Their crackling chemistry is not rare to witness but impossible to feign.
Rating: 3/5
(Disclaimer: Please note the review is only based on the first two episodes of this Netflix K-drama)
The thing about K-drama themes nowadays is that they are largely becoming templatised. Just a few tweaks here and there but most of the elements appear to be repetitive. In trying to painstakingly recreate the spirit of a specific genre, makers often fall into pastiche, focusing so hard on the nuts and bolts that they forget to include any heart. At this time, creating a feisty romance K-drama feels like an exercise in technique, all style no soul. Though ‘The Potato Lab’ featuring Kang Tae-oh and Lee Sun-bin likely falls under a similar predicament, it still feels like an exception, at least for now.
It appears to be created with a keen eye of a director, who is acutely aware of the genre he’s targeting, be it the plot machinations or the production design. What makes ‘The Potato Lab’ an exception is that it has equally vested interest in matching romance genre’s grand emotional stakes. It’s a K-drama that both looks and feels the part, a handsomely made love story that’s easy to fall in love with.
‘The Potato Lab’ is an unashamedly show filled with big moments (I mean the main leads kiss within just two episodes). But here’s a warning - its deceptively unsophisticated brashness might not be to everyone’s taste. Because it’s not just romantic melodramas that have lost touch, it’s romantic comedies, too, and contemporary audiences aren’t as accustomed to shows that fall headfirst into a fixed formula, which has instead been reclassified as lazy cliche.
But there’s something so charming about how ‘The Potato Lab’ recycles familiar tropes and scenes that I found it impossible to protest. It’s such a woozily romantic K-drama, soaring and crashing with great force, taking us along with it. There’s a crackling chemistry between So Baek-ho (Kang Tae-oh) and Kim Mi-kyung (Lee Sun-bin), a genuine pulse-quickening connection that’s not rare to witness but impossible to feign.
Kang Tae-oh, is in fine form here as Director Baek-ho of Wonhan Retail’s strategic planning department, who is nicknamed ATH in the organisation, short for ‘All talk from hell.’ He never gets worked up and he is super polite and respectful but he can skin people alive with words in his calmest voice. Tae-oh manages to replicate the charm and style of his poised and sophisticated character, without his performance ever feeling like an overstudied bit.
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Lee Sun-bin radiates on screen as Kim Mi-kyung, a potato researcher at Sunnyeo Food, a company eventually taken over by Wonhan Retail. She effortlessly switches from funny to vulnerable to feisty when required in complete command of herself and her surroundings. But here’s the twist, Mi-kyung has a terrible six-year history with
Fate doesn’t only bring her back to the company she detests but also to her ex-boyfriend Park Ki-se (Lee Hak-joo). From what the flashback scenes hint, it seems he shattered our female lead’s trust quite terribly, because after leaving her past behind every year on her birthday, she wished Ki-se would drop dead or at least be castrated.
It so happens that Mi-Kyung and Baek-ho end up becoming neighbours, and even though there’s an ex-boyfriend adversary between them, the duo spark with the sort of electricity that can turn a cliched romance into a good one and a good romance into a great one. The main leads bicker at first but their bitter-sweet bond turns into something more by the end of the second episode.
The boss she hates is her neighbour, such an overused romantic cliche, but the defining force of the plot are also the supporting characters around them. I am still surprised at how satisfied of a watch this K-drama is, mostly because it always manages to make you laugh.
Final thoughts:
Electric chemistry between Baek-ho and Kim Mi-kyung aptly ignites this Netflix offering. The plot does lean into a few too many contrivances, as one can start to see Mi-kyung pull the strings a little too brazenly, and sometimes the ups and downs of her career can be a little underbaked. But by the end of the second episode, we’re sucked right back in and the unblushing grandiosity of it all makes it virtually impossible to resist.
It’s already teased in the preview of the next episode that Baek-ho isn’t going to waste time in asking out Mi-kyung and I’m hooked to watch how that turns out for him. I’m unsure if I'll continue to like this K-drama till the end but I am willing to give it a chance.
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