K-Drama

The problem with “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” ahead of final episodes: Has it turned into an ordinary romance drama? 

Despite its huge popularity, there are still problems with the second half of “Extraordinary Attorney Woo”. 

Extraordinary Attorney Woo” is undoubtedly a lovely and heartwarming drama. The biggest strength of “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” is storytelling, which has a stronger power to move people’s hearts than any logical persuasion.

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On the surface, it depicts how Woo Young-woo (Park Eun-bin), a genius attorney with an autism spectrum, adapts to the environment of Hanbada, a large law firm. However, the drama also deals with disability and discrimination. It carefully approaches the invisible prejudice and discrimination between the disabled and non-disabled, while delicately presenting the various views of the socially underprivileged.

Episodes 1-4 of “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” are perfect.  At the beginning of the drama, its strength stands out the most. In addition to the writer’s warm view of the world, the convincing acting performance of Park Eun-bin, Kang Tae-oh, Kang Ki-young, Ha Yoon-kyung, Joo Jong-hyuk, and Joo Hyun-young, have successfully captured viewers’ hearts. The episodes with touching stories and legal cases based on true stories stimulated interest.

extraordinary attorney woo

Viewers’ affection is large for dramas that send accurate messages with meaning like “Extraordinary Attorney Woo”. It gives meaning to small things and adds narrative to simply passing scenes. 

What makes “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” so popular is the fans of the drama who give meaning to the characters’ narratives and episodes. Of course, this would not have been possible if the actors’ acting, script, and directing had not laid the foundation. However, what narrows the gap between “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” and the viewers is the meaning they carefully give to each scene. It is no exaggeration to say that it is a drama completed by viewers.

extraordinary attorney woo

Various scenes that the screenwriter wrote unintentionally were reborn as well-fitted puzzle pieces through interpretation from the drama’s loyal fans. You can find many theories about meanings and symbols just by searching the drama’s name “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” on Twitter and portal sites. Quite a few details, such as Woo Young-woo only eats his father’s kimbap in a vertical way or the hackberry, where Woo Young-woo has a talk with her mother Tae Soo-mi (Jin Kyung) is set to represent the place where the land (Taesan) and the sea (Hanbada) meets, will come out. However, the writer said, “I laughed as I saw them on news. I didn’t have such intentions”, referring to the viewers’ enthusiastic reactions.

extraordinary attorney woo

The limitation of the drama was revealed when it came to the second half. The viewers were surprised to see the characters suddenly become boring. This can be noticed in episodes 13 and 14 of “Extraordinary Attorney Woo”. Woo Young-woo’s friend Dong Geu-ra-mi (Joo Hyun-young) was there with the Hanbada attorneys on their business trip to Jeju Island. Choi Soo-young (Ha Yoon-kyung), who always protects Woo Young-woo, and Kwon Min-woo (Joo Jong-hyuk), who is inconsiderate, selfish, and hostile toward Woo Young-woo, had a love line all of a sudden. Lee Joon-ho (Kang Tae-oh) introduced Woo Young-woo to his older sister then broke up. Skipping the parts of Dong Geu-ra-mi dancing to the moktak sound and the scenes with nonsense quizzes, many people literally threw away two episodes. No wonder there was a rumor that the writer had been replaced. 

extraordinary attorney woo

Nevertheless, many viewers defended it, giving that these were healing episodes with a tempo break, like a midsummer night’s dream. It is actually not about whether the episode is fun or not, but the sudden collapse in the characters’ settings in the final stage where they have to resolve conflicts, retrieve the baits, and tie the knots is quite absurd.

A drama, which was originally about the process of an autistic woman overcoming her disability to become a good attorney, has become an ordinary romance drama at some point. Romance is also an important detail. However, it was not the love of a man and a woman that people wanted to see in “Extraordinary Attorney Woo”. It was the warm and powerful story of Woo Young-woo’s growth and the improvements of people around her that attracted the interest of so many viewers from the beginning.

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In fact, “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” is still a good drama. The stories presented in previous episodes were good and this has been proved through the enthusiastic responses from the viewers in Korea and overseas. Since it was such a good drama, the recent development is just quite regrettable. There are still two episodes left. Will “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” be able to soothe the viewers’ disappointment and wrap up with a perfect ending?

Source: daum

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