📺 K-Drama Guide · Romance · Slice of Life
Lovestruck in the City
도시남녀의 사랑법 · 2020–2021
✅ Completed · 17 eps
🎬 Netflix · KakaoTV
⭐ 7.9 / 10 MDL
📅 TV-14
⚡ Updated · Apr 16, 2026
📋 Drama Overview
Everything you need to know before you hit play.
Completed
Lovestruck in the City
도시남녀의 사랑법 · 2020–2021 · South Korea
Netflix
KakaoTV
RomanceSlice of LifeComedyInterview Format
Park Jae Won is an architect who falls hard and fast for a mysterious woman he meets at the coastal town of Yangyang — only to wake up one morning and find her gone, taking nothing but his camera and a piece of his heart. She gave him a fake name and left no trace. Months pass. Then Seoul delivers its cruelest irony: the woman he can’t forget turns out to be Lee Eun Oh, a freelance marketer who has been moving in the same social orbit all along.
Told partly through confessional-style interviews — characters speaking directly to camera about love, betrayal, and the versions of ourselves we perform for strangers — Lovestruck in the City is a different kind of K-drama romance. Raw, funny, and often surprisingly honest, it follows three couples navigating the gap between who they are and who they want to be.
Episode Progress
17 / 17 ✅ Completed
⚡ Quick Verdict
One box. Everything you need to decide.
⭐ Worth it?YES — if you like slow-burn honesty
⏱️ CommitmentLow — ~9 hours total
💛 VibeWarm · Candid · Urban Romantic
📺 Skip if…You need plot momentum to stay engaged
⭐ 7.9 / 10
· MDL Score · 33,915 ratings
🎭 Cast & Characters
The full lineup — leads, supporting cast, and everyone in between.
Ji Chang-wook
Park Jae Won
Lead
Kim Ji-won
Lee Eun Oh / Yoon Sun Ah
Lead
Kim Min-seok
Choi Kyung Joon
Lead
So Joo-yeon
Seo Rin Yi
Lead
Ryu Kyung-soo
Kang Gun
Lead
Han Ji-eun
Oh Sun Young
Lead
Minho
Oh Dong Sik
Supporting
Lee Suk-hyeong
Kang Byeong Joon
Supporting
Lee Sang-woo
Bin
Supporting
Park Jin-joo
Ra Ra
Supporting
Lee Sang-yun
Go Gyeong Gu
Supporting
Han Sa-myeong
Police Officer
Supporting
🍿 Where to Watch
Stream Lovestruck in the City on these platforms.
📺 Episode Guide
All 17 episodes — spoiler-light recaps, one by one.
EP 01
First Sight, Wrong Name
December 22, 2020 · KakaoTV
In September 2019, architect Park Jae Won travels to Yangyang for surfing and ends up staying in a camper by the beach. There he meets Lee Eun Oh — working part-time at a ramyeon shop under the alias Yoon Seon Ah — who picks him up from the airport. The chemistry is immediate and undeniable.
EP 02
The Morning After
December 23, 2020 · KakaoTV
Seon Ah teaches Jae Won how to drive the camper while he returns the favour with surfing lessons. They grow genuinely close and share intimate moments — Jae Won even confesses his feelings. The next morning, he sees her with someone else and feels the ground shift beneath him.
EP 03
She Drove Me Crazy
December 28, 2020 · KakaoTV
Seon Ah keeps Jae Won at arm’s length as they move through beach activities, ignoring his attempts to connect. Meanwhile, Kang Geon and Oh Sun Young piece together the story of their fling from five years ago. The present-day interview segments reveal that both Jae Won and Eun Oh are still missing each other deeply.
EP 04
The Ring, The Rain, The Promise
December 29, 2020 · KakaoTV
Seon Ah and Jae Won fall into a whirlwind romance — dancing in the rain, staging a playful mock wedding, exchanging rings. Then work calls him back to Seoul. He leaves her his number and arranges a meeting. She never contacts him. He keeps wearing the ring.
EP 05
Three Cameras, No Answers
January 4, 2021 · KakaoTV
Jae Won remembers leaving three cameras with Seon Ah — none of which he ever recovered. Geon and Sun Young go through a messy breakup, with Sun Young demanding everything back. In the present, Eun Oh finally develops the old film rolls — and the photographer recognises the man in the photos.
EP 06
The Cousin Problem
January 5, 2021 · KakaoTV
The full history of Kyung Joon and Rin Yi’s relationship unfolds — from childhood to romance. We learn that Eun Oh, Geon, Kyung Joon, and Rin Yi form a tight-knit friend group. Eun Oh confesses that one reason she never contacted Jae Won after Yangyang was discovering he was Kyung Joon’s cousin — and she narrowly avoids running into him again.
EP 07
Camera Thief
January 11, 2021 · KakaoTV
After unexpectedly crossing paths with Seon Ah in the city, Jae Won drinks heavily and tries to report the mysterious woman to the police as a camera thief. We learn that Geon, Eun Oh, and Rin Yi have been friends since kindergarten. Both Jae Won and Eun Oh attempt to throw away their shared surfboards — only Eun Oh actually goes through with it.
EP 08
Is She Even Real?
January 12, 2021 · KakaoTV
Jae Won’s obsession with Seon Ah has escalated to the point where he visits a therapist, wondering if he hallucinated her entirely. Eun Oh sets the record straight — their recent encounter was very real. Just as Jae Won resolves to move on, Seon Ah appears again — and is promptly arrested for camera theft.
EP 09
Her Real Name
January 18, 2021 · KakaoTV
During police questioning, Jae Won finally learns that Yoon Seon Ah is in fact Lee Eun Oh — the woman inside his own social circle. Feeling doubly betrayed, he throws away his ring. Eun Oh desperately tries to explain herself. Meanwhile, Geon and Sun Young attempt to reconnect but his friendships continue to create friction between them.
EP 10
Retrieval Mode
January 19, 2021 · KakaoTV
Eun Oh attempts to retrieve the surfboard she had discarded in a moment of resolution. Word spreads through the friend group that Jae Won caught the camera thief — everyone speculates about who it might be. Geon notices Eun Oh acting strangely, and Jae Won starts piecing together her connection to Kyung Joon.
EP 11
Everything Was a Lie
January 25, 2021 · KakaoTV
The friend group debates what a healthy breakup even looks like. Jae Won grows increasingly suspicious of Eun Oh after overhearing a phone call. At a rooftop group dinner, he keeps his composure — then confronts her directly: everything he thought he knew about her was a lie, and that’s why he threw the ring away.
EP 12
How I Became Yoon Seon Ah
January 26, 2021 · KakaoTV
Tension simmers at a rooftop camping trip as Jae Won and Eun Oh argue around the past without naming it directly. Then, Eun Oh’s full backstory is revealed — the emotional circumstances that led her to create the alter ego of Yoon Seon Ah at Yangyang. The episode ends with Eun Oh waking up, inexplicably, in Jae Won’s apartment.
EP 13
The Awkward Walk Home
February 1, 2021 · KakaoTV
Eun Oh wakes up in Jae Won’s apartment and spends an awkward morning trying to navigate the tension between them. Despite everything, Jae Won walks her home through the rain. Later, Geon and Rin Yi spot them together and quietly begin to suspect something more is happening.
EP 14
The Kiss That Complicated Everything
February 2, 2021 · KakaoTV
Tensions between Jae Won and Eun Oh escalate through both personal and professional run-ins. Rin Yi loses one of her many part-time jobs but stays resolutely upbeat, refusing Kyung Joon’s offer to fund her education. In a charged confrontation, Jae Won and Eun Oh argue passionately — and end up kissing, forcing both of them to confront feelings that haven’t gone anywhere.
EP 15
The Confession She Owed Him
February 8, 2021 · KakaoTV
Jae Won is cautiously hopeful after the kiss, but Eun Oh admits regret while acknowledging her feelings are still there. They exchange belongings as a kind of closure — and Eun Oh finally says it out loud: she was Yoon Seon Ah. Meanwhile, Geon and Sun Young sit with their shared history and choose to part ways for good this time.
EP 16
Let’s Start Over, For Real
February 9, 2021 · KakaoTV
Geon quietly processes his breakup with Sun Young, sitting with what their relationship truly meant. Jae Won and Eun Oh cross paths again through work — and after everything, Jae Won proposes they try dating properly this time, as their real selves. The episode closes with a kiss that finally means something honest.
EP 17
Winter, Midnight, Seoul
February 16, 2021 · KakaoTV
In the finale, Eun Oh helps actress Hae Na escape a chaotic filming set, and a birthday celebration for Oh Dong Sik turns into a spirited, funny chase. Snow falls across Seoul as Jae Won and Eun Oh share a quiet, tender evening together — and on a rooftop, Eun Oh admits she is still figuring out who she truly is. Jae Won listens, reassures her, and they choose to face the unknown as a real couple. On the other side, Rin Yi makes the brave decision to break up with Kyung Joon and live life on her own terms first. Every character gets a final moment, breaking the fourth wall to speak directly to camera — a fitting goodbye for a drama built on confessions.
🏁 Ending Explained
Full spoilers ahead — everything that happens in the finale and what it all means.
⚠️
Spoiler Warning — This section covers the full finale of Lovestruck in the City. Stop here if you haven’t finished the series.
The snow and the rooftop. Episode 17 does not build to a dramatic confrontation or a twist — it earns its ending through accumulation. Seoul is covered in snow, Jae Won and Eun Oh are finally spending time together without pretence or negotiation, and when they eventually find themselves on a rooftop, Eun Oh says something unexpectedly honest: she is still figuring out who she actually is. Not an excuse. Just the truth. Jae Won listens — he does not flinch, he does not push back — and the two of them quietly agree to face that uncertainty together as a real couple for the first time.
Rin Yi chooses herself. The drama’s most quietly powerful moment belongs not to the main couple but to Rin Yi. After years in a relationship with Kyung Joon — childhood friends, long-term partners, deeply intertwined lives — she is the one who ends it. Not in anger, not because of a specific betrayal, but because she recognises that she has never yet lived life entirely on her own terms. It is the kind of breakup the drama has been building toward since the first episode: a decision made from self-awareness rather than injury.
The fourth wall, broken. The finale closes with every character turning directly to camera and offering personal, heartfelt parting words — a natural extension of the interview-format storytelling the show has used throughout. It is a device that could easily feel gimmicky, but here it lands with surprising warmth. Each character gets to sign off on their own terms, speaking not as fictional people but as versions of themselves who have learned something. In the end, Lovestruck in the City is less about finding the right person and more about becoming honest enough to deserve them.
What the beach was really about. The Yangyang flashbacks — which the show returns to again and again throughout its run — reveal their full meaning here. Eun Oh did not go to that beach as herself. She was running from something: a version of her life that felt like it belonged to someone else. The person who fell for Jae Won at Yangyang was also not entirely real. And yet the feelings were. The finale argues that what began under false names and false pretences can still be the foundation for something genuine — as long as both people are willing to stop performing and start showing up as themselves.
✍️ KDramaWorlds Editor’s Take
Our honest read on why this drama is worth your time — and who it’s for.
🌊 Beach Nostalgia💬 Confessional Tone🏙️ Urban Romance💗 Slow-Burn Chemistry
Lovestruck in the City arrives with a premise that sounds like setup for a tidy rom-com — man meets woman, woman disappears, man spends the rest of the drama trying to find her. But the show has no interest in playing things that way. What Park Shin-woo built here is closer to an emotional documentary: characters who speak directly to the camera about love, regret, and the gap between the person you want to be and the one who actually shows up. Ji Chang-wook and Kim Ji-won have the kind of easy, lived-in chemistry that is nearly impossible to manufacture — you believe in their Yangyang summer completely, and that belief is what makes the present-day fallout sting. The nonlinear, interview-style format means the drama withholds and reveals strategically, and the short episode runtime (around 30 minutes) keeps it from ever dragging. This is one of the more formally interesting K-dramas of its era, and it rewards viewers who are willing to sit with unresolved feelings for a while. Check out our guide to Business Proposal (2022) if you’re after a lighter KakaoTV-adjacent romance with snappier pacing.
The show is not without its friction points. The three-couple structure means emotional bandwidth is split — and while the Geon/Sun Young and Kyung Joon/Rin Yi storylines are genuinely interesting, they occasionally interrupt the Jae Won/Eun Oh arc at the exact moment momentum is building. Some viewers will also find the format deliberately alienating: the confessional structure creates emotional distance as often as it creates intimacy, and if you need your K-drama romance to build in a linear, satisfying way, this one may feel like it’s stalling. The supporting cast’s final resolution feels slightly rushed compared to the care given to the main couple. These are real concessions, but they do not undercut what the show does well — and what it does well is genuinely rare. Unlike Our Blues (2022), which uses a similar ensemble-slice-of-life structure across a longer runtime, Lovestruck keeps its emotional punches short, sharp, and well-timed.
The drama’s core argument is a simple one: love forged under a false identity can still be real, but only if both people eventually agree to stop hiding. The beach sections are beautiful and the city sections are messy and honest, and the contrast is deliberate. Lovestruck in the City trusts its audience to sit with complexity — to understand that Eun Oh’s disappearance was not malicious but human, and that Jae Won’s obsession was not creepy but desperate. It is a drama about the stories we tell about ourselves and the moment we finally stop telling them. Not the most romantic K-drama of 2020, but arguably the most truthful.
👍👍👍 BEST FOR 👍👍👍
🎬 Fans of Ji Chang-wook and Kim Ji-won’s chemistry
📹 Viewers who love documentary-style or unconventional romance formats
☕ Anyone wanting a short-episode romance that respects emotional nuance
⚖️ Final Verdict
What works
•Ji Chang-wook and Kim Ji-won’s effortless, believable chemistry
•Interview-format storytelling that feels genuinely fresh for the genre
•Short episodes that respect your time and keep the pacing tight
•Emotionally honest writing — especially Eun Oh’s backstory and Rin Yi’s ending
What to know first
•Three-couple structure splits focus — not all threads get equal depth
•Nonlinear format can feel slow if you need clear narrative momentum
•Supporting resolutions feel slightly rushed in the finale
•More emotional realism than swoony fantasy — not for everyone
7.9 / 10Watch it for the chemistry and the format — just don’t expect a conventional love story.
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