Wife Returns (2009)

Like The Past, A Wife Returns...

It took me a long time. WAY too long. Like, nearly 4 years too long. But here I am, after all the time I've dedicated to trying to finish this... I have done just that. And I truly enjoyed watching Wife Returns. Here's the first review for y'all on here.

A very good drama with a well-written FL. Jung Yu-Kyung/Jessica Gates is definitely one of my favorite daily drama FLs EVER. DAMN was she dedicated to her revenge, at all costs! She was brilliant, stylish, ruthless, a little ambitious, and totally iconic. Definitely villainous/an anti-villain FL. And I LOVED her. I loved her determination.

The antagonists were good enough, I preferred Han Kang-Su over Min Seo-Hyun, but Seo-Hyun was more of a victim in this whole saga. Min Yi-Hyun was good at first, but she eventually got annoying. HATED Yoon Sang-Woo. Indecisive piece of shit. I did not like Jung Yu-Hee much either... she actively decided to have an emotional affair with Sang-Woo and paid the price for it. Idiot! There was NO point in reviving her. Min Young-Hun was alright. Didn't ship him and Yu-Kyung much (I would've rather had her be single/alone, and it seems like she was!) BUT he was a good foil to Seo-Hyun.

Yu-Hee & Yu-Kyung's family were straight FILLER. I skipped all their scenes, but I did like that the mom became the gallery director. The dad was touching at times. The detective (Park Young-Bae) was a cutie, didn't care for his relationship with the sister. I really liked Yu-Kyung's secretary, though. That man was a true ride-or-die till the very end. Worst character award goes to the MIL, Sang-Woo's mother. HOLY SHIT SHE WAS AWFUL FROM BEGINNING TO END!!!! 😭😭 Just a useless, screeching banshee! I had to skip her scenes, all she did was nag, be loud, whine, complain, attack people, repeat. UNNECESSARY character. At least she got dementia at the end, but I would've preferred for Yu-Kyung to kill her for good. Scamming her was NOT enough. 🙄 Chairman Min Sung-Tae, on the other hand, was pretty interesting! I was sad when he died. But hey, he was a trooper. Yoon Da-Eun was fine. Sweet child, cute. Not too much to say on that end.

The revenge was solid. Compared to most daily drama FLs, Yu-Kyung kicked ass! Yes, she was a bit sloppy at times, but she. Was. Locked. The hell. IN!!! SHE DID NOT COME TO PLAY!!!! 💯 I love how they flipped the twin revenge thing here, too, usually, you'd expect it to be Yu-Hee (nice/poor twin) getting revenge, but Yu-Kyung (rich/cold twin) avenged her instead. I really wish daily dramas would do this more. It was kinda done with Pearl in Red, but that was a flop (for me.) 💀 And Yu-Kyung succeeded more than once. I loved the ridiculous yet creative disguises lmao

Hated the Lee Ji-Eun triangle arc though. The whole character was unnecessary...

All the actors did their thing here! It was great to see a young Lee Chae-Young here in one of her first roles, Kang Sung-Yun NAILED IT as Yu-Kyung/Jessica and Yu-Hee. Felt like watching 2 entirely different people. Yoon Se-Ah was also good as Min Seo-Hyun! Tragic, for sure, a little over-the-top, but it's a makjang. I don't like Jo Min-Ki at all, but he was good enough as Yoon Sang-Woo. It feels so weird seeing Park Jung-Chul play Young-Hun here while also watching him as the villainous ML in Angel's Revenge (the writer for this drama ALSO wrote that one!) Crazy. I'm definitely watching more of Kim Mu-Yeol's stuff, I'd say he was the second best actor here! He embodied Han Kang-Su.

The directing was great, not much to say. It was a 2009 daily drama. I really do miss SBS dailies... hopefully they bring them back someday. 😔

I give this a 9/10. Again, it dragged sometimes, some characters felt unnecessary, and I wasn't too fond of the ending. So not a 10/10 for me, but, it was an amazing drama to watch. I probably wouldn't rewatch because I put TOO much effort into finishing this. It took me a very long time to do so. 😂

God bless my VPN, I would've been SCREWED without it! I watched most of this raw on the SBS VOD website. (And I watched the first chunk, up to ep 70, on a... different website. 👀) I don't know if I actually learnt any Korean, but I relied on cues, common phrases I *did* know, body language, skipping/fast-forwarding, and willpower. I made it, y'all. I will probably never commit to an unsubbed drama like this ever again, but again, like Yu-Kyung, I was determined. 💀

I do recommend watching this daily drama though, if you have the time and if you're able to. It was a fun ride! Try it out and see, you might love it too. 😁

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