Korean title: 모럴 센스

Origin and release year: South Korea (2022)

Starring: Girls’ Generation Seo Hyun, U-KISS Jun, Kim Bo Ra, Ahn Seung Gyun, Lee El

When I first heard about the Love and Leashes release, I was… hesitant.

The Korean film and TV industry has changed a lot in the past couple of years, becoming more open about certain topics and aspects of their society. We’ve especially seen this in their Netflix releases which are also largely targeted to the international audience.

So, when I heard that we were getting the Korean version of Fifty Shades of Grey, I had my reservations.

However, I was pleasantly surprised. The film covered the BDSM (bondage and discipline, sadism and masochism) subject matter extremely well.

It was informative and simultaneously entertaining. I really liked that instead of pushing a certain narrative about the lifestyle, Love and Leashes chose to educate the audience through a rom-com format and make their own decisions about it.

I was also pleasantly surprised by Seo Hyun and Jun’s performances. At first, I thought that the casting wasn’t going to work because both leads have squeaky clean K-Pop idol personas, but they pulled it off.

The two of them had a cute dynamic and the storyline was also very good. There was a lot of comedy, which was a plus, and I enjoyed how their personalities became personifications of the sub and dom element.

Overall, this was a really good watch.

What did you think of Love and Leashes?