Queenmaker (Korean Drama) Complete Season 1

After a tragic accident, a powerful fixer uses her skills to transform a civil rights lawyer into the next mayor — and take down her former employer..

Kim Hee-Ae is back with an expensive wardrobe and a powerful performance on Netflix’s “Queenmaker.” For the most part, her character is rather meek compared to the one in “The World Of The Married,” but we’re only two episodes in, so much more is yet to happen. Alongside her, we have Moon So-Ri, Seo Yi-Sook, Yoon Ji-Hye, Kim Sae-Byuk, and Ryu Soo-Young in pivotal roles. We wouldn’t go so far as to call “Queenmaker” a “Makjang” drama just yet, but we can wait a little bit to confirm this. The K-drama takes time to set its pace and might get a bit slow in places. Let’s find out if there’s a payoff.

The first two episodes of “Queenmaker” are setting Hwang Do-Hee up to find her place against the massive Eunsung group (yes, we too thought about Samsung immediately). Hwang Do-Hee is like a loyal dog that cleans up all the dirt in the family of this massive conglomerate that has essentially monopolized the Korean market. The matriarch of the family made Hwang Do-Hee the manager of their strategic planning team after seeing her being selfless in her career very early on, showing her desperation to be someone important to her.

Queenmaker” Episode 1 begins with a huge scandal about the Eunsung group. The younger daughter Eun Chae-Ryong is caught being abusive to her employees. The scandal has taken over the whole city. But Hwang Do-Hee is relentlessly working to make this go away. She is able to cover up by using Chae-Ryong’s luxury clothing products trend instead and it becomes the hot topic of discussion on the internet. Later, when the prosecutors call her in for questioning and Chae-Ryong is waiting, Do-Hee makes the team take pictures of her pumping milk for her baby in order to share with the news outlets of Seoul. She is so meticulous that she even gives them the exact headlines to use. We understand that this is the norm every time the Eunsung group is in trouble, and not everyone appreciates Do-Hee’s ruthless ways. At the same time, the labor group has been protesting against the Eunsung group for having laid off many women. To help them, a lawyer named Oh Kyung-Sook is protesting at the rooftop of one of Eunsung’s supermarkets.