I was initially going to give the upcoming tvN drama My Secret Hotel a pass since there wasn’t any one element that hooked me good. I really like male leads Jin Yi Han who is getting a well-deserved career uptick after Empress Ki and A New Leaf and Namg Goong Min who is happily ensconced in cable dramas lately with I Need Romance 3 and Unemployed Romance, but leading lady Yoo In Na is soooooo hit and miss for me. She was adorable and perfectly cast in Queen In Hyun’s Man due to the character and the great chemistry she has with Ji Hyun Woo. But a consistently good actress she’s not, and when she’s not playing an endearing character then she’s wholly insufferable. Cast in point the bitchy star types in Best Love and You From Another Star or the self absorbed sister in The Best Lee Soon Shin. With that said, the first poster and teasers are out for MSH and consider me finally intrigued enough to watch episode 1 when it premieres August 18th after High School King of Savvy wraps up.

The tagline is the kicker “My Secret Hotel, A Killing Romance”, and the production means it literally. Yoo In Na plays the capable hotel wedding manager who finds herself planning her ex-husband played by Jin Yi Han’s wedding at her hotel. Nam Goong Min is Yoo In Na’s boss as the hotel manager while Lee Young Eun rounds out the strange love square as the hotel PR director with a crush on Nam Goong Min’s character. The plot is centered around a murder that happens at the hotel that interrupts the wedding and leads the ex-couple to spend time together trying to solve the case and thereby rekindle their romance. It sounds weird and the teaser was equally weird, but in a stylish way that makes me curious to see if the production can pull off this fresh concept of using murder to pave the way for a rom-com. Yoo In Na returns to playing a warm hardworking type who is hurt by a whirlwind crash-and-burn quickie marriage to her ex-husband but hasn’t soured on finding love again. Continue reading →