Wok of Love ~ For Fans of Lee Joon-Ho (Junho)

“Wok of Love” is a 2018 K-drama series, with 38 episodes. (Alternate titles for this series are “Oily Melodrama” and “Greasy Melo”.) It is categorized as a Romantic-Comedy (Rom-Com), and Slice of Life. There are also gangsters, rich guys who act just as bad as gangsters, and honest hardworking people who are just trying to make it through each day.

• The main character in “Wok of Love” is Chef Seo Poong and is played by Lee Joon-Ho. This South Korean actor has been acting since 2013, but “The Red Sleeve” (2021), a Viki Original, and “King the Land” (2023) have contributed to his rise in popularity.

♦ When It’s Time for Promotion, You Find Out Who Your Real Friends Are

In “Wok of Love”, Chef Seo Poong worked ten years at a hotel and it is mainly due to his efforts that the restaurant at the hotel earned high ratings for the hotel and for the restaurant. All was right in his world. He was going to marry the woman he loved and get promoted to head chef, receiving the recognition he had earned. That’s what he thought. But that’s not what happened.

• Personally, his fiance cheated on him with the hotel CEO. Even though she knew she was unfaithful, she still went through with the wedding. One month later, she confessed that she was leaving him. He was angry he struck the door of the hotel room with a cleaver knife. It was stuck in so hard, that nobody could pull it out.
• Professionally, since the hotel CEO had cheated with his wife, the CEO wanted to get rid of him. His fellow employees were bribed. They were promised promotions if they would lie and say Seo Poong was guilty of employee misconduct. But they were not just fellow employees. They were people Seo Poong thought were his friends.

Seo Poong quit and decided to open a restaurant right across the street from the hotel. He would prepare the same recipes he had prepared in the hotel restaurant but charge lower prices. REVENGE WAS HIS MENU!!

♦ The Groom Did Not Show Up for the Wedding

In “Wok of Love”, Dan Sae-Woo could be described as a girl who has everything, until she has nothing. Before her wedding, she had a few unintentional but close encounters with a gangster, a loan shark named Doo Chil-Seong. He wanted to start anew and tried to run a restaurant but failed. Why? The food was awful!

On the day of Dan Sae-Woo’s wedding, her world crumbled. Her father was arrested, her mother fainted from the shock, and the groom did not even show up for the wedding! The world suddenly became a very scary place and she felt like the only place she could go was to the nearest bridge and jump off!

But that was not in her fortune. On the day she went to the bridge to jump, she met Seo Poong on that same bridge. He had a few fortune cookies in his pocket and told her to read her fortune first before taking the plunge. It might change her mind.

When she read her fortune it did change her mind and she decided that she would try to overcome the difficulties life had thrown her way. Coincidentally, Seo Poong had also had an encounter with Doo Chil-Seong and decided that he would enter a contract with him to run the restaurant and share the profits.

Later on, Dan Sae-Woo went to that same restaurant and got a job there.

♦ Let’s Start Over!

The life experiences of Seo Poong, Dan Sae-Woo, and Doo Chil-Seong were completely separate.

• Seo Poong wanted to start over and successfully run a restaurant using and get revenge for being betrayed by his employer and fellow employees.
• Dan Sae-Woo wanted to end it all, at first, until she read her fortune, and then she had a change of heart.
• Doo Chil-Seong wanted to stop living the dangeruos life of a gangster and have a normal life like everybody else.

Each of them had decided on a new beginning and their timelines intersected with each other at just the right time.

Main Characters:

• Seo Poong (played by Lee Joon-Ho)
• Dan Sae-Woo (played by Jung Ryeo-Won)
• Doo Chil-Seong (played by Jang Hyuk)

Where to Watch

Viewership and Rating:

• IMDb: 7.5 out of 10 stars
• My Drama List: 8 out of 10 stars
• Dramabeans: 9.3 out of 10 stars
• Reddit review: 7 out of 10 stars
• Public reviews shared via Google: 4.7 out of 5 stars
• Viki viewers rated this series 9.4 out of 10 stars

My personal rating is the same as IMDb: 7.5 out of 10 stars.

I do not often agree with the IMDb ratings but this time I do.

• Asian food lovers will love this series. After watching, they will want to hunt down the recipes.
• Karaoke lovers will love the scene where the gangster/brothers are singing karaoke and dancing.
• “Wok of Love” briefly touched on a very sensitive topic of unwanted pregnancies, but it was enough to make a significant statement.

Finally, the scriptwriters addressed the 3 Rs ~ Revenge, Resilience, and Redemption:

• Revenge: Seo Poong’s reaction is what you would expect when a person has been betrayed.
• Resilience: Dan Sae-Woo’s initial reaction to end it all is what you would expect when everything good thing in your world has been taken away. But for some, the secondary reaction is resilience, i.e. overcoming and carrying on.
• Redemption: Doo Chil-Seong decides that gangsters don’t have to live a life of crime forever. Why can’t he start over on a new path? Gangsters are not beyond redemption.

“Wok of Love” had mixed reviews and it’s understandable. But for me, there were more pluses than minuses. It was very entertaining.

LINKS OF INTEREST:

• Wok of Love – A Delicious Rom-Com Served with Overdone Garnishing : r/KDRAMA | Reddit
• Is “Wok Of Love” Review: A Hidden Gem Or One Of The Most Disappointing Kdramas Of 2018? | JazmineMedia
• Dropped: Greasy Melo [Wok Of Love] | The Fangirl Verdict
• “Wok Of Love” Achieves Its Highest Ratings Once Again | Soompi

TRAILERS/TEASERS:

Storyflix Movie Recap. “”Wok of Love”: After Being Cheated on by His Girlfriend with a CEO, a Chef Swore to Seek the Perfect Revenge.” YouTube Video. YouTube, November 5, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KePlBQuLR_U.

https://youtu.be/KePlBQuLR_U?si=MwIjs-FA7gp3qsmJ