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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Kim So-hyun, Chae Jong-hyeop
Latest Nielsen rating: 3.33 per cent
Serendipity’s Embrace, an adaptation of Nam Ji-eun’s 2011 webtoon Is It Fate?, finally arrives on our screens after completing production in early 2023.
Was it worth the wait? While the first episodes of this youthful romantic comedy don’t necessarily feature any glaring problems, it could also be said that they also don’t boast much that marks it out as a must-watch show.


The lead actors, Kim So-hyun and Chae Jong-hyeop, appeared in better shows last year which were both shot after this one – My Lovely Liar and Castaway Diva.
By contrast, Serendipity’s Embrace feels a little half-baked, a K-drama confection with all the usual ingredients which spent too much time on the counter and not enough in the oven.
The set-up is about as typical as they come for a romantic drama, although, in its defence, at least the show avoids including the fantasy elements or chaebol heir lead we’ve grown so accustomed to over the past year.
Then again, perhaps its long time on the shelf merely means it was made before those elements became so commonplace in K-dramas.

Lee Hong-ju (Kim) works as a producer for animated productions. She is a bubbly young woman with a number of close friends, but she is very guarded and tries to avoid relationships, having experienced heartbreak.
Kang Hoo-yeong (Chae) is a financial whizz who, years earlier, moved to America. His company has just sent him back to Korea to clean up its local division, but he soon becomes very distracted when, by chance, he bumps into the girl who captured his heart in high school 10 years earlier – Hong-ju.
The trouble is, while Hong-ju may be Hoo-yeong’s first love, he isn’t hers. In fact, Hoo-yeong is the first love of their high-school classmate Kim Hye-ji (Kim Da-som), who is still Hong-ju’s best friend.
Hong-ju and Hoo-yeong interacted quite a bit back in school, but most of the time that amounted to Hong-ju hand-delivering Hye-ji’s love letters to him, which all remained unanswered as he was clearly more enamoured with their messenger than the person who wrote them.

The pair meet again in the present when Hong-ju shows up in front of Hoo-yeong at a cafe and introduces herself as his blind date, although she does not let on that she recognises him. While both are there for blind dates, it turns out they are not each other’s.
The leads cross paths a few more times that day by chance – what else would we expect of a show with the word “serendipity” in the title? Hoo-yeong winds up giving Hong-ju his number, and although he appears supremely aloof in front of her, once he is alone he desperately waits for her to make contact.
His phone eventually does ring, but rather than Hong-ju, the caller is Hye-ji, who still pines for him and gets his number from her friend. Rather than ignore her, Hoo-yeong agrees to meet, hoping that it will mean he has more chances to interact with his first love.
It does not take long for those opportunities to arise – first when he meets Hye-ji and a very drunk Hong-ju later joins them, then when Hong-ju’s friend asks her to show his relative around town.

Hong-ju mistakenly believes he is referring to a young niece, but the family member is actually his nephew Hoo-yeong. They spend the day doing things she had planned to do with a young girl, including going to an amusement park and dressing up in hanbok (traditional Korean clothes) to visit a royal palace.
Not only that, it turns out that Hoo-yeong lives downstairs from Hong-ju, a particularly lazy contrivance that keeps popping up in Korean romantic comedies.
Adding to the proceedings is the appearance of Hong-ju’s ex Bang Joon-ho (Yun Ji-on), who she is not happy to learn that she will need to work with on a coming project. He clearly wants to rekindle something, which she has no interest in, setting up what will surely be an uncomfortable working relationship.
Serendipity’s Embrace does not strike any particularly off-key notes. But the problem is that, rather than a frothy and catchy tune, the show feels more like a piece of lift muzak; it is hard to focus on and utterly forgettable.

Serendipity’s Embrace is streaming on Viu.


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K-drama Serendipity’s Embrace: Kim So-hyun, Chae Jong-hyeop meet in run-of-the-mill romcom

Kim So-hyun as Lee Hong-ju in a still from Serendipity’s Embrace.

Chae Jong-hyeop as Kang Hoo-yeong (left) and Kim So-hyun as Lee Hong-ju in a still from Serendipity’s Embrace.

Chae Jong-hyeop as Kang Hoo-yeong in a still from Serendipity’s Embrace.

Kim So-hyun as Lee Hong-ju (left) and Chae Jong-hyeop in a still from Serendipity’s Embrace.

Kim So-hyun in a still from Serendipity’s Embrace.

Kim So-hyun (left) and Chae Jong-hyeop in a still from Serendipity’s Embrace.

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Film & TV

Kim So-hyun and Chae Jong-hyeop star as an animation producer and a financial planner in a frothy romcom that does not break any new ground


This initially forgettable K-drama follows Kim So-hyun, a bubbly young woman wary of relationships, and Chae Jong-hyeop, who had a crush on her at school, as they meet up again after 10 years.
