Wedding Impossible (2024) K Drama Episode 1-2

Wedding Impossible opens with a wedding, and our leads are in attendance — but no, they’re not the bride and groom. Our heroine, NA AH-JUNG (Jeon Jong-seo), is a no-name actress who’s here to play the role of the bride’s best friend. And our hero, LEE JI-HAN (Moon Sang-min), is the chaebol non-heir who’s here to charm the groom and his father into selling their family’s land for a shopping mall project. So our leads have no problem when it comes to playing pretend. Got it!

Minutes after they’ve gotten paid in bank transfer and land transfer respectively, Ah-jung and Ji-han bump into each other outside the venue, meet-cute style. You know, the type where papers fly out of the protagonists’ hands and rain down like confetti, and the male lead is swept off his feet… till he lands on his butt. Awww. It’s cute and all — until Ji-han accidentally steps on a page of Ah-jung’s drama script and she uses her lipstick to smear a page of his land documents in return. So our leads are set for an enemies-to-lovers journey. Got it!

Ah-jung and Ji-han part ways on a let’s-never-see-each-other-again vibe, but you know how it is in dramaland — everyone is one mutual acquaintance away from each other. In Ah-jung and Ji-han’s case, their mutual link is LEE DO-HAN (Kim Do-wan): Ji-han’s elder brother, and Ah-jung’s best friend. Do-han has spent the last five years in New York pursuing his passion for art, and his return to Korea sparks off the chain of story events that makes up this drama.

Do-han and Ji-han belong to the LJ Group which consists of grandpa HYUN DAE-OH (Kwon Hae-hyo), and his two sets of grandchildren: the “legitimate” Chois and the out-of-wedlock Lee brothers. After having her first two kids with her husband, Grandpa’s daughter cut ties with the family and had Do-han and Ji-han with another man. The Lee brothers eventually came to live with the Chois after the drama killed off their parents — and of course, Ji-han believes that he is responsible for their death. Ain’t nothing like a good ol’ car accident on a rainy night to aid a chaebol male lead’s character development.

Unlike his Choi half-siblings who had everything handed out to them, Ji-han clawed his way up the LJ ladder all on his own. Unfortunately, Grandpa doesn’t acknowledge Ji-han’s efforts — or the power tripping and stock manipulating Chois — because he has his mind set on handing over management rights to Do-han. Thankfully, there’s no sibling rivalry between the Lee brothers. If anything, Ji-han will go to any lengths to ensure that his brother takes over the company — whether Do-han likes it or not.

Do-han is very much on the not side, but who cares about his feelings? Certainly not Grandpa and definitely not Ji-han — who both want him to marry chaebol heiress, YOON CHAE-WON (Bae Yoon-kyung), in order to have a more favorable standing with the company’s shareholders. Do-han is absolutely not interested in an arranged marriage, and for the first time in a dramaland while, the female party in the arranged marriage plot is also not keen on the union. Actually, Chae-won prefers to marry the very oblivious Ji-han, but whatever.

With all the messy drama going on in the LJ family, it’s no wonder Do-han has kept his chaebol side away from Ah-jung throughout their fifteen years of best friendship. But Do-han is not the only liar in the relationship. In the five years he has been abroad, Ah-jung has exaggerated her acting career to Do-han because she’s embarrassed that her once-struggling bestie has made it as an artist abroad, while she’s still a struggling actress — but not for lack of talent, I assure you. Oh dear! I wonder how she’ll feel when she learns that Do-han is not just a successful artist, he’s actually a *whisper* chaebol heir.

As the LJ heir, everyone has their eyes on Do-han: from an anonymous paparazzi on his tail in New York, to the Korean paps sent by Ji-han and the Chois. When Ji-han’s informant sends him pictures of Ah-jung and Do-han at the airport, Ji-han assumes that Ah-jung is his brother’s secret lover, and he’d be right if he wasn’t so wrong. You see, Do-han does have a secret lover. But his lover is a man — which is why Do-han is super uncomfortable with the anonymous paparazzi who took a picture of him in the apartment that he shares with his boyfriend. Yes, his boyfriend wasn’t captured in the photo, but it’s quite unsettling to know that someone out there is this close to exposing his secret.

At the moment, Ah-jung is the only one who knows about Do-han’s sexuality, and they became besties after she helped him hide it in high school by pretending to be his girlfriend. So when Ji-han confronts Do-han about his secret lover, Do-han claims that Ah-jung is his girlfriend, and that’s why he cannot go through with the arranged marriage.

You’d think the presence of a girlfriend in his brother’s life would make Ji-han step back from pushing for the arranged marriage, but no. Ji-han refuses to allow some no-name actress — and even worse, the rude lady from the meet-not-cute — to ruin Do-han’s chances of taking over the company. Ji-han storms Ah-jung’s drama set to demand that she breaks up with his brother, but — having been filled in on the arranged marriage plans and her temporary role as Do-han’s girlfriend — Ah-jung refuses to break up much to Ji-han’s chagrin. At least bring some cash with you before playing the role of meddling mother-in-law. Pfft.

Now more than ever, Ah-jung is curious about what type of family her bestie comes from, so Do-han invites her over for dinner with the fam. Except it’s not your average sit around the table with heaped bowls of rice, dozens of side dishes, and an apology that the spread is “not much,” because the family wasn’t expecting a guest. It’s a whole ass hotel banquet to celebrate Grandpa’s birthday! But in the end, Ah-jung doesn’t get to meet the family. Good for her, to be honest. She does learn that Do-han is a chaebol heir, and he also finds out that she’s a struggling actress. Now that both their secrets are out, Do-han offers Ah-jung the lead role in his lifetime production: he’ll pay her to be his wife for three years!

If Do-han has to marry a woman at all, he’d rather marry his best friend. But it’s one thing to act as Do-han’s girlfriend, and Ah-jung draws the line at playing wife. The money isn’t enough motivation for her because what if Grandpa finds out that she’s a fraud and sues her for every cent — that she doesn’t even have? Admittedly, Do-han’s dilemma is really touching, but to Ah-jung, self-preservation trumps friendship. I mean, Do-han hasn’t even apologized for lying to her for fifteen years, and he expects her to bail him out of his arranged marriage just like that? This request is a little too selfish even between best friends.

Do-han eventually apologizes to Ah-jung, but he doesn’t rescind the marriage offer. On the other hand, Ji-han goes as far as offering Ah-jung money to not marry his brother. He claims he is doing all of this for his brother’s happiness, but I don’t know, man, your brother seems much happier away from the company y’all are forcing on him. Although the monetary compensation on both sides is very tempting, Ah-jung turns down the marriage offer again, and this puts a strain on her relationship with Do-han.

To ensure that Ah-jung doesn’t change her mind, Ji-han does the next best thing: he uses his connections to land her a supporting role in a movie so that she’ll be too busy to think about marriage. Ah-jung is excited with this development, and her parents are equally thrilled. Finally, their daughter will get her big break, and they’ll no longer be embarrassed about her career at extended family functions. Lol. Unfortunately, Ah-jung’s excitement dampens when she overhears from the production staff that it was nepotism — and not her talent — that got her the role. And even worse, that the actress who was originally cast got the boot as a result.

Ah-jung quits the production, and when Ji-han finds out, he asks her if she’s crazy for giving up on such a great opportunity. But no, he’s the crazy one, and she punches him in the face for meddling in her life without knowing his place. What annoys Ah-jung the most is that she’s having second thoughts about quitting because she really wants to do the job regardless of how she got the role — and those thoughts make her hate herself, not him. Now thanks to Ji-han’s efforts to prevent her from marrying his brother, Ah-jung decides that she will, in fact, marry my husband his brother. And with this declaration, we come to the end of our premiere week.

Ha! Ji-han totally had it coming, didn’t he? It’s so delightful how his little anti-marriage stunt ended up being Ah-jung’s tipping point. That’ll teach him a lesson not to mess with a girl’s career. Or to mess with anyone’s life in the broader sense. I can’t tell if it was a deliberate writing choice, but I found Ji-han unlikable whenever he went full throttle on his My Brother Must Take Over LJ campaign — which is basically what he spent 90% of his screen time doing. It’d be a different ball game if Do-han was actually interested in the company, but he isn’t, and that’s what makes it so frustrating.

For someone who claims to want his brother’s happiness, Ji-han isn’t listening to what Do-han actually wants. And all of this, I think, boils down to Ji-han projecting his frustration on Do-han because he (Ji-han) is not allowed to run the company himself. It’s like Ji-han wants to live vicariously through his brother, and he is inadvertently using Do-han as a vehicle for his self-satisfaction and the realization of his grand dreams and ambitions. That’s such a selfish thing to do.

Ultimately, everything is Grandpa’s fault because Ji-han is clearly the most capable grandchild, but for some reason, Grandpa insists on sitting Do-han on the LJ throne — regardless of Do-han’s nonexistent management skills. For a supposed businessman, Grandpa isn’t thinking straight. No wonder the entire family is so messy. They’re all running high on emotions rather than logic.

The pushy chaebol family aside, this was a good and enjoyable premiere week. I really like Ah-jung. She’s a fun, refreshing, and relatable character, and her dedication to her craft is admirable. Her family dynamics add color to her character — and the show — and their chaotic bond is a stark contrast to the LJ family. In the real sense of it, both families are just being true to their archetypes with the chaebols chaeboling, and the other half other halfing. But stereotypes are not always a bad thing, and this works for the show.

In the coming weeks, I need Ji-han to be humbled into acknowledging that he cannot want more for Do-han than Do-han wants for himself, and then he needs to apologize for his condescension towards Ah-jung. That’s the only way he can redeem himself and graduate to being a character I can root for. More than anything, I look forward to Do-han and Ah-jung’s contractual relationship, and the complications that ensue when Ji-han and Ah-jung begin to catch feelings. Oh the delightful denials when the inevitable happens! The convoluted chaos that will follow. I can’t wait!

As an aside, I think the writer may be a K-pop fan, and the little references to Infinite, 2PM, and Super Junior made me chuckle. Intentional or not, things like this elevate my watching experience, and will keep me coming back to the drama each week.