The following contains spoilers for Business Proposal, now streaming on Netflix.
Starting out as a webtoon, Business Proposal, written by Haehwa, has been picked up by Netflix and turned into a Korean drama. The web novel is so popular that it has been viewed over 450 million times, and now the live-action adaption is set to become one of the best K-dramas of 2022, joining the likes of Pachinko and Twenty-Five Twenty-One.
The drama follows a young food researcher named Shin Ha-ri who helps out her friend, Jin Young-seo, by going on a blind date in her stead to drive away a potential suitor. However, she realizes that the guy her best friend was set up with is, in fact, the attractive CEO of her company, Kang Tae-moo. At this point, Tae-moo decided to marry the first woman he went on a date with to avoid going on other blind dates set up by his grandfather, Kang Da-goo. She tries to chase him away by acting unhinged, but it only seems to pique his interest. From here, she hides her identity, but he soon finds out that she has deceived him and suggests a business proposal where she can make it up to him by pretending to be his fake girlfriend.
As is tradition with Korean dramas, the plot of a series can be utterly ridiculous, and Business Proposal is no exception. In finding out that Shin Ha-ri has been lying about being Young-seo, she still doesn't come clean about her actual identity. Fearing that he will fire her, she takes on the pseudonym Shin Geum-hui, the name of a popular K-drama, where the titular character also falls in love with a rich man and has parents who run a chicken restaurant. This allows her to enter into a business proposal with Tae-moo without him realizing who she is, for the time being.
One of the additional reasons for its popularity is that the show takes the fake dating trope to a whole other level. Ha-ri juggled two identities by constantly running and hiding so that she wouldn't be discovered. This resulted in a Cinderella situation, where she would pretend to be Shin Geum-hui around Tae-moo and his grandfather and change back to herself afterward. Having to manage these multiple identities creates hilarious obstacles and situations, particularly when interacting with Tae-moo's grandfather, who she repeatedly and accidentally runs into at work.
The two of them eventually fall in love, and Shin Ha-ri's true identity is finally revealed, resulting in an office romance where they have to handle the reveal of their relationship much earlier than expected. While they may have started out uncomfortably, with Tae-moo acting cold and uncaring (a necessary character trait for male leads), he soon realizes that she is the only one who has ever made him happy. Overall, the romance is done very well, with the drama now becoming part of the series of successful romances on Netflix, which includes Heartstopper and Bridgerton.
The two main leads have such great chemistry that they were able to bring this relationship to life with their longing stares and daydreams of each other. Allowing the story to shift from fake dating into office romance also added extra nuance to the series, which is what also makes it stand out from other Korean dramas. Business Proposal perfectly captures the essence of a romantic comedy and is currently taking the spot of best K-drama rom-com of the year, meaning that other dramas will have to work twice as hard if they want to beat it.
Business Proposal is available to stream on Netflix.