Night Light

A Korean businesswoman bought up in Japan returns to Korea to rise to the top in the conglomerate world. Her father had been betrayed by two powerful people but is she out for revenge or is she just interested in reaching the top whatever the cost. An enjoyable series but the reasoning behind the actions of some of the players seem suspect. Well acted and good female leads taking on the male dominated world of big business.

This show puts on display all the worst of Korean dramas. The basic plot concerns the efforts of a ruthless woman (Lee Yo-Won) to dominate the business and even political world she lives in and her relationship with a younger woman (Uee), whom she hires, mentors, discards, befriends and oppresses in that order and then not in that order and on and on. There is also a suggestion that a romantic relationship from student days might rekindle, a suggestion that goes nowhere. So want went wrong? Well, just about everything. First, the writer's powers of invention failed long before the 20+ hours were up, so that the same ideas and dialog were recycled over and over. The plot calls for everyone to double cross everyone else but over and over again, the protagonists commit the same stupid mistakes of trusting each other that defy credibility. Lee Yo-won has two male subordinates who are regularly unable to prevent one of her ruthless opponents from kidnapping and manhandling her or Uee. Not once does she feel the need to beef up her security. Next, the amount of portentous dialog over endless cups of tea or coffee or cheap restaurant meals is insufferable. And one of the most annoying tropes of Asian drama, characters delivering themselves of pompous rhetoric and walking away without waiting for an answer, is repeated here again and again. How convenient too that the villains always seem to be able to summon at will supine prosecutors to arrest or harass their opponents. The costuming is also ludicrous. Indoors or out, everyone, male or female, lead character or supporting character, is wearing heavy winter coats in just about every single scene. Uee in particular is the ultimate coat horse - for a supposedly impoverished woman, I never once saw her in the same designer coat. What were the makers of the series trying to tell us? Perhaps I am just dense, but the coats soon became an irritating distraction. The show offers microscopic hints of romance, but does nothing with them. Our comely female leads and rather handsome male leads show only homeopathic levels of interest in each other, which peter out long before the show grinds to a close. And what an ending . . . it wasn't. No real climax, no denouement, just a damp blanket thrown over the corpse of the story.

It is a very long and boring Kdrama. There is no chemistry with the leads. It was good at first 30 minutes and went downhill from there. My rating is just for Jung Hae-in alone. That is the only reason why I watched upto 12 episodes and watched the end.

This Korean drama is set in the world of big business where various characters vie for power; both financial and political. Seo Bong-soo has recently returned to Korea and is determined to have her revenge on three powerful men who wronged her father. Lee Se-jin is a poor woman who wants to improve her life but is intent on stopping Bong-soo, who she has befriended, from using unscrupulous methods to reach her goal. Park Gun-woo is the son of a businessman and knew Bong-soo when they both lived in Japan several years previously.

I rather enjoyed this series. It is certainly character driven with far more talking than action. In fact most scenes are just people talking so if, like me, you don't understand Korean you are in for a lot of reading. The characters are interesting. Some, like Se-jin are clearly good and likeable; some are clearly power seekers with not scruples and others are morally ambiguous. The cast does a fine job making these characters believable throughout. While there isn't much physical danger there are some tense scenes. Overall a solid drama if not a must see.

These comments are based on watching the series in Korean with English subtitles.

So very very very boooooring. Embarrassing servility of the one female actor that might have upgraded the story. Ms Seo has her everyday mask on and seems to read the texts. No coherent narrative.