Despite the goofy ass name, The Director Who Buys Me Dinner happened to be a really cute and interesting KBL series.
I honestly can’t recall what made me pull the trigger on this series. I’m assuming I saw a frame of the very handsome leads on social media somewhere and looked it up immediately. And like most KBLs, at fifteen minutes a piece, I breezed through this in one afternoon. Seol DongBaek is running a little late for his new dream job, performance stage design, when he learns that he’s been moved to a different department. He crushed and then flustered to learn he’ll be doing secretarial work for the director of the company, Min Yudam. He’s intimidating, but the intimidation factor bumps up to eleven when the director asks Dongbaek to dinner on the first day. And every day after!
It doesn’t take long for Yudam to reveal that he’s actually several hundred years old. He’s been reincarnated to find his lost love, who he’d given a name way back when. Unfortunately, Dongbaek doesn’t remember anything of his past lives, so the pair are on a time crunch to fall in love. If they don’t? They’ll die. Writing it down like this make it seem kind of hilarious, but the flashback episode of how these two initially fell in love was so beautiful and really heartbreaking. They do have a chemistry, but Yudam of the 21st century comes off a bit cold. He’s fiercely protective of Dongbaek though, and over time, he softens immensely towards him. Dongbaek, too, finds himself longing for Yudam’s company.
With such a short amount of time for much of anything to happen, besides the threat of death, there is also the threat of an unhinged pop star on the company’s roster. Dennis Lee looks crazy and I have no clue how he ever would have gained a fandom. It’s clear he loathes Yudam, but I was never really able to suss out why. His hatred only grows stronger when he realizes that Yudam probably loves Dongbaek. I think Dennis fools himself into thinking he loves Dongbaek, but I really just think he’s obsessed over someone who has paid him some empathy for his health problems. Still, that “love” seems to morph into obsession, and I think we all know how that turns out in some cases.
Deadly. Full spoilers here! In a fit of rage, Dennis tries to kill Yudam, but ends up killing Dongbaek instead. Devastated, Yudam bargains with the gods. He’s willing to give up all memories with his lives with Dongbaek if Dongbaek gets the chance to live. They grant his wish, which is gut-wrenching when you realize that Dongbaek still has all of those memories. It’s clear in the final minutes of the show that they will fall in love again, but it’s a bummer we probably will never see that materialize on screen. You never know though! Anyway, I really enjoyed this series, and the leads were so attractive together. More KBLs please!