Lawyers, Demons, and Time Travel – Down a K-Drama Rabbit Hole

I’ve spent the last month watching Korean dramas. I’d never had much interest in them before, even though my older sister is addicted to them and recommends shows she thinks I’d enjoy. It wasn’t until my latest visit to her over the July 4th weekend that I finally became interested in a show, which then led me down a rabbit hole of other shows

My sister has K-dramas playing 24/7 in her sewing room and kitchen. During this visit, she was replaying shows she’s watched before and had them on as background noise (I think). Sometime near the end of our visit, she called our other sisters and me to her sewing room because she wanted to show us one scene from a show she was watching. She wanted us to witness the depth of one character’s acting as she shows her vindictive side. The scene was from a show called Divorce Attorney Shin. As my sister explained the storyline, I became more intrigued.

When I returned from my visit, I found Divorce Attorney Shin on Netflix and dove in. The series’ overarching storyline involves the main character, Shin Sung Han, and his transition from piano prodigy and professor at a university in Germany, to a divorce attorney back home in Korea. His two best friends are Jan Hyung Geun, his office manager, and Jo Jeong Sik, a realtor whose office is in the same building as Shin’s law office. However, each episode also features a challenging divorce case. 

The first episode tells the story of a popular radio host who was fighting to keep her son following the shame of an embarrassing video of her appearing online and going viral. I won’t give away any spoilers. Each episode also gives us more insight into Shin’s determination to spend time with his nephew, who lived with his former brother-in-law and his new wife. We learn Shin’s sister, Ju Hwa, divorced her husband, who successfully fought for sole custody of their son, Gi Yeong. Heartbroken and following an upsetting phone call, Ju Hwa stepped into the street and was fatally struck by a truck. Like layers of an onion, as the series continues, we learn more about Ju Hwa’s story, the phone call, and who’s orchestrating the battle to keep Shin away from Gi Yeong. 

Meanwhile, as Jeong Sik and Huung Geun support their friend, we learn more about their own lives and struggles. A nearby ramen shop and its’ manager, a woman named Kim So Yeon, come to play integral roles in all of the characters’ lives. I won’t say any more about the show, but will confess to ugly crying during each episode. The actors who play Shin Sung Han (Cho Seung Woo), Jo Jeong Sik (Jung Moon Sung), and Jang Hyong Guen (Kim Sung Kyun) are stellar, each possessing a depth of emotion that jumps through the screen. Supporting cast members Han Hye Jin, who plays shamed radio host Lee Seo Jin in Episode 1; Kang Mal Geum, who plays ramen shop manager Kim So Yeon; and Noh Susannah, who plays Jin Young Joo, Shin’s ex-brother-in-law’s current wife, also give stellar performances, making you love (Seo Jin and So Yeon) and hate (Young Joo) in equal measure.

STRANGER

After I finished Divorce Attorney Shin, I looked up Cho Seung Woo’s other films and TV shows. I selected a gritty series called Stranger, about a prosecutor teaming up with a detective to solve a series of grisly murders.

Cho Seung Woo plays Hwang Si Mok, a prosecutor who is unable to feel empathy (you learn why in the first few minutes of the first episode). He also is somewhat of a profiler.  Bae Doona plays Detective Yeo Jin, who has empathy to spare. They make somewhat of an odd couple, but we see her trying to draw smiles or any signs of emotional life from Si Mok before learning about the circumstances that left him emotionless.

As the storyline unfolds, we learn that Si Mok is also investigating corruption at the highest levels of the police and prosecuting departments, including his boss, Seo Dong Jae, played by Lee Joon Hyuk. This series plays out over two seasons, a rarity in Korean television. Most K-dramas wrap up within one season, but the storylines were so intense and intricate, they called for two seasons.

There are many stellar supporting cast members, but I won’t list all of them. This is a huge cast, and everyone contributes to the story. However, I will say to keep an eye on Young Eun Soo, a young prosecutor in Si Mok’s office.

You can watch Stranger on Netflix.

Note: If you watched the series Sense8, you might recognize Doona as Sun.

LIFE

I decided to check out one more series featuring Cho Seung Woo and landed on one called Life, which takes place at a teaching hospital (Sangkook University Hospital). Cho plays Koo Seung Hyo, the hospital’s new CEO and high-ranking employee of a company called Hwajeong, whose leaders plan to privatize the hospital and close vital departments. 

Seung Hyo is expected to make the changes, but he’s opposed by key hospital staffers, including ER doctor Ye Jin Woo (played by Lee Dong Wook), and department chiefs Lee No Eul/Pediatrics (played by Won Jin Ah), Joo Kyung Moon/Cardiothoracic Surgery (played by Yoo Jae Myung), Oh Se Hwa/Neurosurgery (played by Moon So Ri), Kim Tae Sang/Orthopedics & current Deputy Director (played by Moon Sung Keun), Sun Woo Chang/Transplant Coordinator (played by Tae In Ho), Lee Bo Hoon/Psychiatry & former Director (played by Chun Ho Jin), and ER Chief Lee Dong Soo (played by Kim Won Hae).

There’s a lot of in-fighting because, in addition to having new owners and CEO, several were vying to fill the Director’s position, left empty since the director died suddenly. This series is worth watching because of the relationship between Jin Woo and his brother Ye Seon Woo, a former orthopedic surgeon now working as a judge (investigator) at the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service, as well as Seung Hyo’s changing attitude about the hospital, and his overbearing and somewhat dangerous boss, Jo Nam Hyung, nastily played by Jung Moon Sung, who played Divorce Attorney Shin’s goofy friend, realtor Jeong Sik. I also love Seung Hyo’s able assistant and office manager, Kang Kyong Ah (excellently portrayed by Yeom Hye Ran. Remember this name).

Watch Life on Netflix.

AWAKEN

The next series that caught my eye was Awaken, another Netflix series. This show introduced me to Namkoong Min, who plays Do Jung Woo, a detective inspector who puts together a specialized team to track a serial killer who sends riddles before each death, daring police to solve each riddle in time to save the victim. His team includes Yoon Seiok Pil (Choi Dae Chul), Jan Ji Wan (Lee Shin Young), and Kim Seol Hyun as Gong Hye Won, the newest addition to the team who is keen to prove herself. 

The murders appear to be linked to White Night Village, which housed an orphanage where children were used as test subjects. The village burned to the ground twenty years before, but key staff, including former leader Son MIn Ho (Choi Jin Ho), are still around. 

Things get interesting when the police chief invites an FBI profiler named Jamie Leighton (Lee Chung Ah) to help with the case. She befriends a young man she meets in a grocery store with a ramen counter. His guardian locks him in his room, which is filled with computer equipment, and randomly lets him out to visit the grocery store and eat ramen. He offers to help Jamie with a computer program, and the viewer may wonder whether there’s more to this accidental meeting than meets the eye. 

As this series progresses, we learn more about Jung Woo, Jamie, Hye Won, and the young man, and the storyline comes to a shocking conclusion.

This was not an easy watch. It’s dark and, in places, heartbreaking. I recommend it because of the strong acting by, and chemistry between, Namkoong Min and Kim Seol Hyun. Yoon Sun Woo, who plays the mysterious young man, also gives a stellar performance, along with Yoon Kyung Ho, who plays dogged reporter Lee Ji Wook.

This is a short synopsis because I don’t want to inadvertently give any spoilers. 

THE UNCANNY COUNTER

I wanted to lighten things up a little after watching Awaken, so I turned to The Uncanny Counter, a fantasy series about a ragtag team of demon fighters who receive special powers from the souls of former demon fighters who possess their bodies.

Headquarters for the Uncanny Counters is a ramen shop run by Chu Mae Ok, wonderfully played by Yeom Hye Ran (Ms. Kang from Life). She serves as a kind of mother hen to Ga Mo Tak (Yoo Jun Sang), a cook who doesn’t remember his past, and Do Ha Na (Kim Se Jeong). We learn that former demon fighters possessed each of these characters while in comas. As the series progresses, we learn more about each character, including how they were injured and the demon hunters who possess them. 

The series begins with the Uncanny Counters fighting a demon, which kills one of them. The Counter zooms around, searching for a body to inhabit. It comes to reset inside a  high school student who survived a car accident that killed his parents and brother. So Mun (Jo Byeong Ku) is left with an injured leg and walks using a crutch. He and his two best friends spend their spare time creating superheroes. After the demon hunter’s soul slams into his body, Mun discovers he has superpowers, and his limp has vanished. The Uncanny Counters find him and offer to train him. After thinking about it (and beating up a group of bullies who target younger kids for their lunch money), he decides to join the team. However, it becomes challenging for Mun to control his temper and think before leaping into action.

During this series, we learn more about the various levels of demons and the breadth of the Uncanny Counters’ powers. We also learn about an uncanny connection between Mun and Mo Tak. As with Stranger, The Uncanny Counters runs two seasons and teaches valuable life lessons with each episode. Again, stellar performances from all the main characters, as well as the demons, led by Kang Ki Young as Hwan Pil Kwang.

Watch The Uncanny Counter on Netflix.

RUGAL

After I finished The Uncanny Counter, Netflix suggested I might like a crime thriller called Rugal. Rugal begins with the grisly murder of a police officer’s wife. The attack also blinded him. The way the crime scene is set up, guilt points to the officer, Kang Gi Beom (Choi Jin Hyuk), and he is jailed. 

A mysterious figure helps him escape, and he learns the orchestrator of the escape is his former boss, who’d retired from the force and set up a special team to investigate corruption within the police force and the crime boss running the city. The team consists of three other members who, like Gi Beom, were injured. Han Tae Kwoong (Jo Don Hyuk) received a bionic arm to replace his injured limb, while Lee Gwang Cheol received mechanical innards covered by a steel shell under the skin of his abdomen. The third member, Son Mi Na (Jung Hye-In), did not receive any bionic parts but is naturally athletic and a strong fighter. She was one of Gi Beom’s former colleagues and survived an assassination attempt by criminals, although the attack put her in a coma for several months.

Gi Beom undergoes surgery to receive high-tech eyes, which act as virtual reality glasses and allow him to access unlimited information. After he heals from surgery, he begins physical training. Once he’s deemed ready, he and the team set out to find the criminals behind the attack that killed his wife, blinded him, and framed him for her murder. 

Like other thrillers, there are many twists and turns in this series. Their main nemesis, Hwang Deuk Gu (Park Sung Woo), seems also to have superhuman powers.

Like the other series, I’ll stop here so I don’t inadvertently give away any spoilers. There are LOTS of twists and turns. Strong performances by all the cast members mentioned, as well as Jang In Sub, who plays tech wizard Bradley, make this series work.

THE VEIL

After watching Rugal, none of the shows Netflix suggested appealed to me, so I googled Namkoong Min to see where I might watch some of his other shows. The gritty thriller The Veil appealed to me, so I searched for a streaming site to watch it. I found it on KOCOWA, a service on Amazon Prime Video, where one can watch shows for free with ads, or subscribe for a small monthly fee to watch ad-free. I chose the subscription route, because I didn’t want to watch an intense thriller interrupted by commercial breaks. I’m glad I did.

The Veil stars Min as Han Ji Hyuk, known as the best field agent in the NIS (the Korean version of the CIA or MI6). After disappearing for a year while on assignment in China, he turns up on a human smuggling boat looking like a caveman. We learn the assignment ended with Ji Hyuk’s two partners dead, along with several drug cartel members

Even though he’s obviously suffering from PTSD and has no memory of the past year, his bosses put him back into action, though assigning him to desk duty within the Criminal Integration Center. Ji Hyuk’s got other plans. We learn he deliberately erased his memories from the past year (and learn why) but remembers not to trust anyone at NIS headquarters, convinced someone at the highest level is a traitor. 

A young but eager agent transferred to the Center offers to help Ji Hyuk. Yoo Je Yi (Kim Ji Eun) has her own reasons for wanting to partner with him, not least of all because she wants to climb the NIS ladder and become a full-fledged NIS field agent. He reluctantly accepts her help. She doesn’t back away, even when drug cartel leaders target him for killing their soldiers. 

This is a tense series, and I couldn’t guess who the traitor was because there were strong reasons to suspect each of the NIS leaders on Ji Hyuk’s list. Like the other crime thrillers I watched, The Veil includes many twists and turns, and just when you think you have it figured out, another turn takes your mind in a different direction.

Strong performances and great fight scenes enhance this series. I read that Namkoon Min seriously bulked up for his role, thinking the top NIS field agent should look like he could kick ass. His transformation sparked accusations of steroid use, which he vehemently denied. However he bulked up, the results look good and work well for this role.

SISYPHUS: THE MYTH

I returned to Netflix for my next K-drama, a dystopian, time-traveling thriller called Sisyphus: The Myth. This series stars Cho Seung Woo as Han Tae Sul, a brilliant tech wizard. The first episode begins in the future, where a young woman is preparing to travel back to the year 2020. Gan Seo Hae (Park Shin Hye) is on a mission to find and protect a man named Han Tae Sul, but her father warns her to keep away from him. 

The scene cuts to the present day, where Tae Sul is aboard a plane that plunges into peril after an object strike kills one engine and opens a hole in the windshield, killing the pilot. Tae Sul jumps into action, MacGuyvering a solution to fix the broken windshield and restart an instrument that died during the incident. With help from a shell-shocked co-pilot, he brings the plane to a hard but safe landing. 

When he arrives home from the hospital, we learn that not only is Tae Sul a tech wizard, he’s also a billionaire whose company, Quantum and Time, is behind a number of tech discoveries. He shirks board meetings and has his best friend, Eddie Kim (Kim Seung Boik, played by Tae In Ho), brief him on happenings. He doesn’t pay attention even when Eddie warns him that the board is ready to remove him as CEO. We learn Tae Sul is deeply grieving his brother, Han Tae San (Heo Joon Seok), and is taking different types of pills (antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, etc.) to function. 

Things come to a head at a convention, when we see several alien-looking beings appear in the convention center, along with oblong cases, and realize these are assassins sent to kill Tae Sul. Seo Hae also arrives in time to yell at Tae Sul to get down. He does, as his bodyguard jumps in front of him, taking the bullet meant for his boss. Tae Sul is grazed in the ear and falls down. Seo Hae runs down to the stage to drag him to safety and engages in a firefight with the assassin. Guards think she’s kidnapping Tae Sul and go after her, but she escapes, taking Tae Sul with her.

This begins an action-packed cat-and-mouse game, and we learn more about why Seo Hae is adamant about saving him. We also learn that South Korea in the future has been destroyed by a nuclear attack from North Korea, with only pockets of survivors fighting for whatever food and medical supplies they can find, along with a massive piece of technology people can use to travel back in time. We also learn a specialized government unit called The Control Bureau tracks down time travelers and eliminates them, along with any normal humans who’ve come in contact with them. We also meet a small group of people called Brokers, who track incoming travelers and help them assimilate, in exchange for the contents of the suitcases they bring. They also want to track Tae Sul because he has a key to his brother’s safe, which the brokers have in their possession. And a group (or is it one person) called Sigma, wants Tae Sul dead.

How do Tae Sul and Seo Hae survive with so many people on their heels? And who can Tae Sul trust when even his best friends act shady? And what is it about Tae Sul that makes Seo Hae want to protect him when so many want him dead? And how can Tae Sul and Seo Hae stop a nuclear war, set to break out in just a few days, turning South Korea into a desolate landscape?

This gripping series answers these questions and much more over the space of one season. There are strong performances from so many of the cast, including Chae Jong Heop, who plays “Sun” (Choi Jae Sun), a restaurant worker and the first person Seo Hae meets.

ONE DOLLAR LAWYER

I needed a palate cleanser after sitting through a series focused on the end of civilization in South Korea and a deadly race for freedom, so I decided to check out K-Dramas on Hulu. I found a light-hearted series called, One Dollar Lawyer, starring Namkoong Min and his costar from The Veil, Kim Ji Eun. Min plays Chun Ji Hoon, a brilliant attorney who charges his clients only 1,000 won (equivalent to one dollar). Kim plays Baek Ma Ri, a wealthy law school student who loses the final case of her internship to Min, then learns her grandfather will not allow her to apprentice in his prominent law firm. Instead, she must prove herself by apprenticing in Ji Hoon’s law office, a shabby place in a rundown building. 

It’s refreshing to see these two act opposite each other in a comedy after watching them in an intense, dark thriller. Park Jin Woo, who played a CIC workmate of Min and Kim in The Veil, portrays Sa Mu Jang, Ji Hoon’s bumbling friend and office manager. 

From the way the series has begun, this will most likely end up as a romantic comedy of sorts. I’m only three episodes in, but Min and Kim’s acting and chemistry hold the series together, so I’m okay with that. 

Do you have a favorite K-Drama (or a list of favorites)? Share them in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.