Wonderful World
원더풀월드
MBC (2024) 14 Episodes
Streaming On Disney+ / HULU
Revenge, Mystery, Thriller
Grade: A+
Korean Drama Review by Jill, USA
(Some Spoilers)
An intense, often dark melodrama with underlying themes of criminal intrigue and revenge, Wonderful World (2024) stars an excellent, well-experienced cast of thespians who will lure you into their characters' volatile stories immediately! I was very addicted to this story about mostly well meaning characters who become trapped in a dark circle of revenge due to a cruel tragedy against an innocent child.
Some fans might call this drama makjang style - Korean word for soap opera - but I think the moral lessons it teaches about forgiveness and redemption are outside the realm of your typical dragged-out soap opera. We only have fourteen episodes here; it didn't need the more typical sixteen to twenty episodes to tell a memorable, concise story. The drama reached into the double digits in the television ratings in Korea, which for today's dramas is excellent, since there is so much more competition in drama-making today compared to a decade or two ago when there were fewer stations in Korea making these entertainment gems.
Leading lady is Kim Nam Joo (Queen Of Reversals) and her two leading men were the younger Cha Eun Woo (Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung) and the older Kim Kang Woo, whom I had loved in The Item, The Slingshot aka Story Of A Man, Circle: Two Worlds Connected, Goodbye Mr. Black, and most of all in the masterpiece Missing Noir M, which I consider the very best crime solving melodrama I have ever seen in my entire life, from any nation. (I've lost count how many times I've re-watched Missing Noir M and I even own the DVD set!). Ahjussi Kang Woo will always give his audience a gripping performance in any role he plays! I must confess he is the main reason I decided to watch this drama to begin with and he gave yet another complex, riveting performance.
Then for our main villain we have the very versatile character actor Park Hyuk Kwon (Goodbye Earth, Behind Your Touch, Something In The Rain) who has brought to life both good characters and bad characters but always with a very slightly amusing, twisty style to him that makes him a delight to watch. I always smile when I see him in a cast list. He's the type of actor who improves a drama just by his presence in it.
The Story:
We meet an attractive woman in her thirties named Eun Soo Hyun (Kim Nam Joo) who is a psychology professor and a famous author with a seemingly stable and perfect life, happily married to devoted husband Kang Soo Ho (Kim Kang Woo), a television journalist / news anchor. Even their dog is named Happy, symbolizing their ideal lives.
However, one day Soo Hyun's nice life drastically changes for the worse because she loses the person dearest to her heart: her young son Kang Gun Woo (Lee Joon) dies tragically in an apparent hit and run car "accident". The person who hit the child, Kwon Ji Woong (Oh Man Seok), has the audacity to cover up his crime and lets the child die instead of rushing him to the hospital, where he might have lived if given proper medical attention.
Moreover, Kwon Ji Woong, the shady driver of the car, a money launderer for a contentious Congressional politician named Kim Joon (Park Hyuk Kwon), is not justly punished because of his lies about the "accident" but is set free (it's also obvious corrupt politician Kim Joon paid someone off in the court system to help his employee go free!). This makes Soo Hyun rightfully harbor a great deal of fury and resentment toward the legal and political system who denied her family true justice. She vows to confront her son's killer in any way possible, even if it endangers her own life, or the relationship with her husband, his mother Jung Myeong Hee (Gil Hae Yeon), or her own grieving family including her loving mother Goeun (Won Mi Kyung) and adopted sister (Lim Se Mi). She also blames herself as well for being distracted and not making sure to lock the front gate door to their home -- the young son would have remained safely inside the house if she had locked it. ("Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life." - Edward Rochester, Jane Eyre).
While in prison Soo Hyun befriends an older female inmate named Jang Hyung Ja (Kang Ae Shim) who is in prison for killing people due to a fire she set, and she is truly repentant of her crime. This Hyung Ja inmate is dying of cancer and she gives Soo Hyun a bunch of letters she wrote in diary form to the surviving son of the people she accidentally killed. Soo Hyun promises Hyung Ja she will find the lad once she is released from prison and that she will then turn over the letters in diary form to him.
Ultimately Soo Hyun takes matters into her own hands, confronts her son's killer on the street and demands he apologize to a portrait of her son that she holds in her arms. When he spitefully refuses to apologize she kills her son's murderer by hitting him with her own car. She is arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison. Her husband vows to stay faithful to her but Soo Hyun refuses to see him. She doesn't want to bind him to her own grief and destroyed life. She even has divorce papers made up and gives them to her visiting sister to give to the grieving husband she still loves. He doesn't sign; there is no divorce. As a journalist, husband Soo Ho becomes determined to uncover who was behind the suspended sentence of his son's killer, and ultimately discovers damaging details connected to Congressman Kim Joon, who wants to be President of Korea one day. Will the husband's life be in danger next?
When Soo Hyun is finally released from prison the first thing she does is visit the grave of her little son who died. There at the cemetery she meets a young man named Kwon Seon Yul (Cha Eun Woo) who is seemingly there to grieve over a deceased relative. It begins to rain and Seon Yul puts an umbrella over Soo Hyun's head and tells her to take it so she doesn't get soaked. She tries to refuse but he insists she take the umbrella and then he walks away into the rain alone.
Seon Yul is a lapsed medical student who currently works in construction and car maintenance jobs to support himself, and secretly he also works as a spy for certain politicians who want to obtain incriminating information on their rivals. When Soo Hyun researches the whereabouts of the young man she is looking for her search results point to the same person she met at the graveyard, Seon Yul. She is shocked but still tries to turn over her late friend's diary letters to him. He seems surprised to meet her and at first refuses to take the diary but eventually accepts it. He tells her he has no plans to forgive the person who destroyed his family. However, it seems fate keeps placing Soo Hyun in Seon Yul's path in life and eventually they even seem to grow closer. She even starts to feel like she's a caring guardian over his lonely life.
Meanwhile, Soo Hyun tries to heal and even reaches out to the husband she hadn't seen in years. Soo Ho tells her he has never forgotten her, never stopped loving her, that he had tried to move on but couldn't. They return to their old house, now in run down condition, but will their relationship grow into a successful marriage again or will it descend into recriminations and regrets due to so much separation time between them over seven years?
In their now frequent meetings this odd detective pair work together to solve the hidden mysteries of their past cases which resulted in the deaths of their loved ones. All roads seem to lead to one main criminal, that wannabe President of Korea, politician Kim Joon, who will stop at nothing to rid himself of the people who suspect his duplicity and corruption. Then even more shocking twists and turns in the story begin to try to imply that Seon Yeol is not whom he appears to be on the surface. Soo Hyun is shaken to her core when she begins to suspect Seon Yeol is not the son of the people who died in that fire but is in fact the son of the man who killed her own beloved son! Could Seon Yeol be pretending to care about Soo Hyun, to grow closer to her, when he actually wishes to harm her out of revenge?
This K-drama Wonderful World offers a story full of conflicts and challenging emotions, causing the audience to become immersed in an unforgettable experience of characters' healing and regeneration after suffering personal tragedies. Quite inspiring by The End. Great performances by everyone in the cast. I also enjoyed the beautiful cinematography and pretty OST. Don't miss it! Enjoy!
