Remarriage & Desires [2022]

[stroppyse]

 

 

 

Remarriage & Desires

(Korean title: Black’s Bride or Bride of Black)

 

 

Director: Kim Jeong Min
Writer: Lee Geun Yeong

Episode count: 8
Original broadcast: Netflix

 

 

MAIN CAST
Kim Hee Sun as Seo Hye Seung, a Gangnam housewife who becomes a single mother and an adjunct professor
Lee Hyun Wook as Lee Hyung Joo, a divorced superwealthy, super-elite who made his fortune from mobile games
Jung Yoo Jin as Jin Yoo Hee, a lawyer who wants what she wants, including Lee Hyeong Joo as her husband
Cha Ji Yeon as Choi Yoo Sun, the CEO of REX, the most elite matchmaking service in South Korea and Cha Seok Jin's stepmother
Park Hoon as Cha Seok Jin, Seo Hye Seung’s first love and a Professor of International Business

 

OTHER NOTABLE SUPPORTING CAST
Park Sang Hoon as Lee Joon Ho, son of Lee Hyeong Joo
Kim Ah Song as Kang Min Ji, daughter of Seo Hye Seung
Kim Mi Kyung as Lee Hyeong Joo’s Mother
Kim So Ra as Jung Mi Jin, the daughter of a political elite family who wants to marry Lee Hyeong Joo
Kim Young Hoon as Choi Sung Jae, a friend of Lee Hyun Wook who is secretly jealous of his success

 

NOTE ABOUT THE TITLE

The English name is actually not a good name for this drama. The “Remarriage” mainly refers to the ML who is divorced and the FL who is a widow. It’s not really pertinent to anyone else. And, the “Desire” seems to be thrown in to make the title sexier.

 

PLOT

In the spoiler

Spoiler

The story starts with Seo Hye Seung who is a happily married wife of a successful lawyer, living in Gangnam with her her husband and their daughter. The husband starts having an affair with a colleague and shortly asks for a divorce from SHS who is shocked by it. She ultimately agrees to the divorce, but in the meantime, it turns out that the woman, Jin Yoo Hee, that her husband was having an affair was only using him. She coolly takes his money as well as some bribe money that she had accepted, but had her lover hide, then tells her lover who is also facing bribery and embezzlement charges that he should go back to his wife.

Having lost his family, his money, and facing possible charges that could put him in prison, all because he was fooled by JYH, he decides to take his own life instead.  When SHS goes to confront JYH over her actions, JYH coolly tells SHS that her husband had been a rapist and sexual harasser and that she herself had been his victim. SHS takes on all sorts of teaching jobs to make ends meet for herself and her daughter.

Later on, JYH joins an elite matchmaking service called REX who only deal with the ultra-wealthy, and even then, the members are graded according to their family, their money, and their power. JYH is after Lee Hyeong Joo who she knows has recently joined REX since JYH wants an ultra-rich man who is also good looking and still young, and LHJ is the only one around who fits the bill. LHJ has made his money as a genius businessman and game developer for mobile platforms.

Coincidentally, SHS’ mother buys SHS a membership into REX to find a suitable mate. SHS is about to ask for a refund when she sees that JYH has joined up. So, instead of the refund, SHS decides to get revenge on JYH by revealing JYH’s true nature to her prospective choice of partners.

In addition to JYH, there are other women (and their mothers) who want LHJ as a husband, and thus are trying everything, including bribing the CEO of REX to arrange the match.

LHJ is not so certain he wants to be married again, given that he divorced his wife after she had affairs on him, and thus leaving him with feelings of bitterness and betrayal. He has a son in middle school who he has custody over. It is his mother who signed him up for the REX service, and his friends who are also members who convinced him to try it out. In another bit of coincidence, his son’s new Korean language tutor turns out to be SHS.

Also a member of REX is Cha Seok Jin who had dated SHS a long time ago before he abruptly left to study abroad without any word to her. He is now a professor of international business, and unexpectedly runs into SHS at a REX gathering when he had thought that she was happily married. His feelings for SHS are renewed.

CSJ also happens to be the stepson of the CEO of REX, Choi Yoo Sun. Choi Yoo Sun married CSJ’s father for his money, and in time had been given REX to manage. Now, CYS and CSJ are in conflict over inheriting CSJ’s fortune. CSJ’s father had married CSJ’s mother since it was her family who were wealthy, but in time had become an abusive husband and father, leading to the death of his elder son, with his wife slowly going insane and ultimately being committed to a mental hospital where she lives out the rest of her days until she dies.

 

Choi Yoo Sun is an aloof and mysterious figure for much of the drama, but she is expert at reading the motivations of the super rich and being able to convince them to make the match she thinks is suitable for them.

As the women vie over LHJ, both LHJ and CSJ vie over SHS.  There is also a bit of a plot to bring JYH down for her crimes while she evades and manipulates her way out of situations using everything she has, including that she’s the illegitimate daughter or a presidential hopeful who is running on his reputation for being moral. There is another subplot involving LHJ’s friend screwing over LHJ over business out of envy, which also happened to include having an affair with LHJ’s ex-wife.

 

 

ENDING

Total spoiler - don't say you weren't warned.

Spoiler

In the end, the various story lines are tied up in a satisfactory manner.

 

Jin Yoo Hui goes to jail for attempted murder. Though, in her final line of this drama, she scornfully proclaims that this is just the beginning for her rather than an end.

 

Her secret father is exposed for having an illegitimate daughter and forced to drop out of the presidential race.

 

Lee Hyung Joo is able to save his company with the help of Cha Seok Jin.

 

Seo Hye Seong agrees to marry Cha Seok Jin who she thinks of as a friend but who is in love with her. For various reasons, including that Lee Hyung Joo's mother is opposed to her being with her son, Seo Hye Seong gives up on being with Lee Hyung Joo who she really loves. SHS and CSJ walks down the aisle together at a wedding venue while her mother and daughter are watching. As they get to the front, however, CSJ tells SHS that she really has to be happy this time, before stepping aside to show LHJ walking up the aisle with his son and mother behind him. LHJ asks SHS to marry him, and she agrees.

 

Choi Yoo Sun is packing up the items from her office, since the scandals from the various happenings has caused a lot of protests over REX. However, as she starts to leave, a young male guest comes in and asks if it isn't a shame to close the door to REX. He then proposes that she starts it up again, but with him.

 

There is a rather fantastic earlier scene where she tells off her husband for wanting to leave his entire fortune to his son when she was his wife for 15 years and had put up with an old fool like him.

 

 

REVIEW

This drama is a satire about the supposed super wealthy of South Korean society, and it’s a fast and fun watch. I had a hard time watching other dramas about the machinations and betrayals of the super wealthy, e.g. Penthouse or Sky Castle, however, this drama kept me binging long after I should have taken a break to do other things such as eat or sleep.

This drama has all the tropes and elements of the previously mentioned dramas and their like, but pushes it even further.  So, it has birth secrets, affairs, numerous betrayals, murder, suicide, women who are literally ready to kill over getting what they want, impossible numbers of coincidences, ridiculous fashion statements, etc. The story is over the top, but that is part of the fun.

The cast is full of experienced and veteran actors who play their roles completely straight, no matter how ridiculous things may get. It’s one of the things that made me question sometime if this really was meant to be a satire, though the ending confirmed that it was.

Cha Ji Yeon is particularly notable as the CEO of REX, a woman who seems to have married for money and clearly enjoys the power broker she has become as the most elite matchmaker in Korea. I last saw Cha Ji Yeon in ‘Taxi Driver’ where she was the amoral loan shark/prison warden for the Rainbow Taxi team, and found her to be really scary. She brings that same sense of scariness here, but balanced by her need to be subservient to her husband, to keep humoring him in order to keep what she has gained and hope to get more of. Still, there is a look to her eyes that could have been fitting for the serpent in the Garden of Eden as she calmly calculates move after move to protect herself and her enterprise.

Kim Hee Seon is amazing as always, bringing her character Seo Hye Seong to life as a woman who has the practicalities of being a single mom, trying to be true to herself, yet wanting to avenge her faithless husband and questioning what she can actually do for herself. Even in the midst of her plans for revenge, she never loses her humanity that causes her to try to protect the people she loves, even from herself.

And, playing opposite the heroic heroine of Kim Hee Seon’s Seo Hye Seong is the villainess Jin Yoo Hui as portrayed by Jung Yoo Jin. Jin Yoo Hui is a villainess through and through with no morals and no regrets. She has one moment where she crossly asks “But is that something he had to go kill himself over” about the man who commits suicide after she had double-crossed him, where her nature is plainly shown. It could have been a moment of pathos and regret, but rather, it’s a moment
where she is shown to be the survivor that she is, even though it comes at the expense of the people who cross her path.

The ending clearly leaves open the possibility of a season 2, either with or without the same cast. It could work either way.

 

There are 2 other notable points about the cast. For people watching 'It's Beautiful Now', Cha Yub who plays a stuntman wannabe turned law office worker in that drama plays a playboy dermatologist and a friend of LHJ in this drama. Also, Kim Mi Kyung as the male lead's mother is fantastic as always, but did not really have enough to do in this drama.

 

RATINGS

Plot/Story  8/10
Cast/Acting  9/10
Production Value  8/10  The cars were really nice.
Re-watch Value - To be honest, I'm not sure. I liked it enough to binge it the first time, but now that I've seen it, I don't know if I will rewatch it. So, a 5 on this rating since it is 50/50 as to whether I want to watch it again. I could see rewatching it at some point.

 

 

 

DRAMA TRAILER

 

 

[abs-oluteM]

@stroppyse I enjoyed this show ...I wasn't expecting to watch it but @Chocolate posted an interesting clip on the Oppa Tracker thread that caught my attention. Before I knew it I had watched all 8 episodes over two days. 

@UnniSara I feel this may be a drama that you would enjoy.

 

I wrote this on the Oppa Tracker thread but I will leave this here. Despite some of my negative comments , the show was pretty engaging.

Spoiler

Things I like 

- Lady CEO of Rex - I  enjoyed watching her pull the strings behind the scenes ever so subtly and leaving a lot of the "work" to all the stakeholders here. She knew what buttons to push. 

- Both the MLs here were pretty decent folks. Nice to see Lee Hyun Wook play a character I could root for. Didn't mind her ending up with either one, though I guessed the story was setting things up for her to end up with LHW's character.

- It is quite ironic that the man who was supposedly here to look for the trophy wife , is actually the trophy himself considering how all these women were clamoring to marry him.  

Things that bugged me

- While the main focus of the story was the revenge plot, I think they gave too much screen time to the villainess. Heck - she even got to do all the kissing scenes. 

- I know the FL is supposed to be this sheltered homemaker and quite naïve, but I feel she should have smartened up a bit towards the end. Constantly announcing that you're going to take revenge - aiyo ....sorry can't stand this in all these Asian dramas

- The ending - it's supposed to be like an intended twist but it felt rushed and weird,  and didn't suit the rest of the tone of the show. I saw attraction between the leads but a strong selfless love?  If they wanted me to buy that, they needed more screen time together & should have interacted more earlier on. 

 

 

[UnniSara]

4 hours ago, abs-oluteM said:

@UnniSara I feel this may be a drama that you would enjoy.

It is in my library and so glad i can binge it. Will come back once I watched it.

[UnniSara]

I started watching Remarraige & Desires. 
Episode1 ,2,3 & 4

Was so engaging that I had to force myself to stop watching. I didn’t want to watch a drama half a sleep. The cast was amazing , each actors/ actresses was right for the role they play. 
There is mystery, secret, lots of kisses that ends up in bed. I don’t know if love will be a part of this drama. 
 

This matchmaking drama for divorcée, single and widowers was well done. 
 

@abs-oluteM  Thansk for the recommendation and @stroppyse thanks for making the thread. 

[UnniSara]

The young cast did a wonderful job. 
Kang Min-Ji - is strong female character.  She loves her mom and is protective of her. She is still hurt by what happened to her father. She is still trying to be strong and not let the other kids make her lose herself completely. 
 

Lee Jun Ho - strong male character. He doesn’t want to take sides but he does do it very subtly. He loves him mom but he knows his mother doesn’t really need him.
 

His mom (Heo Jung In ) is selfish and a woman who can’t be a lone. I thought it was weird that she would be calling Choi Sung Jae anytime she wants. Then when CSJ asks to collaborate with Lee Hyung Ju, i totally felt he was up to no good. CSJ and HJI are now having an affair , he also secretly bought a lot of stock of LHJ’s company under multiple false name. 

[UnniSara]

 

 

I love the CEO of REX. She is full of secrets. I love the way she let her hand cleans while she moved her clients like chess pieces 

 

[UnniSara]

There may be a season 2 check this out 

 

Remarriage & Desires Season 2: Release date, Cast, Spoilers and Trailer

Release Date

Remarriage & Desires Season 2

Last updated on Sat, 25 Mar 2023

Remarriage & Desires Series season 2nd information updated. It will return at 2024-07-12 near similar time. Here's all we know about the next season of the drama.

COUNTDOWN TO SEASON 2:

462

DAYS

20

HOURS

36

MINUTES

50

SECONDS

Remarriage & Desires TV series is a drama created by Netflix Originals. The TV series aired at the Netflix media services provider on Friday, July 15, 2022. It has 8 episodes in 1st season. Seo Hye Seung starring Kim Hee Sun in the series.

About Series

Through an exclusive matchmaking agency, women strive to marry a desirable bachelor and into the highest echelon of society.

Remarriage & Desires Season 2nd trailer

Now, presented below video is very relevant to upcoming part of TV series. Netflix will share official video trailer one month before the release date.

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00:00

-01:39

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When will Remarriage & Desires Season 2 air?

Season second will once again be made up of 8 episodes, that will be aired at Netflix on demand. First episode starting in 2024-07-12. More detailed episodes list provided below.

Episode NumberNetflix Release DateEpisode Name

2X01July 12th, 2024Episode 1

2X02July 12th, 2024Episode 2

2X03July 12th, 2024Episode 3

2X04July 12th, 2024Episode 4

2X05July 12th, 2024Episode 5

2X06July 12th, 2024Episode 6

2X07July 12th, 2024Episode 7

2X08July 12th, 2024Episode 8

Who will be seen in the updated season 2nd?

Some unexpected members probably appear in the 2 season as well. Kim Hee Sun will be back as Seo Hye Seung and Lee Hyun Wook (Lee Hyung Joo). As well as Park Hoon (Cha Seok Jin), Cha Ji Yeon as Choi Yoo Sun and Jung Yoo Jin (Jin Yoo Hee).
 

 

Source is  https://whenetflix.com/remarriage-desires