Queen of Tears - TV Series Review

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Baek Hyun-woo is a bright young man who works at one of the big department stores in Seoul as their legal team member. This SNU (one of the prestigious universities in South Korea) graduate falls in love with a new intern at his work, Hong Hae-in. All Hyun-woo know about Hae-in is that she is a very clumsy girl who always kicks the photocopier machine because she can’t work it out and always gets scolded by her supervisor because she can’t do her job properly. To “save” her job, Hyun-woo helps Hae-in by telling her that he can be the sole breadwinner, if necessary, if Hae-in can’t keep her job. To convince her, Hyun-woo tells Hae-in that his family owns 30 cows in a small town about 360 km from Seoul, Yongdu-ri. He also tells her that he even paid rental for his small accommodation in Seoul for two years upfront. But he doesn't know that Hae-in is the third generation heiress of Queen Group, a chaebol (conglomerate) that owns the Queen Department Store where they work together.

After 3 years in a relationship, Hyun-woo and Hae-in get married. They are both happy up to when Hae-in had a miscarriage. They both become distant to conceal the pain of losing their unborn baby. Until the stage where Hyun-woo can’t take anymore being under the same roof as Hae-in and her family who treat him badly, because he is just a son of a poor farmer.

Hyun-woo decides to divorce Hae-in, but when he is about to tell his wife about his plan, Hae-in tells Hyun-woo that she only has 3 months left in her life because of cloud-cytoma, a tumour-like condition. She notices that she often has headaches, and sometimes she forgets what she did in the past 30 minutes for several hours, but she doesn’t realise her condition is getting worse. She thought that it happened because she was tired, as she never had any physical problems and always kept her healthy lifestyle. If her condition gets worse, she will get hallucinations and personal disorders.

Hae-in suggests her husband do sunjang, when they buried their spouse together. Hyun-woo just laughs and says that his wife was always good at making terrifying jokes with a straight face. Almost in all episodes of Queen of Tears, Kim Ji-won, who plays Hae-in, always has glazed eyes with a blank face and does not show any emotion at all in front of people. It reminds me of her role in The Heirs , another popular Korean drama.

Realising his wife's health condition, Hyun-woo decides to stay with Hae-in. At first, he thought, it would be better to endure another pain, living hell with Hae-in and her family, for another 3 months and then come clean as a widower. Hae-in might even change her will and give a lump sum of money to him. But as the days pass with Hae-in still by his side, Hyun-woo realises that he still loves her. He tries to get better care for Hae-in. He even goes to Germany to convince specialists there to continue Hae-in's treatments when they find out nothing else they can do to save Hae-in's life.

The worst thing happens when one by one Hae-in’s family enemies come out from their hiding place to take down her family and snatch the company. Once again, Hyun-woo stands by Hae-in’s side and helps her and her family to go through all the troubles.

Queen of Tears is a big hit in its home country as well as internationally, not only because of the cast, including Kim Soo-hyun (played Baek Hyun-woo), Kwak Dong-yeon (as Hong Soo-cheol- Hae-in's younger brother) in My Strange Hero and Kim Jung-nan (as Hong Beom-ja - Hae-in aunt) who was also in Crash Landing on You and Snowdrop . People can see a resemblance of the plot of Queen of Tears with the famous South Korean couple, Lee Boo-jin (the Samsung heiress) with Lim Woo-jae, a man from a humble family in South Korea.

Queen of Tears gives viewers an epilogue at the end of each episode, just like in another Korean Drama, Crash Landing on You. The wedding in this drama is also similar to Hun Bin and Son Ye-jin, the main character in Crash Landing on You.

There are some interesting and funny scenes all through the 16 episodes of Queen of Tears, that surely will give you more than a chuckle. There is a scene where Kim Soo-hyun imitates Choi Ae-ra when he is drunk in episode 1 (Choi Ae-ra is Ji-won’s famous character in Fight for My Way), or when he imitated Bae Suzy’s ( While You Were Sleeping ) famous flirting smile. The other amazing actor is Kim Jung-nan as Hae-in’s eccentric aunty. As the title of this drama, besides some funny scenes, you can expect some tear-jerking scenes. Be prepared with some tissue while watching this most awaited Korean drama in 2024.

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