Hardship and heartbreak are the cornerstones of every drama, but few circumstances are as tragic or difficult to depict as a parent losing a child. That unimaginable pain is exactly what MBC TV and Disney+’s new K-drama, Wonderful World, attempts to explore. This series begins with the ideal life of author and professor Eun Soo-hyun (Kim Nam-joo). With her new book garnering acclaim, a successful career, a supportive husband named Kang Su-ho (Kim Kang-woo) who adores her and the miraculous birth of her beautiful boy Geon-woo (Lee Jun) after four miscarriages – Soo-hyun is rightfully happy to be living the dream.
But her perfect existence is shattered when her precious son roams out of their luxurious home, only to be killed in a horrific hit-and-run. Wrecked by immense grief and guilt (Soo-hyun blames herself for failing to lock the front gate), the devastated mother becomes a shell of herself. To make matters worse, when the negligent driver, Kwon Ji-woong (Oh Man-seok), is arrested and tried, the seemingly repentant culprit is shown leniency by the court who punishes him with a slap on the wrist.
Later on, Soo-hyun tracks Ji-woong down to demand an apology. This is when the arrogant wrongdoer drops his facade of regret by rudely brushing off Soo-hyun, claiming that he’s too busy to be bothered by such a nuisance. Outraged, she jumps into her car and runs Ji-woong over at full speed. Of course, Soo-hyun is convicted for murder and sentenced to seven years in prison. While incarcerated, she spends most of her time in mourning and withdrawn, resorting to self-harm while refusing to even receive visits from her husband.
Eventually, she pushes Su-ho away permanently by advising him to take a job offer as an overseas correspondent for a news station. Soo-hyun believes that she’s nothing but a burden, until an elder inmate named Jang Hyung-ja (Kang Ae-sim) befriends her, helping to alleviate her depression. However, as the years pass, Hyung-ja is diagnosed with a terminal illness, which prompts her to reveal her crimes to Soo-hyun: she’s an arsonist who accidentally caused the deaths of everyone in a residential compound, except a little boy who managed to escape.
Hyung-ja implores Soo-hyun to find the survivor when she is released to deliver her letters of remorse. It is heavily implied that the kid is Kwon Seon-yul (Cha Eun-woo), now a mysterious young man who encounters Soo-hyun by chance when he volunteers at the prison. Seon-yul also works for corrupt presidential candidate Kim Jun (Park Hyuk-kwon) by digging up dirt on his political rivals. Coincidentally, Su-ho’s independent investigation into his son’s death reveals that the defence attorney and judge at the trial are associates of Kim Jun, who likely used his connections to help his business partner Ji-woong escape justice.
While the cast is uniformly solid, Kim Nam-joo’s portrayal of anguish is extraordinarily affecting – oscillating between rage, sorrow and numbness with raw clarity. Unfortunately, much of Wonderful World’s storytelling doesn’t live up to its acting quality. Though the series must be commended for never shying away from Soo-hyun’s emotional process, the way it chooses to depict her upheaval is corny at best and cringeworthy at worst.
It’s a shame to see a great performance interrupted by slow-motion schmaltz, frequent flashbacks that beat you over the head with the same point repeatedly, and cheesy music cues. This overbearing 1990s presentation style is intended to emphasise Soo-hyun’s bereavement, but it instead takes the viewer out of the moment and drags the narrative pace to a crawl.
Sadly, the plotlines away from Soo-hyun are similarly trite – relying on implausible coincidences, puffy melodrama and cheap twists to tie it all together. Indeed, Wonderful World’s insistence on compounding its tale with a massive conspiracy concocted by caricatured villains does nothing except muddy the show’s core. What should have been a deeply felt exploration of grief and forgiveness is instead yet another soap opera mired in gaudy sensationalism.
Wonderful World is available to stream on Disney+