… is  …. to which Secretary Kim rescued her and replied that Lee Young Joon is not gay.

I love the parents in this story.  They are chill and encouraging these two to get together and give them grandbabies.

Anyway, Secretary Kim went to the bank to settle the last bit of her father’s debts.  She signed the document as Secretary Kim rather than her name Kim Mi So.  This incident only made her more determined to quit her job and get herself a life.

Despite Young Joon promising Secretary Kim a payrise, promotion as a director,  she wouldn’t budge with her decision.  She said she has had no outside life from the office for nine years.  She is now 29 years old and she wanted to get married and have a baby.  She doesn’t want to be alone in later life.

He promised her that he will never fire her from her position, ever!  She was aghast with the suggestion.

So Young Joon is back with Yoo Sik, blue sky thinking, thinking outside the box, and everything else.  🙂 Finally they’ve decided that Secretary Kim is secretly inlove with Young Joon and can’t take the number of women who wanted to be with Young-joon.

As a last resort and in desperation, Young Joon blurted to Secretary Kim one night when he went to see her that he would marry her.

Awwww so cute  I love everything so far in this drama.  Chill parents, clueless bromance, feisty and pretty lead girl and handsome but deluded lead man.  Perfect!

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Secretary Kim thought that Young Joon was drunk.  Of course she refused his proposal.

She told him that he was not her type.

Young Joon can’t comprehend her statement that he wasn’t her type.  He is perfection!

He is now playing games with Secretary Kim.  Making the other ‘new hire’ Secretary Kim to attend to him.

Kim Mi So was at first startled but she does really want to leave and look for her long ago ‘crush’!

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Episode 3

This episode is super sweet.  If you are romantic at heart, you will have a permanent smile the entire time while watching this episode.

As an extra bonus, there is a shirtless scene by Park Seo Joon showing how buff he is.  Total eye candy.

The bromance with Lee Young Joon and Mr Park is so cute.

We get a little clue why Lee Young Joon was rather dysfunctional.  Mi So may have met him when he was only nine years old and she was five.  He might have been the boy who was kidnapped.  Lee Young Joon is rather phobic of cable ties and when Kim Mi So tried to removed his sock to apply some ice on his sprained ankle, she say a scarring which looked like a result of being bind tightly previously.

Anyway a new character has just been introduced.  He is a famous international author called Morpheus and he might be the brother of Lee Young Joon who does not get on with.

The romance between Kim Mi So and Lee Young Joon is heating up.

Episode 4

From now on I am going to be madly in love … with you.

• Lee Young Joon to a surprised Kim Mi So

This episode is another sweet one.

Park Min Young is such a beautiful actress, with such a lovely warm smile.  She easily lights up the screen whenever she smiles.

In this episode we get a glimpse of the animosity between Lee Young Joon and elder his brother Lee Seong Yun (Morpheus).  Seong Yun has decided to forgive Young Joon, who was not having it.  Instead they ended up fighting.

Young Joon ended up going to Kim Mi So’s house and there he decided to fall in love with her, deeply.

But it doesn’t look like that it would be smooth sailing as Seong Yun was attracted to Kim Mi So at first sight!

Episode 5

It is started really well all of three minutes and then back steps into their shells again.  Lee Young Joon declaration of last episode that he will be madly in love with her, well he took it back.  He said that he read and memorised it from a book.

So back to square one. It was so cute though but midway, they had a huge misunderstanding in what would be their first date.

Morpheus turned up and was giving Mi So his signed latest book when Young Joon interrupted and snatched the book back from Mi So and gave it back to Morpheus.

This dark feelings ruined their date and Mi So ended up going home early.

She then told Young Joon never to stir her up again.

She had a change of heart though when she found out that Morpheus was the brother Young Joon was having nightmares about.  The person that he doesn’t get on with.  She realised that he was not upset with her but the resentment was directed to Morpheus.

Young Joon then confessed to her that he wanted to stir her up again.  They had a fleeting kiss which catapulted Mi So to the other side of the room.  Strange!

Episode 6

Young Joon bent down to MiSo, who was sitting on a swivelling chair, for a kiss.  But before he could deepen the kiss, he suddenly remembered something disconcerting from his past, it was so disturbing that he inadvertently pushed MiSo, who went careering across the room on a swivelling chair.

So this romantic scene ended in hurt and embarrassment on both side and further misunderstanding.

But they were really beginning to be into each other so before too long they were again spending time with each other.

MiSo has also been digging into a kidnapping case that occurred when she was five years old.  She remembered being locked in a room with a boy slightly older than her and he really looked after her.

What happened was still a mystery to be revealed.  She thought the boy may have been Young Joon but he confirmed that it was his brother that got kidnapped.

She is now utterly confused as she had been looking for that kind boy, her first love.

There is mystery in this drama, not just a straightforward romance.

Episode 7-8

I have to say that the side characters in this drama are well-rounded with their own cute stories.

I particularly like the growing crush Miss Bong has on Mr Yang.  She used to growl at him all the time but during an away day/team building weekend, where Miss Bong wore silicon breast padding that ended up flying out of her chest and into the ground, Mr Yang very chivalrously threw his jacket over it to avoid further embarrassment for Miss Bong.  Suddenly she saw him under a new light.

Young Joon and Kim Mi So had a long heart-to-heart talk during the team building break.

Young Joon cut to the chase saying that they both had been flirting with one another and would like to make it official that they are dating.

The only problem was that every time they try to kiss, he gets a horrific memory of the past.

Episode 9

They finally had their first kiss.  Young Joon can’t kiss MiSo but she took the initiative and the rest is history.

Young Joon clarified their situation, that they are officially dating. So cute.

Their initial interaction was awkward at first especially at work.  When Young Joon started being more proactive with the admin duties such as photocopying his own documents and making his own tea, MiSo was not best pleased.

They had a heart to heart where Young Joon said that he knew that he was a bad boss but he doesn’t want to be a bad boyfriend, to which MiSo said that in the office, she wanted to be his secretary rather than his girlfriend.

I love this drama.  The characters have well rounded role.  I particularly like the new PA who just moved house near to where the company accountant was living.

The accountant was unbelievably frugal that it was so hilarious especially when he said to the PA that if she orders a take out. she should give half of it to him to avoid food wastage.

The PA was so touched when he gave her a handful of his cherry tomatoes he was growing lovingly in his roof garden.

As a token of her thanks she packed half of her take-out and handed it to him.

He said that perhaps when she next order, she should order crispy chicken, etc.  She was so annoyed how ungrateful he was being.  🙂

Anyway the end of this episode hint that Young Joon might be the boy MiSo knew when she was young afterall.

Episode 10

This episode is hilarious and heartwarming.

There were a couple of surprise guests.  Lee Min Ki and Jung So Min had a cameo appearance as parents to Kim Mi So.  That was a refreshing treat.  Lee Min Ki and Jung So Min almost reprised their role in Because This is My First Life, complete with the their drama OST.

Mi So fainted at a conference but she intoned first that she finally remembers what happened all those years ago.

Episode 11

What happened during the kidnapping was much too much for a child of 8 years old to bear and yet despite his young age he still chose to protect a 5-year old girl. These children were Young Joon and Kim Mi So.

The kidnapper was a woman who wore red lipstick and red high heels.  The woman suffered from mental breakdown as her partner had her abort their child and left her.

She knew that she was  in a lot of trouble kidnapping kids, especially someone from a rich family.  She hanged herself in front of the watching Young Joon.

Poor Lee Sung Yeon, his brother though! So sad.