‘Love and Leashes’: All you need to know about spicy romance K-movie

On January 17, Netflix dropped Love and Leashes’ teaser character posters and a trailer, taking the entire Korean entertainment industry and fandom by storm. The upcoming movie stars SNSD’s Seohyun and U-KISS’ Lee Jun-young in never-seen-before character roles in K-drama history.

The movie is an adaptation of a popular webtoon of the same name that explores a romantic comedy relationship between two office employees with contrasting designations and sexual preferences.

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Girls’ Generation’s Seohyun and Lee Jun-young lead Netflix’s ‘Love and Leashes’

The incredible lead couple of Love and Leashes has audiences in a fix. The gorgeous Seohyun plays the rookie yet dominating lead Jung Ji-woo, while Lee Jun-young plays the senior/expert yet submissive Jung Ji-hoo.

The thrilling romantic movie will mark the Girls’ Generation idol’s debut on the big screen. Seohyun has already charmed audiences with her talent and beauty on the small screens with Private Lives (2020), Time (2018), and Bad Thief, Good Thief (2017).

Meanwhile, Lee Jun-young proved his talent by awing audiences in different genres with his previous projects Let Me Be Your Knight (2021), D.P. (2021), and Imitation (2021).

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What is ‘Love and Leashes’ based on?

Netflix’s K-movie is based on a popular webtoon of the same name, also called Moral Sense. The webtoon tells the story of a rookie co-worker who accidentally discovers her senior colleague’s fetish and gets into a contractual relationship outside the office.

The romance takes a fun and emotional turn as they navigate their reversed roles behind the bedroom and the original roles in the office.

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What is the story of ‘Love and Leashes’?

Seohyun and Lee Jun-young (Image via The Swoon Netflix/YouTube)

The movie revolves around PR agency employees Ji-woo and Ji-hoo. The former is a rookie who has romantic feelings for Ji-hoo but cannot confess. Due to the name mixup, the latter’s private parcel gets delivered to Ji-woo.

To Ji-woo’s surprise, she finds a dog leash inside the box. Ji-hoo hurriedly walks over and tells her the package is his, which leads to Ji-woo discovering his S&M fetish.

Ji-woo does not judge him, which ends up making Ji-hoo emotional. He asks if Ji-woo would like to be his master in the bedroom, and thus, they start a three-month contractual relationship.

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‘Love and Leashes’: Teaser trailer and poster

The trailer for the movie left audiences shocked as there hardly has ever been a Korean movie or drama as explicit as Love and Leashes in s**ual innuendos. It opens with dog leashes and purple ribbons on the floor, with Ji-woo tightening a purple ribbon in her hands.

Ji-hoo looks at the aftermath with expectant eyes. As Ji-woo tightens the ribbons across Ji-hoo’s body, he heaves a satisfactory sigh, full of smiles.

Meanwhile, Netflix has released one primary and two character posters. The main poster shows Ji-woo keeping her foot on Ji-hoo’s shoulder with a pink whip in hand. The latter looks up towards her with a leash in hand. The poster says, “Will you dominate me?”

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“Korean 50 Shades of Grey?” Fans reaction to ‘Love and Leashes’

As per Netflix’s words, Seohyun and Lee Jun-young’s “spicy rom-com” has elicited surprised reactions across all social media. While many fans are confusing the movie for a drama, they are in awe of how it stretches the stereotypical K-content’s boundaries.

K-dramas have been slowly pushing the conservative boundaries, with adult romance Nevertheless (which had multiple 19+ rated episodes) and My Name (an intimate scene.)

But reactions to the upcoming movie have turned the fandom chaotic, especially the original webtoon lovers, as they called it “raunchy.” Many compared the film to the Korean version of 50 Shades of Grey, but webtoon fans quickly pointed out that the source material is as explicit as the Christian Grey movie.

Love and Leashes will premiere on Netflix on February 11.