World of the married || Series Review

What happens when you come across a kdrama which you're not really keen on watching but forced to watch it because you have a policy to always watch the first two episodes of any drama you find on your device? You watch it so you can get it done with and delete it without regrets. This was my initial plan when I chose to watch The World of the Married. I particularly wasn't keen on this drama because I had some personal reservations towards the female lead and although the whole idea behind the drama was a masterpiece, it didn't stick out to me.

I found this series on my laptop. I can't even remember how I got it nor how it appeared there. I just found out I had it and I decided to watch it so I know whether it's worth keeping or not. And in my opinion, it is not.

The World of the Married is a series based on the drama series - Doctor Foster. It starrs famous actors and actresses Kim Hee-ae, Park Hae-joon and Han So-hee. It is a 16 episode series with a running time of about 80mins.
The series follows Ji Seon-u (Kim Hee-ae), a mother of one, doctor and a wife to aspiring movie director Lee Tae-oh (Park Hae-joon), who begins to suspect her husband's infidelity due to hair strands she found on her husband's jacket. In a bid to know who her husband is cheating with, she studies the hair of every possible woman she knows her husband is in contact with. The only strand of hair being the evidence she has. Still refusing to confront her husband, she begins to suspect her husband's personal assistant who is a divorced woman. Her suspicion takes a different turn when she discovers that the lady her husband had been having an affair with is the daughter of one of the most prominent families in the city of Gosan, Yeo Da-kyung (Han So-hee).

Confirming her suspicions of her husband's infidelity, she confronts him but he outrightly denies it. He instead accuses her of not trusting him. When she gets tired of feigning ignorance, she organises a dinner with Yeo Da-kyung's family and spills the beans to her family. Thinking she'll be able to get the perfect revenge on her husband and Da-kyung for destroying their once perfect family easily, everything begins to work in Tae-oh and Da-kyung's favour. Against her.

This is a series that is sure to get you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. I'm not the kind of person that gets stirred up by character's actions easily but with this movie, you're definitely going to get angry, sympathize, (for the emotional people) cry, but most importantly, you'll question every action of the characters. While I was watching this drama, I kept on putting my device down every now and then to think about why some characters were the way they were. While some were outright annoying, others had nice traits in them. There was no character I totally liked in the series as they all had some annoying sides to them.

The series had more nerve-grating sides to it than the appealing sides. The first being the whole plot behind the drama. I watched the drama completely, and I'm still confused as to what the drama focuses on. Initially, it was going well with the revenge theme before things started to go awry. At first, the drama explored the themes of betrayal and revenge, then after some time, it moved to obsession and the plights of divorced women in the society. After that, it began revolving round the theme of friendship. I don't know but I found all these annoying at some point. It's not typical of kdramas to have so many diverse themes.

Also, aside from the lack of humour and the bad cinematography the drama possessed, the drama portrayed violence against women as normal. The male lead was caught beating his ex-wife a number of times, and nobody was willing to report him or at least, take some measures against him. Even the victim. There's also the parents of Da-kyung that never thought about what he could do to their daughter when he falls out of love with her. They only saw it as a punishment for Ji Seon-u for not respecting him. I found that absurd.

There is also the fact that they portrayed men cheating on their wives as a normal occurrence. One statement made by a prominent character in the movie was "sex is like natural excretion to men". According to her, infidelity is something men can't seem to avoid. I found it annoying that nobody even tried correcting this notion of hers. Most of the characters just accepted and those who seemed like they didn't, kept their opinions to themselves. Even the protagonist of the movie didn't see cheating as the main reason for her revenge against him.

However, if you're the type that watches dramas for the emotions they stir in you and how they make you feel, not necessarily the whole plot backing the movie, this drama is definitely a must-watch for you. But for those who are like me, and find it hard to accept just about anything that pops up on her screen, you might not like this drama. Overall, I'll give the drama a 6.5/10.

All images are screenshots taken by me while watching the drama.

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