‘Marry My Husband’: Revenge, Romance, and a New Park Min-young

Marry My Husband is slated for a January 1, 2024, release and is, as expected, catching on ahead of its premiere. Thanks to its narrative drawing on the popular same-named webtoon and unarguably Park Min-young blowing us away, starring as its female lead.

Marry My Husband is an instance of betrayal, revenge, and romance. It goes over Kang Ji-won (Park), caught between her mother-in-law’s stringent calls for, a self-centered debt-ridden husband Park Min-hwan (Lee Yi-kyung), and her urgent family obligations. As bleak as it can get, Ji-won’s life is going to the grave—she has cancer weighing on it. Even worse, her spouse is having an extramarital affair with her bestie Jung Soo-min (Song Ha-yoon).

On a fateful night of heated exchange, a brawl breaks out as Ji-won walks in on the two of them sleeping and ends up dying at the hands of her husband. Cut to Ji-won waking up in the past (but remembering the present), when she was dating Min-hwan. The status quo hints at a second shot at life; she resolves to exact payback by causing Min-hwan to marry Soo-min. Extending help is Yoo Ji-hyeok (Na In-woo), a colleague who feels for her and holds a secret of his own.

Park conveys the wide-eyed vulnerability of Ji-won in the stills published for the K-drama. Her pallid countenance reflects the pained anxiety of her predicament. Throughout her illustrious career, Park has had myriad roles, with several award-winning ones to her credit. A highly acclaimed Korean actress that she is, Park is renowned for seamless on-screen chemistry with her co-stars. She has, however, been pigeonholed into conventional romance roles. A departure from that may be Marry My Husband, Park’s act in a more demanding role—it took her to lose substantial weight—to just 37 kg—and breathe life into Ji-won, the waning cancer patient.

As regards the story, I’ve read the webtoon by Sungsojak, a studio LICO production known for their proclivity for creating more relatable stories. In how the comic unfolds, it could be a bit confusing initially, but deeper into it, everything makes sense.

Marry My Husband boils down to how Ji-won chooses to rewrite what lies ahead, traveling back in time and altering fate after suffering at the hands of two of the people she cared about most. It’s entertaining in its predictability, but it also offers a sense of variance. The dramatization should, hopefully, reinforce the narrative. I love how Park Min-young portrays Kang Ji-won—an unassuming peril who is willing to do more than one may have ever expected out of her.