Queen of Tears (2024) [+]
Oct 02 2024
Queen of Tears is a South Korean modern-day romance drama running sixteen 1-1/2 hour episodes. Baek Hyun-woo (Kim Soo-hyun) is the long-suffering husband to the cold and beautiful Hong Hae-in (Kim Ji-won). She is CEO of Queens Department Store and the scion of the powerful Queens family whilst he heads the Law Department of Queens Group and comes from a prosperous farming family in the country.
On the day he finally summons the courage to serve divorce papers to his wife she tells him she has a terminal brain disease. Her doctor says she only has six months to live but she's determined to beat it and at the last second he decides to stay and suffer for another six months. But it turns out this crisis, which she wants to keep secret from everyone especially her family, starts to bring the two back together, coinciding with short flashbacks to how they met, courted, got married, and the crisis that started driving them apart.
Meanwhile enter Yoon Eun-sung (Park Sung-hoon), an old university mate's of Hong Hae-in who now represents a big American investment company that wants to invest in Queens Group. But Eun-sung's real motives are to take oust the Hongs and take over Queens Group and marry his long-time obsession Hong Hae-in. As the series goes on he is shown to be more and more unstable, willing to have people killed, and is more of an evil villain than a romantic rival. I didn't like his scenes because the character is rather scary.
There is also the Hong family and the Baek family. Later on the Hongs hide out in the country at the Baek's which forces the two families together and gets them to understand each other better. Previously the Hongs were rich and looked down on the country bumpkins of Baek's family.
One nice subplot is Cheon Da-hye (Lee Joo-bin) who is the wife of Hae-in's younger and very naive brother Hong Soo-cheol (Kwak Dong-yeon). She betrays the family as she was working the bad guys and she leaves with their child. But by and by she starts to regret it and eventually switches sides and comes back even though she'll probably go to prison. It's a nice little love story subplot.
For the most part I like the series. As usual it takes until episode 4 before the characters start becoming sympathetic and then the romance slowly builds up. As I mentioned I didn't like the bad guys because they are dangerously bad and jars with the romantic mood. Usually bad guys are not this evil or they're not this competent; so a real danger of winning.
Still, it's a good romance with two photogenic leads and a good ending.
On the day he finally summons the courage to serve divorce papers to his wife she tells him she has a terminal brain disease. Her doctor says she only has six months to live but she's determined to beat it and at the last second he decides to stay and suffer for another six months. But it turns out this crisis, which she wants to keep secret from everyone especially her family, starts to bring the two back together, coinciding with short flashbacks to how they met, courted, got married, and the crisis that started driving them apart.
Meanwhile enter Yoon Eun-sung (Park Sung-hoon), an old university mate's of Hong Hae-in who now represents a big American investment company that wants to invest in Queens Group. But Eun-sung's real motives are to take oust the Hongs and take over Queens Group and marry his long-time obsession Hong Hae-in. As the series goes on he is shown to be more and more unstable, willing to have people killed, and is more of an evil villain than a romantic rival. I didn't like his scenes because the character is rather scary.
There is also the Hong family and the Baek family. Later on the Hongs hide out in the country at the Baek's which forces the two families together and gets them to understand each other better. Previously the Hongs were rich and looked down on the country bumpkins of Baek's family.
One nice subplot is Cheon Da-hye (Lee Joo-bin) who is the wife of Hae-in's younger and very naive brother Hong Soo-cheol (Kwak Dong-yeon). She betrays the family as she was working the bad guys and she leaves with their child. But by and by she starts to regret it and eventually switches sides and comes back even though she'll probably go to prison. It's a nice little love story subplot.
For the most part I like the series. As usual it takes until episode 4 before the characters start becoming sympathetic and then the romance slowly builds up. As I mentioned I didn't like the bad guys because they are dangerously bad and jars with the romantic mood. Usually bad guys are not this evil or they're not this competent; so a real danger of winning.
Still, it's a good romance with two photogenic leads and a good ending.