The villain in Crash Course in Romance (μΌν μ€μΊλ€) isn’t a person so much as a system: Korea’s private-tutoring machine, where a single star math instructor can out-earn a corporation and a teenager’s life can hinge on one entrance exam. Into that pressure cooker the show drops a former national handball player who sells side dishes for a living, and watches what happens when her stubborn warmth collides with the country’s most expensive, most miserable teacher. That’s the real trick here β a frothy romance built on top of a sharp little portrait of an education industry that grinds families down.
The premise
Nam Haeng-seon runs a busy banchan shop and pours most of her energy into her exam-bound niece, who needs the kind of elite math coaching the family can barely afford. The man who provides it is Choi Chi-yeol, the top-billing instructor at a Daechi-dong-style hagwon β a celebrity tutor with a packed lecture hall, a punishing schedule, and a stomach that’s quietly given up on food and on him.
Their orbits cross when the niece enrolls in his class, and Haeng-seon’s blunt, no-games decency starts to thaw a man who’d forgotten he had a personality outside the lectern. It’s a slow-burn rom-com on the surface, but a melodrama and a creeping thriller subplot run underneath, so the tone shifts more than the breezy setup suggests.
Where to watch
Crash Course in Romance originally aired on the South Korean cable network tvN over 16 episodes (January 14 to March 5, 2023), running weekends at roughly 70 minutes an episode. Internationally it streams on Netflix, where it’s carried in many regions. As always with Netflix licensing, availability depends on your country and the current rights window, so it’s worth checking your local catalog before you commit a weekend to it.
The cast
The casting is the headline. Jeon Do-yeon β a Cannes Best Actress winner with a serious film rΓ©sumΓ© β plays Nam Haeng-seon, and she grounds the comedy with a lived-in, unfussy realism that keeps the banchan-shop owner from tipping into cute. Opposite her, Jung Kyung-ho plays Choi Chi-yeol as a man wound far too tight, allergic to mess and noise, slowly coming apart and back together. The two have an easy, prickly chemistry that does a lot of the show’s heavy lifting, and the friction between her chaos and his control is most of the fun.
The series was directed by Yoo Je-won and written by Yang Hee-seung, produced by Studio Dragon.
Filming locations
A heads-up on sourcing first: there’s no official production location list for this drama, so the spots below come from reputable Korea-travel outlets rather than the studio, and a few precise addresses trace back to a single secondary report. Treat them as well-reported rather than gospel.
Much of the shoot centered on Cheongju in North Chungcheong Province, where the “Nation’s Best Banchan Store” set was built in the Uncheon-dong neighborhood. The hagwon β Chi-yeol’s glossy cram-school world β was filmed around a building in Yeouido, Seoul. The most easily visited location is Seokchon Lake in Songpa-gu, Seoul, the lakeside-and-cafe backdrop for some of the quieter scenes; it’s a pleasant, walkable loop in any season and the kind of place you can actually drop by, unlike a working set. A bowling alley in Jungnang-gu, Seoul also turns up.
Worth your time?
If you want a rom-com with adult leads who feel like real, slightly tired grown-ups rather than fantasy archetypes, this is an easy recommendation β Jeon Do-yeon alone justifies the watch. Go in knowing the thriller thread sharpens the back half and the tone gets heavier than the poster implies. It lands best for viewers who like their romance with a side of social satire, and anyone curious about the very real, very intense world of Korean exam prep will find the backdrop as gripping as the love story. Save it for a stretch of evenings; this is a binge that earns the time.
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