Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha

If you’re just newly scratching the surface of the current crop of K-dramas, you may have come to expect outlandish concepts and high stakes (like hotels for ghosts, Italo-Korean Mafia consiglieres, and metaphorical critiques of surveillance capitalism), but this gently funny series hinges on a much simpler conceit. Shin Min-a stars as Yoon Hye-jin, a stuck-up heroine with a kind heart who learns to grow into her best self when she falls for an unlikely suitor.

Though pretty, smart, well-educated, and successful, Hye-jin is also hotheaded, a bit snobbish, status-obsessed, and self-absorbed. But the first episode lets us see that she’s a diamond in the rough. Though she quits her job and insults her boss, it’s only because her boss pressured patients into expensive dental procedures they couldn’t afford. Realizing that her now former boss has blacklisted her—and that her own impulsive behavior is partly to blame—Hye-jin heads to a tiny seaside town to think things over. It happens to be the place where her parents spent a holiday just before Hye-jin’s mother died—and since the place is full of bittersweet memories she has no intention of staying.

But circumstance after circumstance piles up to keep her there, and it’s no surprise to the viewer when said circumstances also keep throwing Hye-jin into the path of the most beloved person in town, a humble and hardworking handyman named Hong Du-sik (Kim Seon-ho). Before the second episode is done, she’s opened a dental clinic in the town—and managed to piss off all of the residents when her trash-talking comments are inadvertently broadcast over the town’s public address system. Only Hong Du-sik can help her now.

If problematic anti-heroes and bad boys aren’t your style, Hong Du-sik is almost comically perfect for you. Lovable and sweet, good at everything, he looks after the town’s elderly residents and helps everyone in town. Du-sik is brusque with Hye-jin, but it’s only because he’s concealing his deeper feelings toward her. That’s not to say that the course of their romance runs smooth. Far from it; Du-sik—like most perfect men in rom-coms—is chronically emotionally guarded due to a traumatic incident in his past. But that’s a minor snag which will take exactly 16 charming, sweet, and seaside-scenic episodes to resolve.