'Start-Up' Probably Has the GOAT of Second Leads (A Very Late Review)

I was greatly looking forward to watching Start-Up ever since I learned that it was being made – which was way back in 2019, when it was still under the working title of Sandbox (in my opinion, Sandbox is a more interesting title.  They should have stuck with it).  But it wasn’t the casting and pairing of Suzy Bae (While You Were Sleeping, Vagabond) and Nam Joo-hyuk (Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo) that hyped it up for me.  It was because Park Hye-ryun – my favorite K-drama writer, by virtue of writing some of the best I’ve watched (I Hear Your Voice, Pinocchio, While You Were Sleeping) – wrote the script.

Ironically for a K-drama that I was supposed to be hyped about, I wasn’t able to watch it when it finally ran during the last quarter of 2020.  I told myself I would binge it during Christmas vacation, but the year ended, and I didn’t get around to doing so.  I finally started with it at the end of January 2021, and finished it around the first week of February.  But, once again, ironically for a K-drama that I was supposed to be hyped about, it took me until this month, May – about four months since I finished watching it! – to write my review.

Now, this must be an indication that I got bummed by it, right?  Well, maybe a bit, but not really.  I just got lazy.  For some reason, I couldn’t muster the motivation to review it immediately, and I found myself continuously deferring the task in favor of writing reviews for the more recent things I watched.

Yeah, weird.  Lol.  Anyway, let’s jump into it...

Start-Up features this fictional South Korean “Silicon Valley” company called Sandbox (again, Sandbox would have been a cooler title), which invests on the promising startups that stood out during the annual “Hackathon” competition that it conducts.  The plot follows the startup company Samsan Tech – which is led by CEO Seo Dal-mi (Suzy Bae), a novice in the corporate world, but who is a quick study, and gets by with her instincts, street smarts, and vitality; and founder Nam Do-san (Nam Joo-hyuk), a socially awkward but talented programmer, and a former math prodigy – as they grind their way toward reaching their dreams.

And since this is a Park Hye-ryun scripted K-drama, there is a compelling love triangle in it.  Serving as second lead to Seo Dal-mi and Nam Do-san’s love story is “Good Boy” Han Ji-pyeong (Kim Seon-ho), a brilliant, no-nonsense, sharp-tongued venture capitalist who often serves as Samsan Tech’s mentor.  

Unbeknownst to Dal-mi, when they were young, her grandmother took in an orphaned Ji-pyeong.  Around this time was Dal-mi’s lowest point in life as her family had just broken up.  To cheer her up, her grandmother asks Ji-pyeong to write letters to her as a supposed secret admirer.  Having just seen a news report about a young Do-san winning the Mathematics Olympiad, they decide to adopt his identity to serve as Dal-mi’s secret admirer and pen pal

This correspondence has a lasting impact on Dal-mi.  Up until her adulthood, she has remained held up with her first love, “Nam Do-san”, believing all this time that the letters actually came from him.  Thus, when Dal-mi and the actual Do-san finally meet for the first time, Ji-pyeong, as a favor to Dal-mi’s grandmother, proceeds to let the confused Do-san in on the truth, and starts working with him to continue the ruse for the sake of Dal-mi.  However, both men eventually fall in love with Do-san for real.

Many other love stories have used the “Cyrano de Bergerac ghost writing” trope before, but Start-Up’s spin on it feels pretty fresh.  And, as you may expect with such situation, it gives rise to notable comedic complications, romantic highs and depth, and eventual heartbreak in the narrative.

Honestly, I didn’t care much for the romance in Start-Up, but I did find the character development and growth that the romantic arc spurs on its three participants utterly satisfying.

One of the signatures of a K-drama written by Park Hye-ryun is that it has an endearing and admirable male second lead that truly adds to one’s enjoyment and appreciation of the show.  In I Hear Your Voice, it’s Attorney Cha Gwan-woo.  In While You Were Sleeping, it’s Police Officer Han Woo-tak.  But this time, Park Hye-ryun seemingly overdid it in Start-Up as people actually started rooting more for the second lead over the main lead to get the girl.  A well-written and well-acted character, Good Boy won over many with his good looks, engaging backstory, tsundere charms, straightforward personality, and endearing emotional depth.  Personally, I still like Attorney Cha more.  But for most fans, Good Boy is the GOAT.   Seriously, the “second lead syndrome” for him during this show’s run was simply something else.

Moreover, I actually still prefer Do-san over Ji-pyeong.  Indeed, he’s flawed, and some may be turned off by his awkward demeanors.  But it’s only a testament to the fantastic job Nam Joo-hyuk did in portraying the character, who is intended to be the stereotypical socially inept, low-self-confidence dork – which is the whole point.  He needs to come off as “inferior” (especially when compared to Good Boy), at least, initially.  For he’s meant to have an arc where both his love for Dal-mi and his competition with Ji-pyeong motivate him to better himself.  If you manage to pay attention to his character journey, it’s actually pretty rewarding to follow.  That moment where Ji-pyeong said, “With your hands alone you were able to beat our memories”, you can totally feel Do-san’s insecurities appeased and self-worth boosted, and you get to rejoice with him afterward, especially when he proceeds to seal the deal with Dal-mi for good.

But the best emotional connection I had with the show was with Samsan Tech as a group.   They really had an investing rags-to-riches story.  They began at the bottom, were the underdogs for the most part of the story, and experienced several demoralizing setbacks, that when they started getting dubs, it was so gratifying to witness.

Lastly, probably as entertaining as the rest of the show itself is the romantic subplot between Lee Chul-san (Yoo Su-bin) and Jung Sa-ha (Stephanie Lee).  A romance between a nerdy loser and a hot, mean girl is nothing original.  But theirs is so utterly adorable and hilarious that it deserves to have its own K-drama series.

Nevertheless, in the end, I’m a bit disappointed with Start-Up.  But only in the sense that I went in wanting to love it, but I ended up just liking it.  It definitely could have been better.  I believe that because two of my all-time favorite K-drama are written by Park Hye-ryun.  So, I anticipated Start-Up to delight just as much as those two.  Still, I probably held unfair expectations for it.  For by itself, Start-Up is actually worth the watch.  It may not be as clever and interesting as other Park dramas, but the merits of Park’s strong writing, especially with the characters and life lessons, are still apparent in it.  And while it has noticeable flaws, it does enough good stuff to be a pleasing K-drama experience overall.

(By the way, the next K-drama that I will be reviewing is Vincenzo.  I haven’t caught up with it yet, even though I started watching it from the day of its release and have enjoyed it.  As of writing, I’m still six episodes behind.)