Wonderful World (Hulu)
Synopsis
A famous writer’s life is completely changed when her young son dies. When the culprit who killed her son isn’t properly punished, Soo-Hyun takes matters into her own hands. Those actions have a crushing domino effect on her life, the lives of everyone around her, and the culprit’s family. Is it possible to find healing once all is revealed?
Details
This drama doesn’t drop in the U.S. on Hulu until April 24th. If you like to binge you’ll be glad to know all 14 episodes will be available at once. I couldn’t wait till then so I went to the dark side to watch the two episodes each week as they aired in Korea.
This role is a different character than we’re used to seeing Cha Eun-Woo play. Ironically, I would put Wonderful World in the revenge category but it’s not all cut and dried, there are a lot of twists and turns. The story revolves around Eun Soo-Hyun and Kang Soo-Ho’s son Gun-Woo’s hit-and-run accident.
Commentary
Wonderful World has an old-school feel that I found a bit distracting. There are a lot of drawn-out scenes set to instrumental music meant to move the viewer. But it dragged the scenes out for me and took me out of the story. I’ve found K-dramas are masters when it comes to using slo-mo but in this drama, it felt overused and it took me away from the seriousness of the storyline instead of enhancing it.
Cha Eun-Woo can play dark. But they should’ve styled his character to match the grittiness of his personality. I felt they did Cha Eun-Woo a disservice by making him look too fresh for the character he was playing. Seon-Yul did a lot of work in a garage environment so his pretty face needed more than a smudge of grease. Maybe a little dirt under his fingernails, clothes that weren’t freshly laundered, and hair that didn’t look like he just came from a salon. Anything to make him not look so put together would’ve made his character feel more authentic. No doubt Cha Eun-Woo is hoping to diverge from his more typical good guy image with this role, but as people (and storylines) like to point out, he’s very handsome. If he’s to be seen as rough around the edges or rebellious the character’s style should reflect that.
Despite the styling, Cha Eun-Woo was able to give his character more depth through his facial expressions. Expressions are sometimes more important than the dialogue. The look in Cha Eun-Woo’s eyes made me not trust him, and sometimes there was a gleefulness about his expression that made me uncomfortable. That’s what made Seon-Yul believable to me.
Throughout this drama, it’s hard not to ponder and wonder what you might do if faced with a similar situation. How far would we go if one of our loved ones’ life was cut short unfairly and the culprit was not properly punished? Losing a child is a parent’s worst nightmare. Having your parent killed is also a nightmare. The collision of these two scenarios makes for an interesting premise.
Spoiler Alert
Don’t go any further if you don’t want to know what happens.
I didn’t find the one-night stand between Kang Soon-Ho and Han Yu-Ri believable. From everything we were shown Eun Soon-Hyun’s little sister worshiped the ground she walked on and her husband loved her deeply. This storyline was not developed enough to be plausible as presented. It felt predictably cliché in a lack of creativity sort of way.
I liked that they didn’t force a romance on Cha Eun-Woo. I was a little worried it was going to be a noona (older woman) romance. It was nice to see Cha Eun-Woo in a different type of role. I hope he continues to take on a variety of characters that allow him to stretch his acting ability.
I’m not familiar with Kim Nam-Joo. I wish I could say her performance really moved me but it felt a bit stiff. There was a lack of emotion in her expressions that I would expect to see from a mother who lost her young son so tragically. The eyes should speak volumes over any dialogue—or tears. I didn’t see that in Eun Soo-Hyun.
It was mostly Cha Eun-Woo that kept me curious enough to want to know how it would all turn out in the end. It isn’t a nailbiter type of drama but there’s just enough mystery to keep you coming back.
Cast
Kim Nam-Joo (Eun Soo-Hyun), Cha Eun-Woo (Kwon Seon-Yul), Kim Kang-Woo (Kang Soo-Ho), Lim Se-Mi (Han Yu-Ri), Park Hyuk-Kwon (Kim Joon), FULL CAST