“Joseon Attorney: A Morality” (조선변호사)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
May 31, 2023

☆☆☆☆
Kang Han-soo (Woo Do-hwan)
Lee Yeon-joo (played by Bona)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

There has been an uptick in engaging K-dramas where the protagonist becomes a lawyer to avenge the wrongs committed against his family. “The Good Bad Mother” and “Divorce Attorney Shin” are set in the modern day era. “Joseon Attorney: A Morality” adds a twist to this conceit by taking us way back to the Joseon era (1392 to 1897), before Korea was called Korea and there was no Seoul — the city was known as Hanyang.

A fast-paced series that has a little bit of everything — legal procedural, stirring saeguk, a handsome second male lead who’s too good to be true, lots of slapstick humor and, finally, my favorite genre: revenge.

Orphaned at a young age, Han-soo (Woo Do-hwan) defies death to become an attorney. He appears to be a money-grabbing lawyer who lacks morals. But as the show progresses, we see that there is something bigger he is after. He wants to prove that his parents were murdered by the political elite. Though he grew up with no money and had no backing from anyone prominent, his photographic memory and determination eventually makes him the most successful lawyer in Joseon, a fact that he repeats to anyone who’ll listen.

His life intersects with Yeon-joo (Bona). She runs a guest house where the rooms are affordable and anyone can buy a delicious meal. But the biggest draw is that ordinary citizens can procure loans that banks won’t offer them. And if they can’t pay the loan back, there is little to no punishment. Yeon-joo is a princess in disguise, who is betrothed to marry Ji-sun (Cha Hak-yeon). Ji-sun is also the son of the manipulative and powerful royal court member Councilor Yoo Je-se (Cheon Ho-jin), who is responsible for most of the misery that Han-soo’s family faced.

When Ji-sun tells the princess, and then later Han-soo, to use him for their own benefit, we’re not sure if he’s merely offering platitudes or is truly speaking his truth.

In his first post-military starring role. Woo Do-hwan is charmingly in command of the series. In many ways, the show’s direction is dependent on his facial expressions as much as the taut direction of Kim Seung-ho and Lee Han-joon. Bona — who was so good as Kim Tae-ri’s frenemy in “Twenty-Five Twenty-One” — is poignantly believable as a princess who sees the good that her brother, the King, can do for their country. But she’s also fully aware that until Councilor Yoo and his cronies are stripped of their power, true change can’t occur.

Airdates: Sixteen hour-long episodes aired from March 31, 2023 through May 20, 2023 on MBC. I watched this K-drama on KOCOWA.

Spoiler Alert: Han-soo’s father was set up and killed by Councilor Yoo and his crew. Later, they also killed Han-soo’s mother and made it appear that she had died by suicide.

In order to make sure that Councilor Yoo is punished for all his previous crimes, the princess willingly ingests poison in order to frame him. Merely pretending to be poisoned won’t work, she says, because the crafty old man will see through her act.

In the finale, Councilor Yoo doesn’t get the death penalty. Rather, he is allowed to live, but he is exiled (after receiving 100 lashes). Honestly? That wasn’t enough punishment for all the evil he created.

Han-soo is elevated to a governor, but he is inconsolable about the very real possibility that Yeon-joo has perished. Not having seen her body at the royal funeral, he hangs onto the hope that she is still alive somewhere.

Ji-sun, who has been Han-soo’s ally all along, works with him and the king to ensure that the country’s law is revised so that it’s equitable for all of Joseon and doesn’t favor the elite. Han-soo is later reunited with Yeon-joo, who survived and is thriving as a attorney. But once again, she’s working in disguise again — this time as a man.

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