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| Jun Do-yeon in a scene from "The Good Wife" / Courtesy of tvN |
Drama's success raises expectations for other remakes
By Park Jin-hai
"The Good Wife," the Korean adaption of the popular CBS series of the same name, is off to a good start.
Defying the initial worries about whether the popular U.S. drama will succeed in Korea since its premiere on July 8, it is maintaining the top place in viewership among rival dramas in the same time slot.
Although the Korean adaptation is based on a great story that helped the TV series win numerous awards, including five Emmys in the United States, there was still a big question about its success, because remake dramas have usually shown poor performances so far.
Because of cultural differences and limitations of expression, American drama series have not been made into Korean versions before "The Good Wife." Korean adaptations of popular Japanese dramas, including "Cantabile Tomorrow," have also struggled with poor viewer ratings despite big hype before airing.
One distinction "The Good wife" makes from all those, is that the Korean version doesn't feel like a remake to viewers who have not seen the American drama series. That largely stems from the great acting of Jun Do-yeon, the winner at the Cannes Film Festival for Best Actress in 2007, who came back to the small screen after 11 years with her role in "The Good Wife."
Presence of actress Jun, in the role of Kim Hye-kyung, a housewife who is forced to return to her job as a lawyer after her husband is mired in a scandal and put behind bars, has been remarkable and made the 60-minute episode feel like a movie.
During the latest episode, aired on Saturday, Jun's "100-second testimony" scene at the court where she applies for bail for her husband, all viewers agreed why it should be Jun in the roll and no other actress.
By swallowing her inner conflict, she confessed complex feelings toward her husband, which was the highlight of the episode. Viewers left comments on the drama's website saying that "her acting awed the audience" and "her performance deeply immersed me in the drama until the very end."
The drama's great reviews are a result of the production's immense interpretation efforts. Although the drama has the same setting, scenes and story line as the original, the way they portray the heroine and the small details differ to make the scene look more natural for a Korean audience.
For instance, in the Korean version, the sex scandal scene has been shortened, and Jun keeps the criminal cases away from her children, while in the original the heroine Alicia and her tech-savvy son study the CCTV camera footage together and discover the truth.
The positive response to the drama has heightened expectations for other remakes of dramas scheduled to premiere soon.
HBO's popular drama "Entourage," exposing the true face of the Hollywood entertainment business, will be made into a Korean remake and air on tvN in October, while New Entertainment, which produced "The Descendants of the Sun," is also slated to introduce the Korean adaptation of the CBS crime drama "Criminal Minds."
