Rich Man — A startup romance where face-blindness dares a tech CEO to trust the one person he can’t forget
Introduction
Have you ever locked eyes with someone and felt everything click—only to realize the other person can’t place you at all? That’s the ache that opens Rich Man, where a brilliant but emotionally armoured CEO keeps the world at bay because every face looks like a stranger. The show swept me into neon-lit Seoul nights, whiteboard wars, and cigarette-burned scars of first love, until I found myself rooting for two people learning that recognition isn’t only visual—it’s visceral. Their banter has bite, their silences have gravity, and every meeting in a hallway or elevator quietly rearranges their futures. Released in 2018 and starring Suho and Ha Yeon-soo, this remake of a beloved Japanese hit threads romance through the high-pressure reality of Korea’s youth job market. Today, it’s streaming on Viki for U.S. viewers, and it’s the kind of comfort-watch that still asks unsettling questions about identity, memory, and how we decide who truly sees us.
Overview
Title: Rich Man (리치맨)
Year: 2018
Genre: Romantic Comedy, Office Drama
Main Cast: Suho (Kim Jun-myeon), Ha Yeon-soo, Oh Chang-seok, Kim Ye-won
Episodes: 16
Runtime: 60 minutes per episode
Streaming Platform: Viki
Overall Story
Lee Yoo-chan is the wunderkind founder of Next In, a sleek IT firm whose open-plan office hums with caffeine, code, and the ferocious tempo of Korea’s startup scene. He’s magnetic on a keynote stage yet merciless in interviews, slicing applicants with one-liners until only the truly determined stay standing. His secret, though, is devastating: prosopagnosia—face blindness—has turned everyday interactions into a maze of uncertainty, so he clings to systems, not people. Enter Kim Bo-ra, a graduating senior from Jeju with a photographic memory and a backpack full of quietly astonishing competence. When Yoo-chan mocks her “rote memorization,” she refuses to shrink; instead, she calmly mirrors back the exact words he just said, a human recorder forcing him to listen. Within days, a project crisis pushes Next In to hire for memory precision—and Bo-ra’s number lands at the top of the list.
Bo-ra’s first weeks at Next In are a crash course in survival: post-it ecosystems, late-night cup noodles, and a boss who can forget you the moment you turn away. She learns the firm’s rhythms by sound more than sight—the click patterns of keyboards, the way Yoo-chan’s footsteps stall when a bug appears, the drier tone in his voice when the board calls. Her job is to organize datasets and prepare demos, but what Yoo-chan really hires is her presence: steady, unflinching, impossible to rattle. In a world where algorithms sort customer behavior, Bo-ra notices the human patterns the code misses. The company’s new product—cloud computing tools that map identity across devices—raises thorny questions about data privacy, and she’s the first to ask them out loud without flinching at Yoo-chan’s glare. It’s here the show plants its ethical flag: love without trust is surveillance, and work without conscience is just noise.
Slowly, Yoo-chan starts using Bo-ra as a living compass. He asks her to re-introduce people mid-meeting; she finds ways to help without exposing his secret, like colour-coding schedules and leaving voice notes he can replay before high-stakes pitches. Have you ever watched two people learn each other’s language in real time? Their professional shorthand—tiny nods, half-sentences—becomes the most romantic dialogue in the room. The more they sync, the more his past intrudes: the name “Kim Boon-hong,” a first love and unsolved loss he clings to as proof that memory can outmuscle his condition. Bo-ra, whose own name once triggers a misunderstanding, decides not to compete with a ghost but to outlast it—with constancy. Each small kindness chips at Yoo-chan’s armor until even he can feel the difference between recognition and recall.
Min Tae-joo, Yoo-chan’s co-founder, watches this shift with complicated eyes. He’s the vice president who makes chaos look like strategy, a warm mentor whose attentiveness could be loyalty—or leverage. In boardrooms, he frames Next In’s future in clean, corporate terms; outside, he tests the gaps in Yoo-chan’s life that face blindness has widened. Investment pressures mount, cybersecurity software vendors circle with promises, and a slick competitor tempts the board with safer bets. Bo-ra senses fault lines before they crack, but she’s still an entry-level hire with a dorm room and a father calling from Jeju to ask if she’s eating well. Her greatest fear isn’t failure—it’s becoming invisible in a city that moves too fast to care. When Tae-joo hands her opportunities Yoo-chan withholds, a triangle of trust begins.
Min Tae-ra, Tae-joo’s sister and a gallery curator, detonates the love polygon with the practiced ease of someone used to getting what she wants. She recognizes Yoo-chan’s genius and the wounds underneath; she also recognizes a rare canvas: a man who cannot see faces but can be taught which one to turn toward. In a stunning dinner sequence, Tae-ra confronts Yoo-chan with a story only two people could know, pushing at his blurred past until he’s adrift. Bo-ra witnesses just enough to doubt, then withdraws, punishing herself for believing she could belong in his world. The show refuses melodramatic villainy here; Tae-ra isn’t a cartoon, she’s a collision of desire and entitlement, and her choices force Bo-ra to define love as something more than proximity. Have you ever stepped back from someone you love because you couldn’t bear to be the reason they break?
The middle stretch shifts from flirtation to fallout. An identity demo glitches, a client panics, and the board leverages fear to question Yoo-chan’s leadership. Tae-joo proposes a conservative pivot to protect valuation; Yoo-chan counters with a bolder rollout that leans into cloud-scale personalization, a move that could either crown or crush Next In. The debate isn’t only strategy—it’s philosophy. Does technology exist to reduce risk or to expand human possibility? Yoo-chan chooses the latter, and for a while, he wins: the demo dazzles, the press swoons, the runway extends. But quiet paperwork has already moved in the background, and signatures have a way of snapping shut like traps.
When the trap springs, Yoo-chan learns how quickly a founder can become a guest in his own house. A board vote shifts, a clause activates, and Tae-joo’s “gentle guidance” curdles into a takeover attempt that looks perfectly lawful on paper. It’s not a mustache-twirling coup; it’s a slow suffocation by dotted lines and meeting minutes. Bo-ra watches his certainty wobble and does the one thing no one else thinks to do: she asks him what he’s afraid of—not for the company, but for himself. He confesses that faces and power both blur when the lights get bright. She stays.
Exiled from the corner office, Yoo-chan retreats to the one place he still trusts—a blank monitor and a wall of sticky notes. Bo-ra follows him into the bunker and becomes his co-conspirator in small, defiant ways: prepping mock-ups, calling in favours from junior devs, brewing coffee that tastes like a dare. Together they audit code and find the elegant core he’s lost under layers of “growth.” It’s intimate work, the kind that turns partners into believers. The show makes space for them to laugh again, to fail and try once more, to remember that the original dream wasn’t “market share”—it was impact.
Meanwhile, Tae-joo’s victory proves brittle. The product without its maker feels soulless, users drift, and the press loves a “fallen genius” narrative until it gets boring. A minor breach risk—more PR than harm—becomes a referendum on leadership, and the very investors who praised prudence begin to twitch. Tae-ra, suddenly less sure of her own certainties, chooses honesty over winning and lets a truth slip that cracks Tae-joo’s composure. The siblings’ loyalties implode under the weight of what they’ve rationalized as “good business.” Seoul’s skyline watches, indifferent and glittering.
The endgame moves fast but lands softly. Yoo-chan returns, not as a conquering hero but as a builder whose absence taught everyone what only he could do: hold an idea’s soul together. He doesn’t magically “cure” his face blindness; he adapts, creating rituals that make recognition possible—voices, gestures, the way Bo-ra’s eyes crease when she smirks. The first love he’s clutched like a talisman becomes what it always was: a door he needed to close. Bo-ra isn’t the person he sees last—she’s the person he seeks first. And in an ending that resists fireworks, they choose a future that feels like sunrise after a sleepless night: ordinary, earned, and bright.
Highlight Moments
Episode 1 The recruitment day that becomes a duel of wills. Yoo-chan’s cutting remarks ricochet around the auditorium until Bo-ra steps forward, coolly repeating his words back to him with surgical precision. He labels her the “queen of rote memory,” and she counters with a name from his past that rattles the titanium in his voice. It’s not love at first sight—how could it be when he can’t recognize faces?—but it is respect at first refusal. By the time Next In calls, both of them already know the other won’t be easy to forget.
Episode 3 Bo-ra’s first field assignment takes her into a client demo where a single mislabeled data field threatens to expose Yoo-chan’s condition. She stabilizes the room with a crisp, confident walkthrough that reframes the glitch as an opportunity to discuss edge cases. Watching him breathe again after she speaks is the show’s first quiet miracle. It’s also where the series braids “cloud computing” ambition with human humility, reminding us that technology—like trust—scales best when someone cares enough to check the details.
Episode 6 A late-night rooftop talk between Tae-joo and Bo-ra turns into a test of loyalty. He offers mentorship and a faster path up the ladder, smiling like a benevolent kingmaker. But his questions probe too precisely at Yoo-chan’s blind spots, and Bo-ra realizes he’s mapping fault lines. The city feels colder at that height, and she declines the soft power play, choosing the harder, lonelier road of standing by the person who can’t always recognize that she’s standing there.
Episode 9 The past crashes the present when a story about Yoo-chan’s first love surfaces at the worst possible moment. A gift meant to comfort him becomes evidence against Bo-ra in his spiraling doubt. She pulls back, not because she’s weak, but because she refuses to argue with a ghost. The episode hurts—in the way it should—because growth rarely arrives without grief. When she returns, it’s on her terms, and he has to meet her there.
Episode 12 The boardroom coup unfolds like a legal thriller, every clause a chess move. Tae-joo wins the vote, but loses the room; even in victory, his eyes flicker with what-ifs. Yoo-chan walks out without theatrics, carrying only a laptop and the last shards of his pride. Bo-ra follows, not to save him, but to build with him. It’s the show’s most romantic image: two people choosing the work and, within it, choosing each other.
Episode 16 The finale refuses grand gestures and lands on quiet clarity. In a bustling lobby, Yoo-chan stops mid-stride, not because he recognizes Bo-ra’s face, but because he recognizes her: the cadence of her voice, the kindness of her interruption, the peace in his chest that arrives only when she’s near. He apologizes without excuses; she forgives without erasing the cost. The company’s future looks steadier, the product more thoughtful about data privacy, and the love story beautifully, believably unfinished—the best kind.
Memorable Lines
“I don’t recognize faces. But I recognize how you show up.” – Lee Yoo-chan Said after another panicked meeting, it’s the first time he admits the limits of his condition and the truth of Bo-ra’s constancy. The line reframes recognition as a practice, not a talent, and opens a door he’s kept barred since childhood. It marks a shift from control to connection, the kind of vulnerability that makes leadership warmer and love possible. From here on, he doesn’t pretend to be invincible; he learns to be reliable.
“If memory is my gift, then courage has to be yours.” – Kim Bo-ra She says it during a late-night sprint when Yoo-chan hesitates to risk the bolder roadmap. Bo-ra knows that flawless recall without action is just storage, and she challenges him to bet on people, not just models. The moment spotlights her as partner, not employee, and nudges the company toward decisions that consider users first. It’s also where the show weaves in real-world stakes around data privacy without getting preachy.
“Stability is a story we sell ourselves before change collects its fee.” – Min Tae-joo This cool confession drops during a strategy off-site, and it’s the closest he comes to showing his cards. Tae-joo dresses ambition as stewardship, which is why people follow him right up to the edge. The line chills because it’s true—and because it hints at the takeover to come. His tragedy isn’t greed; it’s believing that care and control are the same thing.
“You can’t curate love like an exhibition.” – Min Tae-ra After a beautifully staged, disastrously honest date, Tae-ra realizes her timing, tactics, and taste don’t guarantee a heart. The line stings with self-awareness, peeling back her bravado to reveal someone terrified of being ordinary. In losing the illusion of curation, she glimpses the messier freedom of choosing better. It’s a pivot that keeps her from tipping into caricature.
“Products remember data; people remember how you made them feel.” – Kim Bo-ra In a product review soaked with buzzwords about market share, she brings everyone back to why they built the thing in the first place. The team laughs, then listens, then starts rewriting the deck. It’s a small moment that becomes cultural glue—and yes, it’s also the episode where “cybersecurity software” stops sounding like a checkbox and starts sounding like care. If you’ve ever needed a reminder that love and work both come alive when we’re brave, this drama is the hug and the shove you’ve been waiting for.
Why It's Special
From the very first scene, Rich Man invites you into a modern fairy tale set inside a glass-and-steel startup where ambition hums like server fans and feelings crackle like static. It’s the kind of office romance that remembers to be about work, too—product demos, code sprints, venture pitches—and then surprises you with a heartbeat you can feel across the conference table. If you’re watching from the United States, you can stream Rich Man on Rakuten Viki, and in some markets it’s also accessible through the Viki Channel on the Apple TV app—perfect for a midweek binge that feels like Friday.
At its center is a deceptively simple, deeply human hook: a brilliant tech CEO who can’t recognize faces, and a job‑hunting grad whose memory is almost impossibly precise. Prosopagnosia becomes more than a plot device here—it’s a lens on trust, intimacy, and the awkward vulnerability of not knowing who’s in front of you even when your heart does. Have you ever felt this way, when logic and emotion collide and you’re not sure which one to follow?
The drama is a Korean remake of Japan’s Rich Man, Poor Woman, but it doesn’t just trade cityscapes; it retools the rhythm and warmth for a Seoul start‑up beat. That means a brighter color palette, a cozier treatment of found family inside the office, and a cultural focus on mentorship that gives the romance extra lift. Remakes are tricky—this one understands why the original worked and then lets its actors breathe into new spaces.
Tonally, Rich Man is a rom‑com that believes in second chances without ever losing sight of first principles: kindness, competence, and growth. The jokes land with the breezy confidence of a Friday night, while the dramatic turns arrive with Monday‑morning clarity. Have you ever watched a character fumble an apology you’ve been wanting to make yourself? That’s the sweetness here—recognition without embarrassment, sincerity without syrup.
Direction and writing treat the office like a living character. Meetings are staged like duels, brainstorming like choreography. Dialogues slide from snark to softness in a single breath, and small gestures—a glance, a missed handshake—carry emotional weight. You feel the tempo of the workplace, the pressure of shipping something new, and the way affection sneaks in between milestones.
The show also plays fair with its love square. Each rival has reasons, wounds, and wins; no one exists simply to stall the leads. The result is a drama that respects your time even as it lingers on those charged pauses that make romantic comedies sparkle. You might come for the enemies‑to‑allies trope, but you’ll stay for the patient kindness that grows between people who decide to understand one another.
Visually, it’s polished—sleek offices, glowing screens, city lights reflected in windows—and yet it never feels sterile. Warm lighting, lived‑in desks, and after‑hours ramen runs keep the atmosphere human. The OST stays light and buoyant, slipping in just when memories bubble up or courage finally arrives, making the emotional beats feel earned rather than engineered.
Finally, Rich Man knows when to laugh at startup mythology and when to honor it. Pivots are hard, teams are fragile, and ego can be the bug you miss in QA. But the show believes in shipping better versions of ourselves, and that optimism feels rare and refreshing.
Popularity & Reception
When it aired on cable networks MBN and Dramax from May 9 to June 28, 2018, Rich Man drew modest domestic TV ratings typical of a late‑night slot, but its afterlife has been bright online. Viewers discovered it through streaming and word‑of‑mouth, where its approachable tone and star power found a second wind.
On global platforms, the show has remained easy to find and easier to share. Rakuten Viki continues to host the series with a wide range of subtitle languages, a signal of sustained international interest and accessibility that keeps new fans arriving each month.
Critically, opinions have been varied in a way that tends to track with rom‑coms: some reviewers celebrate the wholesome comfort and workplace banter, while others wish for sharper dramatic stakes. That conversation, rather than a consensus, has helped the series endure—people watch, compare notes, and recommend it to friends seeking a low‑stress watch with sincere chemistry.
Audience metrics outside Korea show a steady base. On IMDb, Rich Man holds a 6.7/10 user score, a sign that viewers who press play generally find enough charm to keep going. The numbers won’t break records, but they do reflect exactly what the series promises: an amiable, feel‑good journey that rewards you for staying.
Perhaps the most telling bellwether is its constant resurfacing in recommendation threads and watchlists—especially among fans of workplace romances, idol‑actor projects, and adaptation talk. The remake angle invites lively comparisons to its Japanese predecessor, but over time, Rich Man has stood on its own as an inviting, repeatable comfort watch.
Cast & Fun Facts
Suho steps into CEO Lee Yoo‑chan with a crisp, almost surgical precision—his focus is all algorithms and outcomes, and his blindness to faces becomes a metaphor for how success can blur the people who make it possible. You can feel him doing the math of human interaction, like he’s debugging a heart he never took time to build. It’s a clean fit for an idol‑actor who understands stage discipline and translates it into a character who breathes control.
It also marked a milestone for him: Rich Man was his first leading role in a full 16‑episode television series, and the transition from idol stages to drama sets is part of the show’s meta‑charm. Fans get to watch him loosen Yoo‑chan’s edges scene by scene—shoulders drop, eye contact lingers, trust becomes an intentional practice rather than a luxury he can’t afford.
Ha Yeon‑soo gives Kim Bo‑ra a backbone of quiet tenacity. She’s not a manic pixie dream assistant; she’s the coworker who remembers the details, keeps receipts, and chooses decency even when it costs her pride. In her orbit, meetings feel less hostile, and the show’s thesis—competence can be kind—starts to bloom.
Her performance carries the job‑hunter blues so many viewers recognize: the interviews that go nowhere, the skills you’re sure you have but struggle to prove, the moment a mentor finally sees you. It’s a return to television that uses Ha’s light touch to make Bo‑ra’s joy feel earned, especially as she learns to ask for what she deserves.
Oh Chang‑seok plays Min Tae‑joo, the co‑founder and vice president who knows the company’s soul and the CEO’s blind spots. He’s the drama’s crucial buffer—translator, truth‑teller, and occasional rival—whose warmth with juniors sets the series’ mentorship theme. When he’s in frame, the office feels like a community rather than a competition.
Across the season, his dynamic with Yoo‑chan shifts from steady ballast to moral counterweight. Oh threads that evolution with empathy, allowing disappointment to register without melodrama. It’s a portrait of friendship at work—the kind that survives product failures and pride, and still shows up for launch day.
Kim Ye‑won is magnetic as Min Tae‑ra, the polished curator whose self‑assurance hides a tender capacity for loyalty. She’s a foil and a mirror: someone who knows the cost of ambition and still chooses to want things out loud. In a series that often lives at the office, her world provides texture and color—gallery light instead of monitor glow.
As Tae‑ra’s feelings and family ties complicate the corporate chessboard, Kim turns what could have been a stock second lead into a person with boundaries, humor, and bite. Her scenes help the show explore how love and work overlap in messy, human ways without punishing women for having range.
Park Sung‑hoon appears as programmer Cha Do‑jin, a talented up‑and‑comer whose confidence needles the boss and nudges the romance. He’s the kind of colleague who makes you better by forcing you to articulate why you think the way you do, and his presence adds spark to Bo‑ra’s growth.
What’s fun is how Park plays status games with a smile—ambition, yes, but also genuine craft. He keeps the workplace plotline lively, earning a place in the memory of fans who first discovered him here before his breakout turns in later projects.
Behind the camera, director Min Doo‑sik and writers Hwang Jo‑yoon and Park Jung‑ye adapt the beloved Japanese blueprint while leaning into Korean workplace rhythms and emotional candor. Their version trusts small gestures—returning a badge, recognizing a voice, choosing to stay late—to carry big feelings. That restraint, set against a bright startup canvas, is why Rich Man lingers after the finale.
Conclusion / Warm Reminders
If you’ve ever needed a drama that believes people can learn to see each other, Rich Man is your after‑hours companion. Brew some tea, press play on Viki, and let its gentle humor keep you company while you map out practical life stuff—from choosing the best credit cards for your monthly streaming subscriptions to penciling in that trip you’ve been postponing and double‑checking your travel insurance. And if you’re navigating new jobs, new cities, or even student loan refinancing, it’s soothing proof that growth can be tender, not just tough. When the credits roll, you may find it a little easier to recognize the courage in your own routines.
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