Love and Leashes (Netflix)

This is Korean rom com that takes, as the rather unlikely basis for its romance, BDSM.

A young career woman has never found romance. When the hot new man with the remarkably similar name transfers into her department she’s as interested as all the other women, but figures she has no chance.

That similarity in names gives us the delayed meet-cute - a package for him is given to her by a lazy guy in the post room, she doesn’t check properly and opens it to find… a heavily studded collar. He tries to pass it off as a dog collar, and might have got away with it, but the box spills and a flyer for the BDSM place comes out.

After some miscommunication, she realises she’s interested, he admits he would very much like to submit to her and they sign a temporary D/s contract.

Although she’s a n00b, she’s diligent in her research. His level of experience is unclear - he’s clearly got more of a clue but while he’s shown at times to be what I’d consider to be a pretty heavy pain slut, deeply into things that I consider to be pretty advanced in terms of things subs get into, at others it’s certainly suggested he’s never really had that much chance to explore this side of himself. Because they’ve signed a contract that’s “no sex” we’re spared that, and from a purely D/s and SM perspective (they spin over those two aspects) many of the scenes we see play out are pretty damn hot. At least they are if that’s your thing.

The comedy arises from random other situations in the main. When it does arise from BDSM play, it’s not poking fun at the BDSM it’s at situations arising from it rather than at the play itself. There’s one scene where they go out in public, handcuffed together for example. There’s a batch of slapstick comedy around being handcuffed together but they don’t ever say “two adults handcuffed together in public, what a funny idea, laugh at them.” It might be a subtle distinction, but an important one.

I disagree with some of their declarative statements. “You can never make BDSM work in a romantic relationship.” That’s the only way I have ever made it work. There’s a conflation of rope bondage and shibari too, they’re not synonymous, at least outside of Japan.

However, I had low expectations of this film. It’s styled as a rom com and I found myself laughing along at the right places. It’s billed at a BDSM film, and there’s a not inaccurate and hot portrayal of things I recognised as BDSM. Yes, not huge, long, intricate scenes that you might have had in a different genre of movie, but more recognisably BDSM like it is done than the abomination that is 50 Shades of Grey.

Not everyone is going to like this, but I really did.

Bechdel Test: Pass. There are a lot of conversations between women. Given it’s a rom com, a lot of them are about men. But, there are conversations about work, dogs and all sorts of other things.

Ko Test: Null. This is K-drama, well I might be using the term drama loosely, but it’s still Korean in origin, so there are loads of Korean women, but they talk Korean, as they should.

Russo Test: Fail. There’s no gay best friend or similar as you might see in a Hollywood rom com, everyone is straight.