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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Shin Min-a, Kim Young-dae, Lee Sang-yi, Han Ji-hyun
Latest Nielsen rating: 3.8 per cent
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha star Shin Min-a headlines new romcom K-drama No Gain No Love as Son Hae-young, a woman so obsessed with getting her fair share in life that she has been calculating every decision she has made since she was a child and questions all the unfairness she perceives around her.
Shin’s co-star is the up-and-coming Kim Young-dae, also currently on screens in Perfect Family, whose character, Kim Ji-wook, has a somewhat different view of life. He also bristles at the iniquities of society, but he reacts by finding ways to help other people rather than figure out a way to balance the scales for himself.


Hae-young’s view on life is evident to all around her from a young age.
The show opens back in her childhood; while playing dodgeball in her schoolyard she begins badgering her physical education teacher. She wonders why the girls are only allowed to play dodgeball in a small corner of the yard when the boys can use the full run of the pitch to play football.
In the present, her frustrations have only grown. We meet Hae-young again as she arrives at a colleague’s wedding and considers how much money to place in the customary wedding envelope.
To another colleague, she quips that she has filled such envelopes with enough money by now to buy a small car, and has yet to receive anything in return.
Hae-young, whose name in Korean is a pun meaning zero damage (son-hae young), is infuriated to learn that married staff at her company receive substantial benefits, including bonus pay and extra holidays.

Fed up with this, she decides to get a piece for herself with her boldest calculation yet: engaging in a quick fake marriage to land a promotion.
Also factoring into her decision is the fact that the groom of the wedding she has just attended is Ahn Woo-jae (Go Wook, Business Proposal), an ex with whom she broke up just six months earlier.
She learns that the new couple had been seeing each other for a year before tying the knot, and realises that he was two-timing her. This, on top of Ahn’s marriage benefits at work, sends her over the edge.
Not one to dilly-dally, she gives herself a month to walk down the aisle, and the role of bridegroom winds up falling to Ji-wook, the long-time cashier at Hae-young’s local convenience store.

Hae-young’s tit-for-tat approach to life didn’t emerge out of nowhere. She grew up with a single mother who gave herself to others tirelessly by constantly welcoming foster children into their home but wound up neglecting her daughter in the process.
Meanwhile, Shin’s Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha co-star Lee Sang-yi appears as Bok Gyu-hyun, the heir to the company Hae-young works for, and Han Ji-hyun (The Penthouse) plays her roommate Nam Ja-yeon, a writer of steamy online romances who, as a child, was fostered by Hae-young’s mother.
Intriguingly, Lee and Han have signed up to appear in a planned spin-off series, Spice Up Our Love. This series takes its title from the web novel Han’s character is writing during No Gain No Love, and will see the actors bringing its pages to life as the leads of the novel – a CEO and his dietitian.
Last seen on screens two years ago as part of the star-studded ensemble cast of Our Blues, Shin reminds us why she is the ultimate modern K-drama city slicker with her portrayal of a career woman trying to navigate being there for oneself as well as for others – a treacherous balance Hae-young has not yet found at the outset of the series.

Much like the recently launched romcom Cinderella at 2AM with Shin Hyun-been and Moon Sang-min, No Gain No Love features a major age gap between its female lead and younger male co-star.
Shin and Kim are separated by 12 years and, while the age difference of their characters is vaguely alluded to, it does not appear to be a focal point of the story.
Whether there is enough to gain from investing in No Gain No Love will be up to individual viewers, but there is no denying that it is an attractive vehicle for Shin that treads a well-worn path with panache.
No Gain No Love is streaming on Amazon Prime.


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Shin Min-a as Son Hae-young in a still from No Gain No Love.

Shin Min-a as career woman Son Hae-young in a still from No Gain No Love.

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Shin Min-a as Hae-young in a still from No Gain No Love.

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Shin Min-a’s character sees unfairness all around her, not least the benefits married colleagues enjoy, and decides to stage a fake wedding


Shin Min-a impresses as a character obsessed with getting her fair share, to the extent she plans a staged wedding to snare a promotion at work.
