Presentation
Korean Title: 부부의 세계
Aired in: 2020 (16 episodes)
Channel: JTBC
Grade: 10/10
Actors: Kim Hee Ae, Park Hae Joon and Han So Hee
For more…
Kim Hee Ae:
– Love Affairs
– Second to Last Love
– Mrs Cop
– Midas
Park Hae Joon:
– Arthdal Chronicles
– Misaeng
– My Beautiful Bride
– Wanted
Korean remakes of foreign TV shows:
– Criminal Minds
– Designated Survivor: 60 Days
– Entourage
– Less than Evil
Analysis
Synopsis
Ji Sun Woo leads the perfect life. She is an associate director in a town called Gosan, has a great reputation, excellent friends, a good son and a loving husband Lee Tae Oh. However, one day her bliss is shattered, when she discovers that her husband is having an affair with a younger woman. This is beginning of the end for Sun Woo, who embarks on a vengeful journey against Lee Tae Oh.
My Opinion (No Spoilers)
Amazing!
I am not going to lie, the remake of the very acclaimed British series Doctor Foster is a masterpiece! It is a JTBC drama so of course I was expected a very original plot with very complex characters and a particular atmosphere. Once again, the channel didn’t disappoint me, as I got to be myself involved in the conflictual and yet passionate relationship of Sun Woo and Tae Oh.
All actors perfectly played their part, with credible emotions, so no wonder this drama broke JTBC’s viewership record, surpassing the notorious Sky Castle.
Every week, I surprised myself eagerly waiting for the next adventures of Gosan’s inhabitants, whose life is following the ups and downs of our main couple’s marriage. The twists were well brought, the suspense and the tension made me stress out so bad, that I was already panicking before even starting the next episode!
Kim Hee Ae portrays with perfection this elegant, majestic and witty woman; Park Hae Joon transmits us faithfully his character’s dilemmas and, omg Han So Hee is THE revelation of the year 2020! She is the perfect mistress, split between one the one side her love for Lee Tae Oh and on the other side, her conscious telling her that she can’t entirely trust him.
The OSTs are justly adapted to the confusing emotions and I just can’t find anything in the realization of the actors’ play that is to be criticized. The only downside is the length of the episodes: 1 hour 30 approximatively, but the end of episode 1 will hook you up for the rest of the drama! Don’t be scared of the format!
If you don’t want to miss of one the biggest hits of 2020, I highly advice you to definitely go watch it! Like, right now!
(Warning: it is a 19-rated drama, well Korean-style, so be prepared to see hotter love scenes)
Analysis (Spoiler Alert)
Characters:
Ji Sun Woo (played by Kim Hee Ae) is a brilliant doctor, who lost her parents when she was still a kid and had to raise herself up to the level she is at now. She is a fighting and witty woman, who doesn’t crumble at the first obstacle. She is a very devoted wife and mother, an supports her husband in his ambitious cinematographic projects, either mentally or financially. To me, she is too kind and accepts to pay for all of her husband’s expenses and she never holds it against it. She loves him, that’s why she is willing to act as such. I admire that kind of devotion, since raising a son, taking care of her husband, their house and having a career as a doctor requires a lot of work and multi-tasking abilities. But that capacity to adapt to change and evolve in a tough environment enables her to stand strong in the face of adversity and get what she desires.
I consider her as a role model, working to support her family and still managing to make time for her two men; even though they are two ungrateful people, who dare criticize her and tell her she is never there (Duh, of course, she works to bring food on the table for you!).
At some point, I feared she would mentally crumble but giving up is not part of her strong-willed and stubborn personality. She shows weaknesses (because she is a human being also) but doesn’t let them kill her! Ji Sun Woo is a complex character, who is capable of the best as much as the worst (sacrificing her own happiness for her family’s versus sleeping with her best friend’s husband to get her revenge). She also has a problem to let go of things and is obstinate, which can really help as well as handicap her in the drama.
The one thing that attracted my attention very quickly regarding Sun Woo is that she is a very solitary character and she doesn’t trust people easily (for goods reason though!) but she is very touching at the same time. Seeing that no one is on her side and she is surrounded by enemies everywhere made me want to be her confident and support her unconditionally. The only character close to a friend she has had, is Min Hyun Seo (played by Shim Eun Woo) – the mistreated woman – and by the end go the story, the psychiatrist Kim Yoon Ki (Lee Moo Saeng).
I think the Ji Sun Woo and Min Hyun Seo met at a crossroad of each other’s lives: they were both feeling betrayed and disrespected by their own lover, which created a bond between them. Plus, Sun Woo, as an empathetic doctor wanted to reach out to her and free her from a situation, she found herself prisoner of. Their unusual friendship is heartwarming, even tough both make mistakes, but we also feel solidarity towards them.
As for Kim Yoon Ki, he unfortunately started on the opposing side of Sun Woo but quickly understood the unfairness and injustice of her situation, which pushed him towards her. The positive point is that he is not pushy and doesn’t force her to talk to him, he lets her express her bottled up feelings plainly, which lifts a heavy weight from Sun Woo’s shoulders sometimes. He observes her a lot and his compassionate feelings for her helps him prevent one unfortunate tragedy. He is more of a supporting shadow in Sun Woo’s life, but at least she knows there is someone she can lean on if needed. In spite of that, Sun Woo is absolutely not the type to reach out for help and prefer dealing with her problems by herself.
Lee Tae Oh (Park Hae Joon) is Sun Woo’s husband. I am going to be honest, I simply hate him! Not because he cheats on his wife (which is reason enough to despise him) but because every time he has a chance to set things right for his family (both) and himself, he ends up making an egoistic decision, that blows everything up. For example, instead of living a new life with his new family, he chooses to go back to Gosan to get back at Sun Woo and destroys everything. Karma is a tough thing though, since he looses everything by the end for wanting to have it all. His indecisiveness is simply annoying, as he goes back and forth between women, children, families and right and wrong actions. Moreover, I think his real problem is that he is a parasite and has never learned how to take care of himself. As he never fought for anything in his life, he is expecting to be given everything. But life is not that easy, most of the time, you need to fight to get and keep what you wish (either things or people). The situation he faces at the end is too me a situation he should’ve been confronted with a long time ago. He blew up his chances, so now he has to make up for it, by assuming the damages.
As you go further into the story, Lee Tae Oh will make you want to punch him in Sun Woo’s place, which would’ve been so satisfying!
The excellent Han So Hee plays the role of Lee Da Kyung, Tae Oh’s mistress, and without any bias, she plays it perfectly! Lee Da Kyung is the typical mistress character, who fell in love with an older man, promising her big things, but she was also deceived in the end. Lee Tae Oh’s inability to choose properly between women, pushes her to constantly compare herself to Sun Woo, to the point where it becomes an obsession. Sun Woo’s son representing the crystallizing element of that obsession. As a mother, she always puts her daughter before everyone else (like Sun Woo). The problem with that character is that she has been sheltered all her life – the common point with Tae Oh is that they never had to fight for anything like Sun Woo. Her relationship with Tae Oh is based on the simple fact that she expects him to give, unconditionally in an egoistic way, and so does he. That’s why it is so dysfunctional. When she realizes that Tae Oh is not the man she thought he was, she gives up everything and flees, under Daddy’s wings! Such an immature reaction (same as having an affair and wanting her man to leave his wife right away), but her younger age makes it understandable! In spite of that, she still understands that she doesn’t have to condemn herself with Tae Oh and has a life ahead of her, so she can have a fresh start and forget those past few years!
Lee Tae Oh thought he had found in Da Kyung a younger replica of Sun Woo, but Da Kyung lacks Sun Woo’s fiery spirit and combativeness, simply because they don’t have the same background!
Other characters are also quite interesting such as the married couple Ko Ye Rim (Park Sun Young) and Son Je Hyuk (Kim Young Min), who first are terrible friends and second live in a lie. They hide their problems and don’t want to confront them! Je Hyuk always cheats on his wife pronouncing the famous sentence “there are two types of men: those who have an affair and are not discovered and those who have an affair and are actually discovered”. In my opinion, this clearly explains his mentality and Ye Rim is a coward, afraid of ending up alone, with no kids and no husband. Because of that she says nothing. Yet, I appreciated seeing Ye Rim grow up in the drama and becoming an independent woman, who is not afraid of being alone anymore. Too bad for Je Hyuk, who finally had changed, but too late, and ends up losing what was in fact dearest to him! Like I sais, beware of karma!
I also would like to applaud Lee Hak Joo’s performance, playing Park In Kyu, the abusive boyfriend. He has abandon issues and thinks that loving someone means controlling that person. Plus, he doesn’t trust people easily and has a lot of repressed anger. All of that turning him into a seriously complex and interesting character, manipulative and intelligent, that proves to be a real pain in the a** until the bitter end.
Sul Myung Sook (played by Chae Gook Hee) embodies this horrible supposedly best friend (Sun Woo’s) but showing all the bad sides of being a friend (well, I don’t think she is her friend actually, she is more like a rival)! However, and this needs to be mentioned, she shines and courageously fights gender discrimination, by becoming this feminist doctor shattering the old-fashioned tradition of women’s place in society! Big up to that moment, it was incredible to watch and really empowering!
Finally, I wanted to finish with the worse character of the drama, the one I have hated with all my might throughout the episodes: Lee Joon Young (Jeon Jin Seo), Tae Oh and Sun Woo’s son. In a nutshell, he is an ungrateful, immature and egoistic son(very close to his father’s personality in fact). Until the end, he made me want to scream and I even prayed for Sun Woo to get rid of him (but she’s his mom, so not really possible). He is the reason why both parents ferociously fight each other, the reason why all families crumble. Plus, his leaving at the end without news was just too much to me. After all his mother did for him, that is how he thanks her! I understand if some people say that it was the only way to separate definitely Sun Woo and Tae Oh, by cutting all living ties between them, but that was just too much for me!
Ambiance: The ambiance is really realistic and I felt as his I was part of Sun Woo’s life and relationships. The beautiful direction of the drama made it impossible not to be totally immersed in the story, hating some and rooting for others! The suspenseful ending scenes of all episodes made my heart race every time. Well done!
What are the themes questioned?
Obviously, the main theme of the drama is marriage. Through the drama, we get to see different types of marriages: solid ones such as the Da Kyung’s parents; those full of lies (Ye Rim and Je Hyuk); those that came to an end (Sun Woo and Tae Oh/Tae Oh and Da Kyung) and even the lack of one (Myung Sook).
The drama even went further in my opinion by analyzing and portraying the consequences of marital decisions that can change an entire family’s dynamic.
The second and third themes refer to having an affair and divorce of course. Expressing the synergies and the accurate emotions conveyed by the drama would take too much time; so you should definitely watch it, if those themes interest you.
Moreover, it tackles central elements of South Korean society and culture, starting with the discrimination against divorcees and the place of woman in today’s reality, that has to be challenged.
Finally, the British series’ title stressed the main character Doctor Foster, while the Korean one highlighted the central theme of the drama, still confusing the viewer regarding whose married world we actually are talking about. Is it Tae Oh and Sun Woo’s? Tae Oh and Da Kyung’s? Their friends’? Are we talking about the difficulties of married life? What comes after it?
Personally, I still don’t know, but if I had to wildly guess I’d say all of them!
P.S: Kim Hee Ae’s fashion is flawless and that actress I knew nothing of, has become my new obsession! I am a fan!
Once Upon a Drama 