By January 2, Korea Joong Ang Daily reported that the vengeance drama had actually ranked initially on the lists of streaming services in 10 areas, consisting of Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines.

The drama has to do with a bad teenage woman who imagines being a designer. In school, she goes through severe bullying by a gang of rich trainees. A couple of years later on she goes back to perform a fancy vengeance intend on her tormentors. Initially, she goes into the criminals’ world through the video game of Go. Her primary objective: to engage the property tycoon-husband of her primary tormentor Yeon Jin (Lim Ji Yeong) in a winner-take-all series. Then, she inches menacingly better by taking a task as homeroom instructor at Semyeng Grade school, where Yeon Jin’s kid is registered.

The Splendor is precisely what Tune Hye Kyo required to reignite a profession that had actually remained in the doldrums. Her last trip, Now We Are Separating, left netizens believing that regardless of her much vaunted charm, she had actually lost her illustration power.

Critics and netizens have actually regreted that she appeared stuck in her hallmark melodramas playing the lovely however stoic, accomplished older lady in an attractive world where she is coupled with more youthful, hot OTPs (one real pairings), the sweethearts and the oppas of the season. For a time, she did get away with that attempted and evaluated formula.

Then 2022 saw the military enlistment of nearly a whole generation of more youthful, taller, virile oppas who made the hearts of netizens flutter and warmed up the K-Drama world. Audiences were then left questioning what next for Tune Hye Kyo, whom to match her with. Then came the surprise that is The Splendor.

Handling this dark function, SHK sucked it up, stony mien and all. Shedding her attractive image, her body bears dreadful scars, virtual maps of the abuse she sustained in the hands of her tormentors. Her avenging Dong Eun will remain in audiences’ memories long after the drama’s last episode rolls.

That there are no excessive theatrics when she fulfills her tormentors years later on makes the scene more striking

Enjoying her, solidified by the abuse she’s sustained, apparently dead on the within and keeping a passive, haunted visage for the majority of the drama, we forget the lovely Tune Hye Kyo and see Dong Eun rather. The tough sparkle in her eyes when she makes her foes squirm and the uncommon smiles she bestows Jo Yeo Jeong (Lee Do Hyun), who is smitten with her, are this star’s shining minutes. That there are no excessive theatrics when she fulfills her tormentors years later on, however just a few enormous words, makes the scene more striking.

Like dramas in the vengeance category, The Splendor does not truly inform a brand-new story, however its author Kim Eun Sook ( Mr. Sunlight, Goblin, Descendants of the Sun) and director Ahn Gil Ho ( Record of Youth, Memories of the Alhambra, Forest of Tricks, and Joy, to name a few) take an extremely upsetting and gory facility method over the edge, tossing into the mix interesting characters all capably essayed by a strong ensemble. A pervading sense of disquiet and worry therefore towers above every episode.

The writing is grim and video camera work is plain as it pans over the dreadful scars on the arms, legs, and back of the lead character, making audiences feel the discomfort as the curling iron burns her flesh. However simply as the audience feels she can’t take another vicious scene, the author includes an unforeseen display screen of mirth. Take that frame where Dong Eun’s accomplice, the mistreated partner who desired her hubby eliminated, chortles and can’t stop chuckling. Or those minutes when we see Dong Eun soften as she inquires about the previous’s child. A great balancing act author Kin Eun Sook does, even as we see episode after episode of offensive violence.

The lead character Moon Dong Eun (Tune Hye Kyo) goes through such abject embarrassment and severe ruthlessness from the start that audiences are riveted to the scene, not able to blink as she is brutalized by 5 of her school mates (2 of them male). The pacing and cinematography are deftly managed by its director, offering it the feel of a motion picture instead of a K-drama.

In The Splendor, the bullying exceeds the typical victimizing an unlucky victim, however intensifies into inconceivable scary and abuse committed by sociopaths. You seem like shrieking: Isn’t there anybody who will stop this? The instrument of abuse: the hot curling iron every teen utilizes to glamorize herself.

Episode after episode, The Splendor unreels graphic scenes, leaving the audiences frightened yet riveted to the violence onscreen. And it is not just in the hands of the gang that Dong Eun suffers. She has nobody on her side other than the school nurse who assists her report to school authorities. However, rather of examining the matter, the assistant primary topics Dong Eun to severe physical attack. Other school instructors attempt to limit him, however he is a wild animal on the rampage. The school nurse is required to resign after the criminals’ abundant and effective moms and dads do troubleshooting.

School authorities end up being celebration to an extensive whitewash of the case. In the withdrawal kind Dong Eun indications, she names her tormentors and points out physical abuse as factor for leaving school. However “maladjustment” is rather marked on the kind. Her mom, who barely cares, accepts the settlement cash from her tormentors’ moms and dads.

In episode after episode, The Splendor unreels graphic scenes so that audiences are frightened however stay riveted to the violence onscreen

Once she leaves school, Dong Eun claws her method through physical, social, and financial privations and puts herself in a location where she makes sure to plant worry in the heart of her primary tormentor, Park Yeon Jin. She makes a look in such defining moments as the high school reunion where Yeon Jin is to get an award as exceptional alumna. She states without blinking, “You have actually been my one dream from that day I left school.”

We see that through the years, bit has actually altered amongst the gang of bullies; sociopaths even in high school, they are remorseless and unrepentant remiss grownups. They live apparently regular lives– go to church, have tasks (Yeon Jin is a weather condition press reporter in a television station where her hubby puts in big financial investments), raise households– while keeping the cover on their dark past.

Considered That as a high schooler, Yeon Jin, the lead character’s chief tormentor, had absolutely nothing to fear being abundant, entitled, and as the uncontested leader of bullies, audiences feel a sense of complete satisfaction seeing her dissemble in the face of Dong Eun’s relentless vengeance.

After going through all the 8 episodes from the viewpoint of the lead character and the gang of sociopaths that turn her into an extremely deadly and effective avenging device, we take a closer take a look at the cast that plays really considerable functions in making The Splendor among the very best K-dramas of the year– the stars that provided it back to Tune Hye Kyo frame after frame.

First Of All, 33-year-old Lim Je Yeon handles her very first bad guy function as Park Yeon Jin. Prior to The Splendor, she has actually played primarily mild and stylish lead functions or supporting characters. She remained in Cash Break-in Korea: Joint Economic Location. From doing musicals and theater, she ventured into brief movies and tv. Then in 2010, she diversified her filmography and operated in sensual themed dramas. In 2014, she headlined the sensual movie Consumed, making for herself the title Queen of Explicit Scenes.

Lim Je Yeon was so completely wicked as Yeon Jin that she frightened the living daylights out of audiences

However The Splendor, where she played a completely wicked villain to Tune Hye Kyo’s character, was a completely brand-new experience for Lim Je Yeon. “I was drawn and stunned after checking out the script,” she stated in an interview. And, she did more than attempt handle the function of arch bad guy. She was so completely wicked as Yeon Jin that she frightened the living daylights out of audiences, successfully acting as foil to Tune Hye Kyo’s revenge-driven Dong Eun so that critics called her “the program thief.”

Author Kim Eun Sook stated in an interview, “I chose to take the very first danger of casting her (Lim Je Yeon) as the villain although there were issues she may screw up, this being her very first time to play bad guy.” LJY showed she deserved the danger, eliminating all issues as quickly as she appeared in the very first harsh scene.

Similarly extraordinary and contributing in big step to the drama’s chilling impact on audiences is Shin Ye Eun, who plays the high school variation of Yeon Jin. Her bad guy is wicked to the core and most scary. Jung Ji So plays Dong Eun as a high school trainee. Performing with her eyes, she capably reveals the desperation and anger structure up in her young mind as she goes through one harsh pass of the curling iron after another.

Lee Do Hyun ( Youth of Might and 18 Again) plays Ju Yeo Jeong. As the medical professional whose very first encounter with Dong Eun remains in a healthcare facility ward where he initially sees the dreadful scars on her arms, Lee Do Hyun plays a critical function in the drama and Dong Eun’s vengeance on her tormentors. He likewise offers her lessons in the video game of Go, an important part of her plan to get in the world of her tormentors.

Netizens have actually decried the absence of chemistry in between him and Tune Hye Kyo, however The Splendor is no melodrama, and LDH’s character is not that of a hunk coupled with an attractive older lady. In the very first couple of episodes, there currently are tips of his own dark past– the kid of a physician whose hubby was killed– that would figure in Part 2 of the drama that goes onstream in March. This early, we might anticipate the author to include some surprises where his character is worried.

Jung Sung Il ( Our Blues) as Ha Do Yeong, the property tycoon-husband of Yeon Jin, essays his function with such peaceful however simmering strength that the scenes where he deals with a cool and computing Dong Eun throughout the Go board consider that feel of risk. Netizens were likewise fast to keep in mind the strong chemistry in between him and Tune Hye Kyo.

As Part 1 of the drama ended on the unclear note of how Ha Do Yeong will figure in a face-off in between Dong Eun and Yeon Jin, audiences likewise excitedly wait for whether Ha Do Yeong will wind up taking the side of Dong Eun. The last scene of Episode 8 has HDY getting in the apartment or condo of Dong Eun, where Yeon Jin, after breaking and getting in, is looking intently at the diagrams and images on the walls revealing Dong Eun’s vengeance strategy.

Other noteworthy members of the cast are Yeom Hye Ran as Kang Hyun Nam, Dong Eun’s accomplice and ally, and the gang of bullies Park Sung Hoon as Jeon Jae Joon, Kim Hey There Eo Ra as Lee Sa Ra, Cha Joo Young as Choi Hye Jeong, and Kim Weapon Woo as Child Myeong Oh. Kim Jung Young is Park Sang Im, Ju Yeo Jeong’s mom.

As we wait on Part 2 on Netflix in March, we are keeping our fingers crossed that the next 8 episodes will enable Moon Dong Eun to lastly rest her mind and heart and leave the previous behind, as the cosmetic surgeon Ju Yeo Jeong recovers her scars.

Here are some netizens’ talk about The Splendor:

“ Tune Hye Kyo’s performing is miles much better here than in Now We Are Separating … She’s still playing another variation of the very same character archetype she chooses– stoic and emotionless woman– however there’s a lot more depth to Moon Dong Eun. Her deadness truly works for a character that’s dead inside … The more youthful villain was frightening to enjoy. The villain’s hubby is hot, hot, hot.”– Peanut Gallery

” Tune Hye Kyo’s performing is better than anticipated, however that is not stating a lot. Her stoic method of acting lastly satisfied a script it’s required.”– Brother

Credits: The Swoon/YouTube