The Great Seducer
Time slot: Monday & Tuesday
Broadcaster: MBC
Genre: Romance melodrama
Episode count: 32 (half-hour episodes, 16 hours total)
Reasons to watch: If you happen to be in the mood for a soapy teen melodrama, The Great Seducer is on its way this week with the promise of money, power, and scandal all wrapped up in a very pretty young cast. The adaptation of the movie Untold Scandal, which was based on the French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, is about a set of aristocrats who set out to seduce a virtuous woman just to prove a point. This version is set in the world of chaebol heirs in contemporary Korea, so we can expect something closer to Cruel Intentions crossed with Heirs.
Last year’s breakout star Woo Do-hwan takes the lead as the sole heir to a chaebol group who only hangs out with the two other richest kids in school. The girl he likes is one of his best friends, but they find out that they’re soon to be step-siblings because their parents are getting married for business reasons. Stepsister just wants to get revenge on the poor scholarship student (played by Joy) who stole the attention of her older boyfriend, and propositions Woo Do-hwan to seduce and dump her.
I’m curious to see how dark they take the adaptation, since this is a well-known story about amoral characters, and K-dramas have this tendency to make even their darkest antiheroes fluffy marshmallows deep down. But if anyone can sell the duality of a seducer who might be falling in love, it’s Woo Do-hwan, so I plan to check it out for his performance. And if he must be a marshmallow, let’s at least be a charred marshmallow with a blackened heart.