My crack drama right now is Honey Lee’s new show, One the Woman, about a crooked prosecutor and a chaebol daughter-in-law who look alike and are mistaken for each other. She is a lot like her character in The Fiery Priest, but this time she is funny. It is also funny that the title in Korean can be pronounced either as “One the Woman” or as “Wonder Woman.” We have four reasons why you should watch this show.
Reason #1: Honey Lee’s moxie
To begin with, let me warn you that you need to be prepared to pause the show a lot because the subtitles are sometimes very long and you can’t always read them in time.
We first meet Honey Lee as the crooked Prosecutor Jo Yeon Joo, who thinks outside the box. She advises a gang leader to deal with rivals by accusing them of things like tax evasion and hiring minors rather than fighting, which would get them all in trouble. She has it all down pat and rattles off the regulations to him. She also is afraid of no one, and when the rival shows up and tries to slug her, she grabs his arm, twists it, and takes him down!
She has two guys who had been in a gang with her father, who she ropes into doing “side jobs” for her. They are the ones who talked her into being a prosecutor, and you should see how they got her through all the studying! When someone insults her sense of justice by committing a crime and getting away with it, she sends these two “uncles” to rough them up a little and teach them a lesson.
Reason #2: Honey Lee’s humor
Prosecutor Jo can banter with the best of them and her expressions are priceless. She sees her superior and grabs a bundle of papers from a friend to make it look like she worked all night. When he accuses her of not being efficient after working all night, she gulps, “Truthfully, I didn’t stay up all night.” He asks, “Oh, you didn’t stay up all night?” She temporizes, “I can’t say I didn’t stay up all night.” So he clarifies, “So you’re saying you did stay up.” And she comes back with, “I also can’t say that it’s not true that I didn’t stay up all night.”
At the end of each episode is an epilogue, and the first one is great! It’s what Jeon Joo experiences when she is out cold after her accident and thinks she is on the road to heaven. It is hilarious!
Reason #3: Honey Lee’s acting
When we meet Kang Min Ha, the daughter-in-law of the chaebol family, she is getting hit in the head with a box of tissues by her mother-in-law. Ever since the family discovered that she was the daughter of a mistress, they have treated her like dirt. They are generally abusive, and she just quietly takes it. But when she gets away from them to go to an art auction, she appears more confident and seems to be up to something. She is very different from the outgoing prosecutor, and you can always tell who is who in any scene.
The family members are, in the front row left to right, the oldest daughter Han Sung Hye, the evil mother-in-law Seo Myung Won, and Chairman Han Young Sik. In the second row are the youngest son Han Sung Woon and our look-alike Kang Mi Na. Sung Woon is her husband. In the third row are the youngest sister Han Sung Mi, and Seo Jae Hee, who is the widow of the oldest son. She has a little boy named Sun Woo. Be prepared in episode 10, when the subtitles get mixed up with all these similar names. They get them all wrong in the scene where they talk about who will inherit what!
Prosecutor Jo and Kang Min Ha both happen to go to the art auction wearing the same dress. One of them is hit by a car in the parking garage and lands in the hospital. When she wakes up, the Han family is there and she has amnesia. The evil mother-in-law tries to smack her one, but the patient surprises everyone by grabbing her arm and twisting it. At that point the audience knows for sure who she is! From here on out we have Prosecutor Jo in the place of Kang Min Ha. The evil chaebol family may be cliché, but the way “Kang Min Ha” keeps them off balance is a lot of fun.
Reason #4: Coincidences involving Honey Lee
Our leading man arrives to contest the Han family’s business dealings. He is Han Seung Wook, the son of Chairman Han’s older brother. He should have had part ownership of the company, except his father died in a suspicious fire fourteen years before the main story. His mother took him to America to get away from the family feud. He is aided by Lawyer No who is the Han family’s head lawyer, but who has a soft spot for Seung Wook because he was fond of his father. These guys are pretty competent, and the way they keep ahead of the bad guys is part of the charm of the show.
We have extensive flashbacks to the incidents from fourteen years ago. Teenager Han Seung Wook was at the hospital the night his father died. Teenager Kang Min Ha was at the same hospital that day with her stepmother because she had tried to commit suicide. And Teenager Jo Yeon Joo was there because her grandmother had been hit by a car. That night in the hospital garden, Seung Wook met a girl who became his first love. But which girl was it?
So in the present timeline we have two women who look alike and turn up at the same place wearing the same dress. And in the previous timeline we have two girls who look alike, who come to the same hospital the same night and are see by Seung Wook wearing hospital pajamas. Adult Seung Wook has come back to Korea prepared to help Kang Min Ha because she was his first love, even though she ended up marrying his cousin. Be prepared when Jo Yeon Joo starts to win him over. And the big question is, where is the real Kang Min Ha?
We hope we have won you over to this drama. It’s almost a makjang except that it’s funny. Are you going to be watching it with us as we finish up and discover what happens next?
Telzeytalks
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