By: Cameron Tyo
May 8th, 2024
Spoiler Alert: This review could contain mild spoilers for the show “Queen of Tears”
Queen of Tears is a K-drama that falls under the melodrama category of television despite being slated as a rom-com. Despite this, the show does have its fair share of romantic and comedic moments. Studio Dragon produced the show, and it was aired on TVN. It is now available for streaming on TVING in South Korea and on Netflix, where I watched it.
The show follows the relationship between Beak Hyun-woo (Kim Soo-hyun) and Hong Hae-in (Kim Ji-Won) as they both deal with issues that are plaguing their happy life together coming from things such as Hyun-woo not being able to keep up with the demands given to him by Hae-in’s chaebol family or just straight up miscommunications between the two. Hyun-woo wants to get a divorce, but conflicting revelations and situations put him into an ongoing moral conflict, forgoing him for doing so.
While this is happening in the background, a globally well-known investor, Eun-sung (Park Sung-hoon), is trying to gain something from the Hae-in family using an investment opportunity for her brother Soo-cheol (Kwak Dong-yeon) as a disguise to commit what seems to be a devious plan. Without wanting to spoil too much more, the conflict is greatened when Eun-sung meets up with Hyun-woo whom attempts to get in the way of his investment scheme, culminating in sixteen episodes of romance, comedy, and a whole lot of sad moments for not only the actors and actress but the viewers who become the “queen of tears.”
I really enjoyed the acting of the two leads. I thought they did really well. Kim Soo-hyun, who I recently saw in It’s Okay Not to Be Okay, and Kim Ji-won were able to portray two people who are widely different from each other trying to stay harmonious in a relationship well. In the beginning, they are able to show a doting and “all-you-can-dream-of” couple but switch into acting as love birds living a distant relationship, being close to each other but often getting into arguments and trying to stay as little time as possible with each other. However, as the story progresses, you can feel the chemistry the two have. There will be many spoilers ahead, but one memorable moment showing this chemistry is the scene where Hyun-woo believes Hae-in is still in a car that had been purposely crashed into. As the car is in flames, Hyun-woo starts yelling out her name, tears falling from his eyes as he struggles to break the car window with his bare hands, breaking down even more when it is revealed that Hae-in is alright. Then you have the very end when Hyun-woo gets shot and is put on life support, having already suffered injuries prior to the gunshot. Their rocky relationship is shown prevalently, too, like the scene where Hae-in finds out about the divorce feeling betrayed by Hyun-woo.
The two leads aren’t the only people to show their chemistry. I loved that of Kwak Dong-yeon, who appeared to portray a calm and collected businessman who kept his emotions to himself except when it came to interacting with his wife, Cheon Da-Hye (Lee Joo-bin), and son, Geon-u, which led to some painfully emotional scenes for him in the K-drama despite him acting as comedic relief most of the time. You also had that of Eun-sung, who tried to stay calm and collected, trying to get Hae-in to be with him no matter what it took. His past actions and emotionless way of speech really did give him a creepy vibe, which you’d come to expect for someone so hellbent on being with a girl, no matter what it took to do so.
The supporting cast also did a very good job. I liked the family dynamics between Hyun-woo’s and Hai-in’s family. I liked the scenes where Hai-in’s family had to embrace the financial gap between their and Hyun-woo’s family and get used to the different foods, living environments, work, etc. Each character of the family is flawed in some way, and this, as well as their relationships with different members of the family, are significantly shown.
You had Beom-ja (Kim Jung-nan) and her rocky relationship with her father, Man-dae (Kim Kap-soo), portrayed, as well as the tumultuous relationship between Hae-in’s mother, Seon-hwa ( Na Young-hee) and Hae-in herself, and the relationship between Hyun-woo and his siblings shown in the show. All of that has influenced the plot of the story, leading to emotionally high moments in the series.
The show itself doesn’t drag despite each episode being about one hour and thirty minutes long, which could turn people off. There is no filler, and every moment, including relationship-building between characters, adds depth to the story.
The show was paced in a way where something new was introduced in almost every episode, so audiences never felt like the plot was getting dull. This was the K-drama I felt had dragged the least so far.
There is one part of the story that I would like to mention that is significant in how things happen in the story. Once again, this is a spoiler.
The thing in question is the tumor that Hae-in has called Cloud Cytoma. This disease causes her hallucinations and other such things, and with the tumor, she is given a life expectancy of only three months. I wanted to bring this up because this revelation is what brings up a lot of the emotional conflict between Hyun-woo and Hae-in, conflicts between Hae-in and her family, etc. Eun-sung also uses Hae-in’s proneness to hallucinations and laps of judgment to his advantage etc. Hyun-woo and Hae-in dealing with his discovery is the show’s main premise. The hallucinations at first seem like just hallucinations, but after watching the whole story, I was able to deduce that most hallucinations were of places that would be shown later in the story. They were sort of predicting the future, which I thought was interesting.
Now for the soundtrack. This is one of my favorite soundtracks I’ve heard in a K-drama so far. As romantic tension builds up or feel-good moments occur, you have lovely vocal tracks playing in the background. The same songs are also used in emotional scenes, amplifying the severity of what is happening in them, which makes the viewers really feel for the characters in that moment, not to mention the dialogue that is said helping with this.
The whole plot is seamless from beginning to end, mixing a bit of comedy and romance with your melodramatic moments.
As the last few episodes approached, I felt anger, suspense, dread, and sadness, all of which quenched my excitement in finishing the series and seeing how everyone’s plot points ended as you didn’t just have the main conflict but smaller ones included throughout the story which was either just as serious as the main one or comedic. You had people switch allegiances, plot twists revealed, and drama waiting just around the corner. You also had some fun cameos to look out for.
All in all, I think Queen of Tears is a very good series, It has been one of my favorite K-Dramas from the ones I’ve seen. The acting, the pacing of the show, the plot itself, and the soundtrack all combine into one to create such an amazing show that anyone who is a fan of melodramas should watch. With this in mind, I’ve decided to watch Crash Landing On You next, a show written by the same person as this one, Park Ji-Eun.