Sold Out on You, K-Drama Review: Ahn Hyo-seop's mushroom romance never quite blooms, Kim Bum left sidelined

A romance between a mushroom farmer and a perky shopping TV host, played by Ahn Hyo-seop and Chae Won-bin no less?

Say no more.

Well, seven episodes in, maybe a little more should have been said. Maybe.

Sold Out on You, like many recent K-dramas, begins on a breezy note, turning to light, enjoyable, silly humour and an easy charm that feels like a welcome mood lift. Ahn Hyo-seop’s Mechoori is a stoic mushroom farmer and researcher with a sharp mind and a sharper tongue, helping his small-town community while grumbling his way through it.

He’s curt, even brusque at times, especially when dealing with Chae Won-bin’s Dam Ye-jin, an over-zealous shopping channel host whose desperation to land a beauty contract pulls her into the countryside obscurity.

Of course, they go up against each other in the typical K-drama-ish, enemies-to-lovers banter. Later, Mechoori discovers Dam Ye-jin suffers from sleepwalking (Hello First Frost memories), as she is haunted by personal and professional grievances.

And so the two form a close bond, with Mechoori waiting to give her medicines everyday, in a bid to just see her. A crisis (one of many) almost occurs, where he realises in time that she, unknowing was about to sell a rather contaminated cream, and in typical K-Drama style, he rushes to stop her from going on air, holding her hand dramatically, and her walking off with a glazed expression. The situation unfolds theatrically, and she falls deep into a dark pit of gloom, and resurfaces with Mechoori’s help. 

By Episode 6, the romance is still doing enough heavy lifting to overlook some narrative detours, including the somewhat forced inclusion of Kim Bum’s Eric in a love triangle that never quite finds its footing, despite Kim Bum’s undeniable screen presence. Don’t get me wrong, Kim Bum is always a delight to watch, but he is at a point in his career that he can’t be just relegated to a second lead that lacks a cogent storyline. Though, the reference to his Boys over Flowers entrance was a bit pleasing.

Yet, after episode 6, the story wobbles into overtly familiar territory. First, noble idiocy. 

And to put it bluntly, it’s wearisome to watch people being sacrificial and pushing others away with cruel words with the theatrical sub-text: ‘Oh you deserve better, move on forget me as I’m about to crush your dreams under my foot’. Mechoori’s own traumatised past catches up with him, and surprise, surprise, it is linked to Ye-jin’s worst experience, from years ago: A questionable product was sold, changing the lives of several people around them, even leading to a death that left Mechoori broken and battered for years.

While this aspect of trauma was painful to watch, courtesy Ahn Hyo-seop’s acting skills, the storyline of him purposely hurting Ye-jin, harms the show, even if the reconciliation was satisfactory.

Moreover, it becomes exhausting to watch, once again, two men making decisions for the woman at the centre. Heads you win, tails you lose. Everyone seems certain of where her happiness lies, except her.

Ye-jin’s story gradually recedes into the background as Mechoori’s arc takes centre stage. Instead of two people healing each other, as the show initially seems to promise, one character slips through the cracks. The romantic moments still persist, but they lose the verve they had in the opening episodes. A new antagonist is also introduced, adding further clutter to an already crowded 12-episode run.

Sold Out on You isn’t a bad watch. But it isn’t a great one either.