On February 11, Netflix released ‘Love and Leashes,’ the first Korean original Netflix film of the year and the first Korean adult romance film. While Netflix is well-known for its adult romance programming, the business does not prioritise this genre in Korea. Even its famous dating game programme ‘Too Hot to Handle’ was rated PG 13 in Korea with ‘Single’s Inferno.’
Love and Leashes is a 2022 South Korean romantic comedy film based on Gyeoul’s webcomic Moral Sense. Park Hyun-film, jin’s directed by Park Hyun-jin and starring Lee Jun-young, Seohyun, and Seo Hyun-woo shows a relationship between Ji-hoo, who has everything perfect has an unusual sexual preference, and Ji-woo, a talented public relations team member who discovers his secret. On February 11, 2022, it was released on Netflix to coincide with Valentine’s Day.
‘Love and Leashes’ is about a romance between two persons with opposing personalities. When one of them’s sexual fantasies is disclosed, the two make a deal to fulfil their sexual desires without getting physical. ‘Love and Leashes’ is just another effort by a streaming behemoth to entice people with Korean entertainment. Unfortunately, this time the work is only partially rewarded. Love and Leashes deserve credit for bringing a taboo issue to light and discussing sexual freedom and acceptance.
But, for the most part, the treatment is dull and drab, and by the time it displays sparks, it’s too late, and your attention has faded. Nonetheless, it deserves to be recognised for confronting a topic that people are not particularly loud in a bubbly and lighthearted manner.
The cast of Love and Leashes
- Seohyun as Jung Jiwoo and Lee Jun-young as Jung Jihoo are the major performers in Love and Leashes.
- Seohyun, born Seo Ju-Hyun, is a well-known South Korean singer and actress from Seoul. The 30-year-old is best known as a global K-pop juggernaut Girls’ Generation member. She made her acting debut in 2008 in a cameo role in the KBS drama Unstoppable Marriage.
- Seohyun would make her major television debut in the 2017 serial Bad Thief, Good Thief, after more cameos and supporting parts. She would go on to star in films such as Time (2018), Hello Dracula (2020), and Private Lives (2020).
- Seohyun will make her Netflix debut in Love and Leashes, followed by Jinx’s Lover, an upcoming KBS drama planned to premiere in June 2022.
- Lee Jun-young, another singer-turned-actor, will appear with Seohyun (better known as simply Jun). Jun was a member of the boyband U-KISS until joining UNB in 2017 after winning the survival reality show The Unit.
- Jun is one of South Korea’s fastest-rising television stars, having appeared in Avengers Social Club (2017), Good Casting (2020), Please Don’t Date Him (2020), and Imitation (2020). (2021).
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This romantic comedy centres on two workplace coworkers who have the same name – Jung Ji Hoo and Jung Ji Woo. Jung Ji Hoo accepts a position as PR manager at an online educational organisation, where his coworker Jung Ji Woo reports to him. When Woo inadvertently opens a box intended for the other Hoo, secrets spill out. The items in the box indicate the PR manager’s sexual obsessions and his desire to BDSM (sexual aspects that include dominance, submission and masochism).
Attraction, rather than love, bites both of them, and they make a vow to begin a romance in which the woman will be his master. They will explore their sexual proclivities without being physical. The plot twist occurs when the PR manager declines a date invitation.
‘Love and Leashes’ deals on a common topic in Western nations but is a new notion in the Philippines. With the globe narrowing in, rumours about BDSM have begun. Still, no one openly discusses a forbidden issue like BDSM here. Audiences must connect with the film’s message, and Love and Leashes may not have many takers based merely on this. But, apart from that, it’s a film that merely touches the surface of a problem that the world is aware of but seldom discusses.
This rom-com is based on a popular Korean webtoon and stars Seo Hyun and Lee Jun-Young. Seo Hyun is a member of the Girl’s Generation girl group, while Lee Jun Young is a member of the U-Kiss group. Both actors have given genuine performances, and just the directing has let them down. Hoo’s weakness and submissiveness have been beautifully depicted, and the writer deserves credit for not making him a sly figure. He has been represented as being completely in control of his sexuality.
Seo Hyun, who plays Woo, packs a punch and does an excellent job portraying someone who is naive in issues of BDSM but perseveres.
The film also dispels numerous fallacies about BDSM’s dominance and submissive elements. In the end, it’s a film about sexual preferences and sexual liberation. Though this film is not as engaging as contemporary Korean K dramas, it earns a dekko for the overwhelming intensity of its theme.
