05/15/2026
After watching the second episode, I decided this is my life drama.
"Kyu Hyun is too sleazy."
Someone wrote this on Douban, and it got quite a few likes. Objectively speaking, I think his acting is decent, but once the label of "middle-aged loser sleazy man" is slapped on him, many people run away before the female lead even appears.
This is the most accurate audience profile for this drama at the moment.
🎬 "Everyone is Fighting Against Their Own Worthlessness"
Park Hae-young (from "My Big Guy" and "My Runaway Diary") has written a "non-stereotypical" male lead this time.
Hwang Dong-man (played by Kyu Hyun), the only aspiring director in the movie industry's "Eight Men Club" who hasn't made it big. He freeloads at his friends' premieres, criticizes their movies as terrible, and is so blunt that he gets ostracized. To mask his unease, he blusters with long-winded speeches, stirring up the emotions of those around him.
Some say he's "too ugly" and "too much of a middle-aged loser sleazy man."
But this is exactly what the screenwriter wanted.
Park Hae-young mentioned during casting that he was attracted to Kyu Hyun's "unstable vibe of not knowing whether he'll cry or laugh next." This casting was deliberate—he didn't want to give the audience a likable male lead; he wanted you to see yourself in your annoyance.
The female lead, Byun Eun-ja (played by Go Ah-sung), is the mirror image.
Nicknamed "Axe," she's known for her sharp script critiques. On the surface, she's calm and strong, but inside, she's filled with trauma. One vents wildly, the other hides desperately. When everyone else dismisses Hwang Dong-man's voice as noise, she's the first to say, "I'm curious about your script"—at that moment, the red light on his mood watch, which never turns off, finally glows green.
This isn't a story about a domineering CEO falling in love with me. It's about two people struggling with feelings of worthlessness, seeing each other.
Just like the true ambition of this drama.
Although the male lead's personality is indeed annoying, most people dislike him because they can't accept their own shadow side. The screenwriter holds a mirror directly in front of the audience, and those complaints about him being "too ugly" or "too sleazy" ironically become the most precise annotations for the show—it uses its least likable exterior to force you to confront an uncomfortable truth: you dislike him precisely because you see in him the side of yourself you refuse to acknowledge.
Just like the screenwriter's creative thread—from "My Big Guy's" "responsibility," "My Runaway Diary's" "release," to this one's pivot to "resistance." She wants to explore: when society labels you as "zero," how do you generate the power of "one" from within?
So in the first episode, after being rejected by the world, Hwang Dong-man shouts to the sky: "Why does my life have to conform to your wishes?"
It's not defiance. It's asking himself.
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