Currently Watching: Gold Mask

A tragedy occurs for three women, caused by greed and desire. Yoo Soo Yeon grew up with ordinary parents. She falls in love with a man from a chaebol family and marries him. Her life seems to mirror that of Cinderella and she is envied by others, but her life isn't easy due to mistreatment from her in-laws. Cha Hwa Young is full of greed and desire. She tries to keep her upper class life. Go Mi Sook is a private moneylender and she owns a franchise restaurant chain. She is a good person.

Cha Ye Ryun as Yoo Soo Yeon 

Yoon Soo Yeon is one of the main Gold Mask characters. Coming from an ordinary family background, Yoo Soo Yeon falls in love with a heir Kang Dong Ha and eventually marries him. Although her love story sounds like that of a Cinderella tale, Yoo Soo Yeon’s life is not fairytale-like due to the mistreatment of her in-laws. Therefore, despite everyone being envious of her, Yoo Soo Yeon lives a miserable life.

Na Young Hee as Cha Hwa Young

 

The second female lead of Golden Mask is Na Young Hee, who plays Cha Hwa Young. She is a family member - a mother - of Kang Dong Ha and in-law of Yoo Soo Yeon. She is also the CEO of SA Group and the first one to torture Yoo Soo Yeon.

Lee Hwi Hyang as Ko Mi Sook 

The third Golden Mask female lead is Lee Hwi Hyang, who plays Go Mi Sook. In this family drama, Go Mi Sook is a private moneylender and owns a franchise restaurant chain. Unlike the typical moneylenders, Go Min Sook is a high-class figure but a good person.

Gold Mask is a collaboration work of director Uh Soo Sun and writer Kim Min Joo. The drama started airing on May 23rd on network KBS2 and it's said to have 100 episodes. As I mentioned above our main stars in this drama are actress Cha Ye Ryun, Na Young Hee and Lee Hwi Hyang, but also the main male lead Lee Hyun Jin. We can't also forget about the two supporting actors Yeon Min Ji and Lee Joong Moon, whom have a big meaning in this drama as well.

Yeah, that's a bit of a question for me too. I never watched a drama this long while it was ongoing, so I was hesitating about it at first, but after watching the first episode (which I'll describe a little bit below) I got hooked by the plot. Although it seemed like the typical daily dramas, it left the impression and desire to watch more. Maybe it was the empty place in my weekends that made me watch this, but I don't have any regret about it.

Who would even think that something terrible is about to happen in this family where Yoo Soo Yeon, Hong Jin Woo and their son are living their everyday lives? It looked like some Cinderella tale for Yoo Soo Yeon, but when I think about it more and more, Yoo Soo Yeon never lived her life truly peacefully. Just because of her background and coming from a not-wealthy family, she had hard times with her mother-in-law from the beginning. But despite that, Hong Jin Woo loved her dearly and was acting like the great husband so... 

It was a normal day like any other for our family where their members were getting ready for an event that they held. Yoo Soo Yeon was already busy preparing everything for the event with housemaids that were working for them, that she didn't even think that anything could go wrong. Everything was perfect and everyone looked in great mood before the event started, but when Yoo Soo Yeon were in the middle of her speech, something happened. 

Everyone present at the event stopped chit-chatting and pinned their eyes, in which shock and dismay were mirrored, on Yoo Soo Yeon. When our main female character turned behind her, she saw the beginning of her own disaster. The footage of apparently drugged Yoo Soo Yeon lying in bed with a man was shown on a big screen and although she was denying being guilty, no one believed her.

Beside the evil mother-in-law of Yoo Soo Yeon, there's another character possessed with greed. It's Seo Yu Ra, a mysterious woman that first appeared at a scene in a plane with Cha Hwa Young, when the two of them were on the way back to Korea from US. Maybe she was the one who made Cha Hwa Young hate Yoo Soo Yeon even more. Starting with the scandal of Yoo Soo Yeon dropping the birthday cake on her mother-in-law because Seo Yu Ra stepped on her dress, continuing by adding food Cha Hwa Young was allergic to into the meal and then blaming Yoo Soo Yeon for it, and many more.

But what was that thing that made Seo Yu Ra act like that? It was greed for Yoo Soo Yeon's husband, the heir of SA Group, and probably the status of being his wife. So apparently after the scandal of Yoo Soo Yeon during the event, Seo Yu Ra became the best choice to replace her. But no one knew every word that leaves her mouth is one big lie. But those lies were enough to make Cha Hwa Young fall for this woman, and made it even more easier for her to get Yoo Soo Yeon out of the house.

Was some kind of spell casted on characters of this drama that everyone are full of greed and hatred? Looks like it was.

What happened to Yoo Soo Yeon after she was kicked out of the family?
There was a lot of things that happened once she left the house where she lived for a while with her husband, leaving her son behind because it wasn't allowed for her to take him with her. She had to swallow the bitter reality, that she has to leave her son live and being raised by Seo Yu Ra and her ex-husband, and move forward. She then started living with her parents, who were a big support for her in these hard times, and got on her own feets to start a new journey.

After Yoon Soo Yeon got over the fact that she's no longer a part of Hong Jin Woo's life and her son is living in the house of her enemies, she started planning how to start living from the start. During the time she tried hard to improve herself, she met Kang Dong Ha (Yoon Soo Yeon firstly met Kang Dong Ha when she was driving at night with her drunk sister-in-law and she accidentally crashed into his car), handsome chef director of Bareun Cosmetics and a nice person.

After the scandal she met Kang Dong Ha for the second time on the road, when she almost run under his car, not knowing what she was doing because of how weak she was due to her coming miscarriage. She then fell unconscious into his arms.

Some time passed and during that period Yoo Soo Yeon overcame many hardships. Starting with her miscarriage, divorce and then death of her father (in which Seo Yu Ra played part too). She became much stronger thanks to those unfortunate events to stand against all those who helped her with her misfortune. Yoo Soo Yeon tried many kinds of jobs, and while working at a restaurant she met Chairwoman Ko Mi Sook while serving food to her table.

Thanks to the help of Ko Mi Sook and Kang Dong Ha, she started working as a personal secretary for Kang Dong Ha. Raising her status like this, her name started to be seen and even her ex in-laws heard about her success, which made Cha Hwa Young going crazy.

Sometimes you realize some things a little too late...
People are blind and so is Hong Jon Woo. Blinded by Seo Yu Ra and her perfect acting, he didn't notice that his son was mistreated by her. The same goes for CEO Cha Hwa Young who was fooled by Seo Yu Ra from the start.

Cha Hwa Young found out that Seo Yu Ra was a skilled liar. She lied about her name, education, her family background and her parents were fake as well. Even her pregnancy, which she claimed is with Hong Jin Woo, was made-up. She also admitted that she was the one who, while disguising as a nurse, put the wrong medication through the IV of Yoo Soo Yeon's mother and tried to hit her by car, when she realized Yoo Soo Yeon’s mother knew something against her. And even after Chairwoman Cha Hwa Young sent Seo Yu Ra out from the house, Seo Yu Ra continued blackmailing her.

All those are questions whose answers we need to wait a little bit longer for.

I really enjoyed writing this article as much as I am enjoying the drama. I hope the readers also found this article interesting and readable,  and that we will see each other again with some other drama, tho my last article was a year ago...

Thank you all for reading!