About Crash Course in Romance
Crash Course in Romance (Korean title Iltayi Sinhwa, sometimes rendered as The Myth of Master Choi) is a 2023 South Korean romantic comedy that aired on tvN over sixteen episodes. Set against the high-pressure backdrop of Korea's private after-school tutoring industry, the series follows Nam Haeng-seon, a former national handball star who has traded competitive sport for the steady work of running a popular side-dish shop in the Daechi-dong neighborhood famous for its cram schools. Practical, warm, and fiercely devoted to her family, she becomes invested in the academic future of her niece and is pulled into the orbit of the area's most sought-after instructor.
That instructor is Choi Chi-yeol, a celebrity math teacher whose lectures are broadcast to enormous audiences and whose name alone can shift a student's prospects. Brilliant but burned out, he suffers from anxiety and a fragile appetite that have left him isolated despite his fame. When he discovers that food from Haeng-seon's shop is one of the few things he can comfortably eat, a transactional arrangement gradually warms into genuine companionship. The drama charts their slow, often comic progression from wary acquaintances to partners who steady each other through professional pressure and personal doubt.
Alongside its central love story, the series offers a pointed and frequently funny look at the obsessions of Korea's education race, the ambitions of pushy parents, and the toll that competition takes on teenagers. A lighter mystery thread runs in the background and tightens toward the finale, but the heart of the show remains its humor, its found-family warmth, and the tender, hard-won romance between two people learning to trust again. The series was a major ratings success for tvN and reached international viewers through streaming.