In 2017, Strong Girl Bong-soon pulverised the competition to become one of the highest-rated K-dramas in South Korean cable history. Given the series’ award-winning pedigree and commercial success, it only makes sense that JTBC would eventually return to the show’s beloved universe for even more gains. Enter Strong Girl Nam-soon, the much-hyped spin-off starring Lee Yoo-mi (Squid Game) as the titular character, who is the sixth cousin of Bong-soon. Like all the women in her bloodline, she’s born with supernatural strength due to a genetic anomaly that’s inherited matrilineally. But unlike the others, who are “merely” Hulk-level strong, Bong-soon is special because she also possesses enhanced speed and senses.
Unfortunately for Nam-soon, she was lost in Mongolia as a child while on a trip with her photographer father Gang Bong-go (Behind Your Touch‘s Lee Seung-joon). Thankfully, she’s taken in by a couple of kindly sheepherders who raise her as their own. Even though she loves her adopted parents and enjoys the rural life, she dreams of one day going back to South Korea to find her roots. To that end, she saves up money and learns the language from Korean pop culture. Many years later, a young adult Nam-soon bids farewell to her foster family, and makes the trip to Seoul. However, her homecoming is fraught with challenges – including a near plane crash (which she prevents with her powers) and getting scammed out of everything she owns due to her naivete.
Meanwhile, her mother, Hwang Geum-joo (My Dangerous Wife’s Kim Jung-eun) has been using her immense wealth as the CEO of a pawnbroking empire to search for Nam-soon. She purchases news outlets to ensure that coverage of her missing child never ceases, and even engineers a contest to crown the strongest woman in Asia, with the hopes that the exorbitant prize money would lure Nam-soon to Korea. Much to her delight, the latter scheme apparently works, when a girl named Hwa-ja (Lee Hee-jin) becomes the first person to effortlessly lift 120 kg in weights. Geum-joo believes that she’s found her daughter, but her ex-husband Bong-go suspects that it’s a con. To make matters worse, a DNA test is impossible due to the family’s unique genes.
Beyond those main stories, the show also rapidly sets up a variety of intriguing subplots, including Nam-soon’s instant attraction to a handsome policeman named Gang Hee-sik (Former Wanna One singer Ong Seong-wu) who offers to help her out. Hee-sik is also investigating the proliferation of a highly addictive and highly lethal new drug on the black market. This dangerous narcotic has ruined many lives, including one of Geum-joo’s customers, prompting her to target the same drug ring. This is when we find out Nam-soon’s mom moonlights as a vigilante, employing her immeasurable strength to fight crime in Gangnam.
While the show’s premise carries a lot of family drama and crime elements, its execution adheres closely to the wacky tone of its predecessor. Strong Girl Nam-soon is first and foremost a farce – rife with silly and slapstick humour that relies more on physical hijinks than wit. That isn’t inherently a criticism, considering that some of the most hilarious comedies in history are farcical, ranging from the Marx Brothers to Monty Python. The series’ primary issue lies with how inconsistently funny it is. While Strong Girl Nam-soon does have its fair share of side-splitting moments, a lot of the K-drama’s jokes can be sophomoric at best, or lazily repetitive at worst – with variations of the same sight gag (a petite woman exhibiting insane feats of strength) utilised ad nauseam.
Thankfully, the K-drama is power-lifted by the delightful lead performance of Lee Yoo-mi, who conveys Nam-Soon’s innocence and wide-eyed positivity to perfection. Her charming presence elevates every scene that Lee Yoo-mi is in (which is the majority of the show), and Nam-soon’s innate likability goes a long way towards smoothing out any rough patches. The K-drama’s narrative set-up also holds promise for huge emotional stakes and exciting action scenes to unfold in the near future. In the meantime though, Strong Girl Nam-soon has plenty of juvenile and jovial muscles to flex, if that’s your cup of tea.
Strong Girl Nam-soon airs every Saturday and Sunday on JTBC, and is also available to stream on Netflix