“With or without it, you’re still you.”

I should warn you now: this review may not make much sense. I’ve just finished Love in the Big City, and my thoughts and feelings are a bit scattered. But isn’t that what Love in the Big City is all about? It’s about thoughts, regrets, and emotions that seem all over the place, yet somehow come together in a relatable and bittersweet culmination of life’s chaotic realizations.

Adapted from Park Sang Young’s novel, Love in the Big City is less a love story and more a journey of finding peace and acceptance with yourself and your circumstances. It follows Ko Yeong (Nam Yoon Su), a gay man navigating multiple relationships, from his best friend Choi Mi Ae (Lee Soo Kyung) to his mother Eun Suk (Oh Hyun Kyung) to his lovers—Kim Nam Gyu (Kwon Hyuk), No Young-Soo (Na Hyun-Woo), and Gyu Ho (Jin Ho Eun)—all while coming to terms with his HIV diagnosis, which he refers to as “Kylie.”

It’s a story about failure, success, and facing the parts of yourself that’s been through both.

We walk through life hand in hand with things like death and pain and illness and joy, from one point in time to another. But we don’t often give much thought to how each of those moments brand us until after we’ve lived them, after we’ve stepped out of one moment and into another.

Then suddenly, we stop and go, “Wow, I lived that. I did that. I loved that person. I lost someone.” And yet, somehow, we keep going—eating, bathing, dressing ourselves. Every. Single. Day.

It’s strange how time works. There are people who take the time to contemplate the things they’ve been through, who carry around their pain and love and grow from it. Others remain unchanged, their perceptions limited by fears, anxieties, and the values they were raised with.

Love in the Big City invites viewers into one man’s memoir, into his heart and mind, offering a glimpse of what it’s like to meet people at different stages of life, thought, and love. Into what it’s like to be loved, what it’s like to be judged by people who only understand one kind of love, and what it’s like to feel loss.

It’s remarkable how we spend our lives chasing countless dreams, always told how possible they are. Yet, love doesn’t always get the same treatment. To some, love isn’t infinite like dreams; it’s boxed in, closed off, and stifled by rigid boundaries.

We shouldn’t live our lives walking on our tiptoes worried that we’ll disturb the person beside us. We shouldn’t have to apologize for being ourselves.

What I appreciate most about Love in the Big City is that it doesn’t focus solely on queer love. Instead, it emphasizes love itself—because love is love. It’s the experience of falling into feelings with someone and sometimes losing those feelings along the way. No matter who’s doing the loving, it’s the same. Love is something people spend a lifetime trying to understand, capture, and hold onto, all while navigating the highs, lows, and confusion of loving someone and figuring out who you are.

Everyone has a story. We’ve all been through different things. The hardest part of love isn’t the act of falling in love. It’s seeing if the story you grew up with, the one that shaped and scarred you, fits with the story of the person you love.

In Love in the Big City, there are several moments when characters say, “You wouldn’t understand.” And it’s true. No one fully understands anyone else, no matter how much they love them. The only person we’ll ever truly understand is ourselves. If we’re lucky, we find someone who recognizes that we’re all lost, in some way or another.

Falling in love isn’t just about love itself. It’s about being okay with being lost together in this chaotic world.

You know what’s funny about the word “straight”? Nothing about life is straight. So, why should love be? Why should we let an illness or a label define how we see ourselves and our relationship?

Love in the Big City doesn’t pause to ask the big questions directly. There are no lengthy monologues attempting to explain them. Instead, it simply shows us one man’s journey as he faces these challenges and figures out the answers for himself. From conversion therapy and religious trauma to suicide, misogyny, homophobia, internalized homophobia, living with HIV, and heartache, Ko Yeong navigates these painful realities without fanfare or easy resolutions.

In real life, happy-ever-afters aren’t about horse-drawn carriages fading to black in a perfect moment. They’re about those fleeting instances when your life flashes before your eyes, and you realize how many happy-ever-afters you’ve walked away from—and how many still lie ahead.

I hope people watch Love in the Big City and step into Ko Yeong’s shoes, realizing that love, pain, and existence are universal experiences. The real tragedy isn’t in bittersweet endings; it’s in hate. It’s in people who elevate their own lives while demeaning others they don’t understand. It’s in labels like “slut” or “he can’t be gay because he’s too macho.” It’s the assumption that someone can “think” they understand what it’s like to live another person’s life—even those within the same community. Throughout the series, Ko Yeong is constantly told by those around him, even his lovers, that he “wouldn’t understand.”

Love in the Big City raises an important question: Does not understanding someone mean we can’t share the same space with them?

That’s what stands out most to me about this series. I walked away from Love in the Big City feeling seen, even though I’m not a gay man. As a bisexual woman, I felt understood. The true brilliance of this series is that no matter what you’ve been through, who you love, or how others define your attraction (or lack thereof), something in this drama will make you feel seen.

And if it doesn’t, maybe it’s time to rewatch it—focusing less on who Ko Yeong loves and more on what he’s feeling.

For a series that asks tough questions and confronts harsh realities, all while exploring love, loss, fear, and anxiety, check out Love in the Big City now on Viki.

Everyone who plays a part in this series, from the acting to directing to writing and beyond, deserves a standing ovation.

Rating- 5 out of 5