On the evening of September 8, the Korean drama " Love Next Door " of tvN aired episode 8 with interesting content, after the male lead Seung Hyo (Jung Hae In) decided to confess his love to the female lead Seok Ryu (Jung So Min).
But at the end of the episode, while Seok Ryu was still hesitating to give Seung Hyo an answer, she suddenly had a severe stomach ache.
At this time, Seung Hyo and the female lead's ex-boyfriend Hyeon Jun were both present. Seung Hyo wanted to take her to the hospital, but Seok Ryu pushed his hand away and asked his ex-boyfriend to take her.
Finally, the episode ends with the sudden revelation of the female lead’s illness. 3 years ago, she underwent surgery for stomach cancer. At that time, her disease was in stage 2, requiring her to have 79% of her stomach removed and undergo chemotherapy.
“Love Next Door” is introduced as a romantic comedy (rom-com), with the content revolving around the relationship between Bae Seok Ryu - a woman trying to restart her troubled life after returning from America, and Choi Seung Hyo - the son of her mother's friend, who is also Seok Ryu's childhood best friend.
Viewers believe that this will be a gentle, healing drama. Not only because the genre of the drama is romantic comedy, but it is also produced by the duo of screenwriter Shin Ha Eun and director Yoo Je Won of the 2021 hit healing drama “ Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha ” shown on tvN.
Therefore, the plot of the female lead suddenly announcing that she has cancer made many viewers bored.
They think that this is an outdated and boring plot, no different from Korean psychological romance films from more than 20 years ago such as "Autumn in My Heart" in 2000 (starring Song Hye Kyo and Song Seung Hun), "Stairway to Heaven" in 2003 (starring Kwon Sang Woo and Choi Ji Woo)...
The fact that "Love Next Door" suddenly let the female lead reveal her life-threatening illness was also compared to the movie "Queen Of Tears" starring Kim Soo Hyun and Kim Ji Won that aired earlier this year.
However, in " Queen of Tears ", the female lead's rare illness is announced from the beginning, not suddenly appearing in the middle of the film like "Love Next Door".
A post titled “Today’s episode of Love Next Door ended badly” has attracted 74,000 views and over 300 comments on online community theqoo.
Korean audience left comments:
"Old script".
“Isn't this a 2000s drama, it's really ridiculous. Even though Jung Hae In and Jung So Min have good acting."
“The script is really not good. It is old-fashioned, not in line with modern emotions, and above all, it is not interesting.”
“It looks like a KBS-style drama, not tvN” (famous for modern romance, psychological drama, lots of drama).
“Suddenly adding the female lead's cancer into a romantic comedy?”.
“The romantic comedy about two childhood friends that I wish wasn't like this.”
“The script is so bad it makes you wonder if this is a 2024 drama.”
