By Pierce Conran

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Lead cast: Han Hyo-joo, Shun Oguri
From its narrative structure and sharp visuals all the way down to its symmetric phobias, Romantics Anonymous, a coming Netflix drama series that just premiered at the Busan International Film Festival, is all about form but somewhat less concerned with substance.
It is the latest in a series of joint Korean-Japanese productions, following shows such as last year’s What Comes After Love, but the first for Netflix, which has had huge success with content from both markets.
The series follows Hanna Lee (Han Hyo-joo, Happiness), a gifted chocolatier who suffers from scopophobia – the fear of being stared at by others – and Sosuke Fujiwara (Shun Oguri, Godzilla vs. Kong), a corporate heir dealing with haphephobia – the fear of being touched.

This seems like a large gap to bridge between the protagonists of a romantic drama, which is perhaps why it feels so natural that the characters are culturally as well as physically separate.
Hanna does her work at home and delivers to the popular Le Sauveur chocolate shop anonymously, where her delectable chocolates make up the final piece of their popular Rainbow Palette boxes.
Only chef Kenji (Eiji Okuda), the avuncular owner, knows her identity. However, when the shop suddenly changes hands, her world is turned upside down.
Le Saveur is bought by Futago Confectionery, and company heir Sosuke, who has ambitions of elevating Futago’s profile, steps in to manage the shop personally. Despite the popularity of Hanna’s chocolates, Sosuke is hesitant to do business with an anonymous partner.

Hanna goes way out of her comfort zone to visit the store, but the shy chocolatier winds up unintentionally having a job interview with Sosuke and starts working at the shop.
Without a résumé and social skills, Hanna hardly seems like a good hire, and given her extreme condition, one would think that the last thing she would want is a busy job around a lot of people.
Hanna and Sosuke are forced to work together because they have both just discovered someone who does not trigger their phobia. Hanna can look Sosuke in the eyes and he can touch her hand.
Yet much work remains to be done. They may be physically comfortable around one another, but the pair find plenty of other ways to rub each other the wrong way.

While set in Japan and largely featuring Japanese characters, the series is very much a co-production behind the scenes, with a mix of Korean and Japanese producers and crew, including the Oscar-nominated editor Yang Jin-mo and production designer Lee Ha-jun, who both worked on Parasite.
Romantics Anonymous is a remake of the 2010 French-Belgian film of the same name. This Netflix update is more polished and features dazzling stars, but in adapting the story to match local television drama tropes, some of the comedy and charm have been lost, resulting in a show that occasionally coasts by on artifice.
Among those tropes is the addition of secondary romantic interests. Hanna seldom sets foot out of her home, but she does have a crush on hunky jazz pianist Hiro Takada (Jin Akanishi), who runs Bar Brush, which she can peer into through her window.
Hiro happens to be Sosuke’s school chum, and by the second episode, the trio get wrapped up in rural romcom high jinks when their car gets stuck on a muddy road on the way to meet a supplier.

Less present in the first two episodes is Yuri Nakamura, who plays Irene, a renowned therapist treating both Sosuke and Hanna.
Han, who delivers most of her dialogue in Japanese, is no stranger to Japanese content, having appeared in the films The Sun Does Not Move and Miracle: Devil Claus’ Love and Magic.
Here, however, her flustered chocolatier recalls her leading role in the Korean romantic film Always, in which she played a blind and bubbly telemarketer who steps into the life of another emotionally closed-off man – in that case, a former boxer played by So Ji-sub.
While Han uses her foreignness to her advantage, playing a far kookier role than she would at home, Oguri embodies the more traditional aloof male tycoon, a familiar character in both markets.

Hanna and Sosuke’s evolving relationship will unspool over eight episodes, which are named after the Rainbow Palette and its seven pieces – episode titles that foreground the commercial enterprise that brings these characters together: sell the chocolate, sell the romance.
Netflix will be hoping that Romantics Anonymous can sell both, as the global streamer is clearly banking on Japan-Korean co-productions, with several other projects already well under way.
Romantics Anonymous will start streaming on Netflix on October 16.