Divorce Attorney Shin, a Cho Seung-woo film in which the Stranger actor portrays piano prodigy-turned-divorce lawyer Shin Sung-Han, has a lot of ajeossi (middle-aged Korean guy) intensity.
Sung-Han, his office manager Jang Hyeong-Geun (Kim Sung-Kyun), and Jo Jeong-sik (Jung Moon-sung), a property agent working under their legal company, spend a lot of time drinking or singing karaoke and afterward nursing their hangovers together. They also discuss their cases while playing catch or while swinging away in the batting cages.
This is rather surprising given that the program was written by Yoo Young-a, the writer behind the feminist blockbuster Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, and last year’s female-friendship drama Thirty-Nine starring Son Ye-jin – although the show is based on a webcomic created by Kang Tae-Kyung.
Its ajeossi force serves both the show’s strength as well as its Achilles’ heel.
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Its power comes from the show’s male friendship, which is heartwarming and surprisingly low on chauvinism – Sung-han remains a classic aloof and haughty male K-drama lead in many respects.
Sung-Han and Hyeong-Geun enjoy wonderful banter as they lightly rib each other or delight in the same small pleasures, whether it’s a bowl of instant noodles at Kim So-(Kang yeun’s Mal-geum) noodle shop or the moment former radio host Lee Seo-jin (Han Hye-jin) fixes the office’s sliding door when she applies for a job in their firm that they had no idea they were hiring for.
The flaw is shown in the scenario that unfolds in Episodes 7 and 8. Sung-han begins by portraying Ma Chun-seok (Choi Jae-sup), a middle-aged guy living a rough existence in the countryside way down south.
Chun-seok is married to the much younger Vietnamese lady Dinh Thi Hoa (Kim Huong Ji-yun), who is suing Chun-seok for divorce and custody of their kid, claiming that her husband is violent.
In comparison to the previous situations Sung-han handled, this one is a bit of a puzzle. He has been quite selective with his cases thus far, debating whether he should take on clients for a long time and only doing so when he discovers anything in their tale to which he can relate.
Chun-seok enters his office after receiving his card from Jin Yeong-ju (Noh Susanna) of the prestigious Keumhwa Law Firm, which represents his wife.
Yeong-ju is also the stepmother of Sung-Han’s adored nephew Seo Gi-yeong (Kim Joon-eui) and has been attempting to exclude Sung-han from his life. Sung-han accepts the bait, although we’re not sure why.
The case becomes a national issue, and Sung-han requires a bold plan in the face of popular outrage. He discovers it by injecting himself into the story. He discloses his history as a superb pianist, revealing a video filmed by lawyer Choi Jun (Han Eun-sung) that he spent the first two episodes of the program attempting to remove before Jun transferred from Keumhwa to his firm.
Everything is not as it appears in Chun-Seok’s case, as it is finally shown that he was a victim himself.
Divorce Attorney Shin is fiction, yet it follows a narrative strategy that knits together instances that exaggerate ripped-from-the-headlines concerns, similar to other contemporary legal dramas. Previous cases in the series have taken a similar strategy, but Chun-Seok’s case goes against the tide.
Men in the Korean countryside have faced poor marriage possibilities for years due to the dropping birth rate and the departure of young people to big cities, and women from underdeveloped nations, frequently brought in through arranged marriages, have stepped in to fill this demand.
Nonetheless, life is frequently challenging for them as they acclimatize to patriarchal and xenophobic rural Korean environments.
As the firm representing the Vietnamese wife, Keumhwa should be on the right side of the issue (statistically), but the program designs it such that the middle-aged guy becomes the sympathetic character.
This presents Sung-han with a novel legal problem, but it is an unusual social hill for the program to stake its claim on.
Choi Jeong-ho (Jeon Joong-yong) is an uncomfortably sympathetic middle-aged guy who is a cheating spouse with liver cancer who would die if he does not marry his mistress since his wife will not donate her liver to him and his mistress legally cannot.
This could be a blip in a series that has otherwise championed marginalized figures like Seo-jin, who was terrorized by a possessive husband who tainted her impression with a sex tape, or housewife Park Ae-ran (Hwang Jung-min), who endures under the thumb of her abusive mother-in-law for 20 years before finally snapping.
Another surprising feature of the program is that, while being positioned as a bright legal mind – an image he plays up – Sung-han has not been particularly good as a barrister thus far.
He prefers daring measures, although they occasionally backfire on him, and some instances, like Ae-ran’s, resolve themselves perfectly despite his involvement.
Divorce Attorney Shin, maybe to satisfy a larger viewing population, plays to diverse audiences from case to case, giving the program a social spectrum that is so elastic that it risks both gratifying and irritating viewers – but for opposite reasons.
Apart from its teetering morals, it’s a pleasant ride, with an intriguing lead performance from Cho and good backing from the supporting cast, notably Kim Sung-kyun.
Divorce Attorney Shin is now available on Netflix.
