Durian’s Affair

Everything you need to know before you hit play.

Completed
🌸 Fantasy Romance

Durian’s Affair

아씨 두리안 (Assi Durian) · 2023 · South Korea

WriterIm Sung-han

DirectorShin Woo-cheol · Jung Yeo-jin

Episodes16 eps · ~70 min each

⏱️ Binge Time18h 40m

AiredJun 24 – Aug 13, 2023

GenreRomance · Fantasy · Melodrama

Content Rating14+ · TV Chosun

Viki
VIU
Prime Video

Time Travel
Reincarnation
Joseon
Chaebol
Makjang

Two noblewomen from the Joseon Dynasty — Du Ri-an and her daughter-in-law Kim So-jeo — mysteriously time-travel through a pond during a lunar eclipse and appear at the Dan family’s villa party in modern-day Seoul. Ri-an was secretly in love with her servant Dol-soe, while So-jeo’s husband had died, driving her to the brink. In the present, they discover their beloved ones have reincarnated as members of the wealthy chaebol Dan family — Dol-soe as Dan Chi-gam, and Deung-myung as the man by the same name. As past lives unravel and modern lives collide, the Dan family’s values, honor, and love relationships are overturned in this bizarre, four-dimensional melodramatic fantasy.

Episode Progress
16 / 16 ✅ Completed

One box. Everything you need to decide.

Twelve performances anchoring this chaotic, charming collision of Joseon and Seoul.

Park Joo-mi

Du Ri-an

Lead

Choi Myung-gil

Baek Do-yi

Supporting

Kim Min-jun

Dan Chi-gam

Lead

Han Da-gam

Lee Eun-seong

Supporting

Jeon No-min

Dan Chi-gang

Supporting

Yoon Hae-young

Jang Se-mi

Supporting

Gee Young-san

Dan Chi-jeong

Supporting

Yoo Jung-hoo

Dan Deung-myeong

Lead

Lee Da-yeon

Kim So-jeo

Lead

Kim Chae-eun

Ayla

Supporting

Hwang Mi-na

Go Woo-mi

Supporting

Kwak Min-ho

Joo-nam

Supporting

Spoiler-light recaps — enough to remember where you left off, nothing that ruins the ride.

EP 01

Do Yi’s 70th Birthday

June 24, 2023 · TV Chosun

The Dan family gathers for chairwoman Baek Do-yi’s 70th birthday when a lunar eclipse turns the evening strange. Two women in white hanboks emerge from a pond — Du Ri-an and Kim So-jeo, Joseon noblewomen who have no idea where, or when, they are. The setup is delightfully absurd, and the premiere commits to the chaos without apology.

EP 02

Ri-an Meets Chi-gam

June 24, 2023 · TV Chosun

Ri-an collapses the moment she sees Chi-gam — a reaction that tells the audience everything before anyone says a word. Chi-gam takes the two time-travelers home, and the fish-out-of-water comedy begins in earnest. Park Joo-mi’s physical comedy is already exceptional here, every modern object a new source of wonder and terror.

EP 03

Eon Appears Before So-jeo

July 1, 2023 · TV Chosun

So-jeo’s arc takes centre stage as Deung-myeong steps in front of a woman who believed him dead for centuries. Lee Da-yeon handles the shock beautifully — grief and recognition layered into one stunned expression. The episode deepens what could have been a one-note premise into something genuinely affecting.

EP 04

Unwelcome Guests

July 1, 2023 · TV Chosun

Do-yi arrives to see the strange women for herself, and Ri-an learns the full truth behind Dol-soe’s death in Joseon — he was poisoned by her own mother-in-law. The revelation shifts the show’s tone momentarily from comedy to genuine grief, and Park Joo-mi earns every tear.

EP 05

Ri-an and So-jeo’s Disappearance

July 8, 2023 · TV Chosun

With tensions rising in Chi-gam’s household, Ri-an and So-jeo disappear — and the episode uses their absence to show just how much they’ve already disrupted everyone around them. Chi-jeong becomes an unlikely ally, eventually bringing them to the safety of Baek Do-yi’s residence. The chase is brisk and surprisingly funny.

EP 06

You Must Leave

July 8, 2023 · TV Chosun

Eun-seong draws the line and insists the two women must go. The episode settles them into Do-yi’s world, which turns out to suit them far better — wealth, hierarchy, and protocol are things Joseon noblewomen understand instinctively. Choi Myung-gil’s Do-yi begins to reveal unexpected layers of warmth.

EP 07

First Lesson

July 15, 2023 · TV Chosun

Ri-an and So-jeo earn their first paychecks and begin learning the modern era in earnest — smartphones, elevators, convenience stores. The comedy is at its peak here, but the episode also plants the quieter question: what happens if they find a way back, now that they’ve found reasons to stay?

EP 08

Ri-an and So-jeo’s Identity

July 15, 2023 · TV Chosun

A hypnosis session attempts to uncover the truth about who these women really are, while Chi-gam visits the pond that brought them. The episode is the drama at its most structurally confident — past and present converging, each scene echoing the other. Chi-gam begins to feel something he can’t fully explain.

EP 09

Ri-an and So-jeo’s Hypnotherapy

July 22, 2023 · TV Chosun

The hypnotherapy reveals more fragments of Joseon memory, and the rivalry between Il-soo and Chi-gam over Ri-an finally surfaces. Ri-an’s physical symptoms suggest a bigger complication is coming. The pacing slows here — a mid-series lull the drama takes a few episodes to climb out of.

EP 10

The Confession

July 22, 2023 · TV Chosun

Deung-myeong takes a decisive step, and emotional confessions ripple across all three couples. The Il-soo and Chi-gam rivalry reaches a tipping point. It’s the episode where the show’s romantic machinery shifts into higher gear — and the ensemble suddenly feels tighter and more purposeful than it has in weeks.

EP 11

Let’s Go Party

July 29, 2023 · TV Chosun

So-jeo and Deung-myeong’s proximity on a drama set creates an intimacy neither expected, and Ayla watches with growing unease. The workplace romance subplot gets its most compelling episode here — Yoo Jung-hoo and Lee Da-yeon have genuine chemistry, and their scenes feel earned rather than rushed.

EP 12

Another Date

July 29, 2023 · TV Chosun

Do-yi and Ju-nam plan another meeting, and their quiet romance — the show’s most unexpected — continues to be its most charming. Eun-seong and Chi-gam clash over Ri-an, and the argument clarifies exactly whose side the audience should be on. Choi Myung-gil anchors everything.

EP 13

Closer and Closer

August 5, 2023 · TV Chosun

Ri-an and Chi-gam spend genuine time together and their past-life connection deepens into something neither can deny. The housekeeper begins acting strangely, hinting at revelations still to come. It’s the drama working at its most emotionally sincere — and the lead pair earns the slow burn.

EP 14

Age Means Nothing

August 5, 2023 · TV Chosun

Ju-nam proposes to Do-yi, who falters and ultimately reveals her age — a moment handled with real delicacy in a show that usually traffics in broad strokes. Ri-an and Chi-gam share a wonder-filled day that feels like the drama catching its breath before the revelations of the final stretch.

EP 15

Past Lives Revealed

August 12, 2023 · TV Chosun

Chi-gam’s identity as Dol-soe — Ri-an’s murdered servant and secret lover — is finally confirmed. The housekeeper reads past lives across the family, and the revelations detonate one by one: Chi-jung is Ri-an’s Joseon husband, Deung-myeong is So-jeo’s. The episode is the drama at peak makjang, and it’s completely in command of it.

EP 16

The Eclipse Returns

August 13, 2023 · TV Chosun

The lunar eclipse comes again, and all paths converge at the pond. Chi-jung wants to marry Ri-an; Deung-myeong confesses his love for So-jeo. Ri-an makes an impossible choice — and Chi-gam follows her. So-jeo stays, marries Deung-myeong, and builds a new life. Do-yi’s fate arrives as quiet karma. The ending is open, deliberate, and exactly as bittersweet as it needed to be.

Full spoilers ahead — everything that happens in the finale and what it all means.

The eclipse comes back, and it demands an answer. The final episode opens with the lunar eclipse returning — the same celestial event that pulled Ri-an and So-jeo through time sixteen episodes ago. The housekeeper lays everything bare before the Dan family: Chi-jung is Ri-an’s former Joseon husband, Deung-myeong is So-jeo’s deceased spouse reborn, and Chi-gam is Dol-soe — the servant Ri-an loved and lost to her own mother-in-law’s poison. Every thread the drama has been quietly pulling finally comes loose at once.

The choices split the women’s fates in two. Chi-jung steps forward and declares his intention to marry Ri-an — the match their past lives dictated. Deung-myeong does the opposite: he confesses, plainly and directly, that he has fallen for So-jeo in this lifetime, past-life obligations be damned. So-jeo chooses to stay in 2023, accepts Deung-myeong’s love, and the two marry. Her arc closes completely — from a woman who came forward through grief to one who builds something entirely new.

Ri-an refuses the marriage that would make everyone else comfortable. Marrying Chi-jung would preserve the Dan family’s order and honour the Joseon bond their past lives established. Ri-an doesn’t want that — she never wanted Chi-jung, in any lifetime. Rather than accept a fate written for her centuries ago, she walks to the pond. Chi-gam follows without hesitation. Servants later report that neither can be found. The show refuses to confirm where, or when, they ended up — and that ambiguity is the point.

Do-yi’s ending arrives as karma, quietly and completely. A final scene reveals Do-yi as a Joseon figure who once ordered Dol-soe’s death — the act that set the entire tragedy in motion across lifetimes. In the present, she develops dementia, regressing to a childlike state. She loses her beloved son Chi-gam without ever knowing why. The drama frames this not as punishment but as cosmic balance — the price of a cruelty she no longer even remembers committing. Durian’s Affair understands that some wounds travel further than the people who made them.