Love comes in all flavors. Secret Ingredient is the story of a Korean man who gives up his entire luxurious life in Seoul in search of his childhood girlfriend, someone he’s never forgotten all these years, in the hopes that she would fall in love with him, not for who they were back then or who they are now, but for what they can aspire to be: happy, fulfilled and blissfully in love with one another.
A romantic film about a man struggling with a painful past as he tries to move forward, only to discover that the woman in his present life has an uncanny connection to his past. Together, they navigate the complexities of love, heartbreak, and healing, all against the backdrop of cultural and identity differences in the foreign city.
Yuki Rio, the daughter of an old, prestigious family in Kyoto with over 1,000 years of history, enters into an arranged marriage at the age of 16 with a man she’s never met. Her husband is Takamine Masatomo, a handsome CEO in the IT industry. Every year on her birthday, she would receive 50 million yen, making their relationship one based solely on money. One day, after ten years had passed with no contact, Rio decided to move to Tokyo. She asks her husband, whom she’s meeting for the first time, for a divorce. On the other hand, Takamine finds himself unexpectedly attracted to Rio and doesn’t want a divorce. Thus begins a romantic battle between a wife who wants a divorce and a husband who refuses to let her go.
Matsumura Ryouko is a popular novelist in her 50s who has just found out that she has Alzheimer’s disease. In order to gain some fulfilment in her life, she decides to be a guest lecturer at a university. Through one of her students, she meets a South Korean exchange student, So Chan Hae. As they become closer, they fall in love.
Singer Hyeon Seok develops problems with his hearing (Menieres syndrome) and has to stop his recordings. He notices a picture of Hokkaido in a magazine and decides to travel there. He eventually arrives in a a small village in Hokkaido for rest. While there, he reminisces about the old days. The owner of the inn offers him a Japanese meal. There he meets a bright cheerful girl named Megumi.
