Park Min-young and the evolution of office romances: From Secretary Kim to Forecasting Love And Weather

In 2018, Min-young played the perky, steely-minded secretary Kim Mi-so in What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim, which featured Park Seo-joon as the snooty, narcissistic boss. His life turns upside down when his loyal secretary decides to quit and move on in life, something he is not quite able to comprehend. He can’t seem to imagine life without her, as he depends on her for everything, including getting his tie sorted.

Park Min-young and Park Seo-joon in What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim (Photo: Netflix)

She is probably the one who can set him straight and get him to behave, a character trait that’s forgotten later in the series. As the show progresses, it turns out that he has always been in love with her, probably since childhood—something she doesn’t remember till later, and they both share the same trauma, except that he has carried it throughout his life, and she can only remember fragments. The saccharine, treacly montage of sweet moments between the two wasn’t enough to cover the gradual erosion Min-young’s fiercely independent character faces, as Park Seo-joon took the centrestage with his story. He almost becomes an imposing figure in the show—as he turns up at her house asking her to live with him, or even matters of physical intimacy, that she calls him out on. However, we lose the essence of her character. From telling him to not ‘bulldoze’ her with his constant presence, she decides to give up on making a name for herself and stays on as his secretary, after marriage. She sacrifices her own ideals despite being talented, skilled and quick on her feet—leaving you with just a disappointed and disgruntled feeling at the end of the series.

Nevertheless, Min-young returned in another workplace drama a year later, Her Private Life, what seemed to be a determined undoing of Kim Mi-so. After playing a perky secretary, she decided to play the role of a perky art curator, who has to pretend to date her boss, owing to a hilarious misconception. It sounds vaguely similar, but there was a fresh twist that made the series far more enjoyable than Secretary Kim–her character Sung Deok-mi was an avid K-pop fangirl, who ran her own fan site, secretly. The fan site is where she interacts with Kim Jae-wook’s Ryan Gold, unaware that he is actually her boss.

Park Min-young and Kim Jae-wook in Her Private Life (Netflix)

He knows of course, and prods her for romantic advice. This love story felt more heart-warming and healthy than Secretary Kim, as she actually went abroad for a better career and continued her long-distance relationship, and there was no excess dramatics or prolonged conflict around it. Of course, as most K-dramas fall into the trap of expounding on a tragic backstory for a male, more than the woman, Her Private Life couldn’t quite avoid that enticing storyline, but nevertheless, it was a relief to see Park Min-young get her due.

It’s 2022 and Min-young is back with her third office drama, Forecasting Love And Weather, with the ever-reliable Song Kang. This time she isn’t the chirpy office-goer that we’ve become accustomed to seeing—she’s the boss, and has to deal with the attraction to her junior, while still coming to terms with trauma about a recent heartbreak that keeps creeping up on her. It’s almost like a vindictive satisfaction to see Min-young give the orders to her employees, after watching her running around for others in the previous shows. Min-young effortlessly brings out the difficulties of a woman, trying to lead a stress-ridden organization, battling new unwelcome feelings for a man younger than her, as well as coming to terms with personal trauma.

In this show—up until now what has been shown at least—her past issues and trauma is given equal weightage, as much as Song Kang’s. There is a definite nuance in her character—you don’t want to root for her at times, because you see the subtle flaws that she desperately tries to hide. Hopefully, the show won’t make us eat our words.

Park Min-young is one of the most natural South Korean actors, who doesn’t rely on hysterics to portray emotion. She lets crisp words and actions speak for themselves.