JTBC’s Understanding of Love gives longing looks and love squares

by Jenzy

JTBC just dropped the first teaser for their upcoming romance melodrama Understanding of Love, giving off a slice-of-life meets second-chance yearning. We follow lives of four hardworking employees who work at KCU Bank. As they work day in day out to make a name for themselves, they’ll navigate the messy and complex maze of love in their own ways.

Yoo Yeon-seok (Narco-Saints) leads the pack of employees as chief branch manager Ha Sang-soo. He’s the rock of the branch, a dependable hard-working figure that’s been there for three years. Of course, his workplace life is also rife with unresolved romantic tension via his coworker senior bank teller Ahn Soo-young, played by Moon Ga-young (Link: Eat, Love, Kill).

Soo-young, having worked at the bank for four years, has seen it all, from the crazy customers to the unreasonable upper management. She’s been able to keep a pleasant demeanor and work through most problems, but she’s a complete cynic when it comes to love, especially with our branch manager Sang-soo.

Finally, our love square is only complete when we throw deputy manager Park Mi-kyung — played by Geum Sae-rok (Youth of May) — and security guard Jung Jong-hyun — played by Jung Ga-ram (Love Alarm 2) — into the mix. The bubbly Mi-kyung, while coming from a wealthy family, is out here trying to make a name for herself. Meanwhile, Jong-hyun is a cop wannabe studying for the police entrance exam. Both will fall in love with our leads, adding to the complicated web that is a workplace romance. But in dramaland, would we really want it any other way?

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The teaser gives us very wistful “the one that got away” longing. We see a shot of happier times between Sang-soo and Soo-young, contrasted with their professionalism present day. In the voiceover, we also hear Soo-young tell Sang-soo, “You asked me once before if things would’ve been different had we started dating…” which is interrupted by shots of our central duo being asked out by their other coworkers: Sang-soo being asked out by Mi-kyung and Soo-young getting a rain-soaked confession from Jong-hyun. We then hear Soo-young finish her voiceover thought: “No, we would never have worked together.”

We get a couple of more wistful looks between all our characters and end on Sang-soo’s response in voiceover, “Is that really all you came to say?”

Based on the novel by Lee Hyuk-jin, adapted into screenplay by Lee Hyun-jung and Lee Seo-hyun, and directed by Jo Young-min (Do You Like Brahms?), Understanding of Love will air on December 21 on JTBC.