Yearning and cross-cultural romance in What Comes After Love (2024)

21 March 10, 2024September 21, 2024

Yearning and cross-cultural romance in What Comes After Love

by Jenzy

The script reading stills for Coupang Play’s upcoming romance drama What Comes After Love are out, spotlighting our Korean-Japanese pair of Lee Se-young (The Story of Park’s Marriage Contract) and Sakaguchi Kentaro (Sayonara no Tsuzuki) as they navigate life after their world-shattering breakup.

While there isn’t a ton of drama-specific plot info yet, the original plot of the novel written by Gong Ji-young and Tsuji Hitonari centers around our two leads and covers their love, loss, and potential reunion as they meet across their two countries.

When our pair first met, Choi Hong (Lee Se-young) was a bright-eyed study abroad student in Japan and Aoki Jungo (Sakaguchi Kentaro) was an aspiring novelist trying to catch his big break. The two fell in love, but couldn’t make their relationship last, culminating in a breakup that left Hong full of scars and Jungo full of regret. Seven years later, Hong has now become a big-shot director at a publishing company back in Korea and has done everything she can to put Jungo behind her.

Meanwhile, Jungo has also built a name for himself as a successful author, but unlike Hong, he’s still hung up over how things ended between them — so much so that his breakout novel was based on their relationship. And just his luck — a business trip has him coming to Korea where he is able to reunite with his ex after all this time.

But patching things up between our leads won’t be easy. Not only will they have to confront the reasons behind their breakup, alongside their looming cultural differences, they will have to deal with the other two members of this novel’s love square: Hong Jong-hyun (Race), Hong’s longtime friend who’s nursed a 15-year crush, and Nakamura Anne (One Day: Seiya no kara Sawagi), Jungo’s ex-girlfriend and editor of his books.

Besides the second-chance romance that already has me onboard, the collaborative nature of the production between Korean and Japanese talent is really exciting, and I’m curious to see how they explore the undercurrent of tension between the two nations that still exists today. If done well, this drama has a great opportunity to thread that needle between the two cultures and open up dialogue about Korean-Japanese history and present-day relations.

Directed by Moon Hyun-sung (Seoul Vibe) with the screenplay adapted by Jung Hae-shim, What Comes After Love is slated to release on Coupang Play sometime this year.

Via Incheon Ilbo, Sports Kyunghang, News1, Kpopmap

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I'm excited!!

“Excited” is a mild way of putting it!!

Hmm. I wonder if we get to watch Hong Jong-hyun continue his personal take on ambivalent yearning (as seen in Race)? With luck this time, though, he'll truly commit to the yearning and show us what he's got! 😘

Looking forward to this one.

I'm so excited!

When this was first announced last year it went immediately on my must watch list for 2024. The premise alone has me sold, but the cast is so exciting!

A Japanese-Korean romance. This is definitely on my list.

The joint project sounds interesting. Looking forward to watch another Lee Se Young drama.

The once forgotten phenomenon of Japanese-Korean drama collaboration begins once more, hopefully. Any way we can have this released now?

Looking forward to this. The visuals at the script reading itself have me hooked. 😊

Am I the only one who honestly finds Korean-Japanese and Chinese-Japanese romance dramas and movies cringey? I avoid them like the plague. How many of them are actually good and not cheesy? Too much historical baggage for me to enjoy. Envious of those who can enjoy them though.

Count me in. This sounds really interesting with the duo Korean/Japanese actors. I'm hoping for a good story to go with the great actors.

This one is one my radar screen.

Kentaro Sakaguchi? And with one of my favourite working actresses?? Yes please. Inject that directly into my veins.

Lee se young and Sakaguchi Kentaro! I am in!