[HanCinema's Drama Review] "My Unfortunate Boyfriend" Episode 3

This episode lacks the frantic energy of the first two- not necessarily a bad thing considering how ridiculous the situations have been lately. Here it's mostly just a night and day of recovery. Ji-na once again shows off that her real magic trick is being able to improvise solutions that looks so impressive and pre-planned that it never occurs to anyone that she's just making it up as she goes along. Unfortunately her talent only really works in the presence of a crisis situation- and all Hee-cheol wants is a drink.

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I do like Hee-cheol. Even though he's obviously the focal point for a romantic rivalry Jung Yoon-hak keeps oscillating between whether Hee-cheol doesn't know or doesn't care that Ji-na and Hye-mi are fighting over him. And in actuality "My Unfortunate Boyfriend" is really just pushing toward a very obvious moral point- that you can't impress an attractive guy by drinking lots of beer. You might get a slob that way but Hee-cheol has too much class to entertain those kinds of shenanigans.

But poor Tae-woon...he's completely flustered by Ji-na and the man really doesn't know why. Neither does Ji-na. In her defense, most of their interactions this episode take place while he's literally in disguise. All the same the cliffhanger seems just a tad harsh in terms of Ji-na jumping to conclusions at Tae-woon's expense. I want to like Ji-na- she's a rough person, but not necessarily a bad one. Even so Tae-woon can only suffer so much before I start thinking that she's just plain mean.

The edge is mostly taken off by the generally lovelorn proceedings. Strictly speaking "My Unfortunate Boyfriend" is a fairly clichéd romantic comedy, but there really are times when I'm more interested in things looking cute than by their necessarily being original. The fact that Ji-na is too constantly distracted to realize that the universe is conspiring to put her and Tae-woon together only makes their interactions that much more fun.

It's a silly thing to complain about but I was really hoping that Park Jin-joo would wear another elaborate cosplay this episode. Ho hum. This weakness notwithstanding "My Unfortunate Boyfriend" is still doing well enough quality-wise that until the cliffhanger I hadn't noticed that Ji-na hasn't actually visited the arboreteum yet. Usually I'm a bit of a hawk for figuring out when a drama gets around to clearly establishing its premise. If nothing else "My Unfortunate Boyfriend" gets points for being intense enough to keep my mind from wandering.

Review by William Schwartz

"My Unfortunate Boyfriend" is directed by Nam Gi-hoon, written by Lee Jae-yoon-IV and features No Min-woo, Yang Jin-sung, Jung Yoon-hak and Han Hye-rin.