K-drama review: LTNS – Esom, Ahn Jae-hong shine in brilliant black comedy as a sexless married couple who blackmail people having affairs

This article contains spoilers.

4/5 stars

Lead cast: Esom, Ahn Jae-hong

LTNS (short for “Long Time No Sex”) hasn’t been shy about showing us amorous encounters or describing romantic trysts in all their scandalous detail, but perhaps the most heart-stopping moments of the show have come from its most innocent couple – the “cleaning mates” of episode five.

Each episode of this wry and wonderful black comedy, about a sexless and cash-strapped married couple engaging in an unusual side hustle, focuses on a couple engaged in an affair.

Taxi driver Samuel (Ahn Jae-hong) and hotel receptionist Woo-jin (Esom) catch wind of cheating spouses during their work hours and spend their time off following them and trying to catch them in the act.

LTNS: Esom, Ahn Jae-hong play a sexless couple in K-drama comedy gem

This involves following couples to neon-lit motels, but occasionally they wind up in far-flung locations, as when the young blackmailers had to work up a sweat catching up with the oldest cheating couple in the show.

Kang Baek-ho (Jung Jin-young) and Young-ae (Yang Mal-bok) are both elderly and meet on a hiking trail. They head all the way out to sea to enjoy a night of passion in a tent on a barge floating on the open water. Hiking and night swimming are suddenly just as important as snooping.

Next comes the blackmail, following which Samuel and Woo-jin usually net a bag of cash, and occasionally a black eye or broken nose along with it.

This was the case in episode three, when Samuel picks up a drop and is surprised by Baek-ho, who beats him to a pulp. He still gets the money, but only after haggling and agreeing to make it look like he is taking photographs for Baek-ho’s business. The blackmail money arrives minus withholding tax.

It’s Woo-jin’s turn to take a beating when they go after Soo-ji (Hwang Hyun-bin) and Cho-won (Kim Seung-bee), the same-sex couple of episode four.

After picking up the payoff deposited by housewife Soo-ji, they are chased down by stuntwoman Cho-won, who vents her many frustrations on the helpless Woo-jin, breaking her nose. But Soo-ji compels her lover to let Woo-jin escape with the gold – they have too much to lose.

After four episodes of filling their coffers by prying into others’ secret lives, the tables finally turn on our protagonists.

Min-soo (Ok Ja-yeon) lives a lonely life cleaning her apartment during the week and waiting for her husband to drop by on weekends to try to impregnate her. She finally lights up after meeting a nice neighbour who shares her passion. Together, they begin to clean each other’s homes. That neighbour is Samuel.

The pair never so much as hold hands, but the sexual tension between them when they rub down opposite sides of the same window or scoot into each other while tucking in the bedsheets is palpable.

5 of the best new Korean drama series to watch in February 2024

When Min-soo’s husband surprises them one day with an unexpected visit, Samuel hides as though he were really her lover.

Woo-jin soon discovers the deception, which sets up the climactic events of the series as their marriage falls apart in spectacular fashion.

Although Samuel and Woo-jin have generally seemed to be on the same page, from the get-go there have been problems with their relationship. Most obvious of those is the lack of sex in their marriage, but this only exacerbates the problems that are already there.

Samuel isn’t assertive enough and his fear of his wife is the root cause of his performance anxiety in bed; it’s also the reason he occasionally lies, whether hiding the existence of his “cleaning mate” or his work worries, as he did at the beginning of the series.

Woo-jin’s issue is that she’s too much of a hothead. She has a bad habit of running away when they have an argument and sleeping in her hotel, a routine so common that her colleague knows the drill when he sees her.

Their problems explode magnificently in a glorious argument in their apartment, which writer-directors Jeon Go-woon (Microhabitat) and Lim Dae-hyung (Moonlit Winter) stage during a fantastical torrential downpour, echoing the downpour that made Samuel lose his taxi and pushed the couple into the blackmailing life to begin with.

But sometimes an end is a new beginning. As this K-drama romantic comedy with a difference, which sets a very high bar for the rest of the year, winds to a close, we are left wondering what the future holds, since, as Samuel and Woo-jin know all too well, you don’t need to be married to have sex.

LTNS is streaming on Viu.