In the psychological drama Delightfully Deceitful, which he will star in alongside Chun Woo-hee from Be Melodramatic, Kim Dong-wook, who is presently seen on television in the time-travel-themed rural mystery k-drama My Perfect Stranger, will take the lead role.In a subgenre of Korean dramas known for their forceful treatment of psychology, Delightfully Deceitful fits in. Everything a person does may be reduced to predictable behavioral patterns that are simple to manage.
People that prefer to do so are typically sociopaths or psychopaths, who present as very sociable creatures and are adept at slipping through the cracks and around the corners of society. These people are typically at the extreme extremities of the psychological spectrum.
Chun, who portrays the cunning Lee Ro-woon, a young woman in this novel who has the power to influence everyone around her, fills that role. Since she is now incarcerated for the murder of her parents, her options for victims are fairly limited at the beginning of the program.
When a man on the outside confesses to being the real murderer, she has already served 10 years of a 15-year sentence.
Ro-woon is unleashed on the outside world for the first time as an adult and quickly sets about getting herself a wardrobe and money. She accepts this abrupt change of fate with hardly a flicker in her eyes.
Ro-woon is a master con artist and perhaps a sociopath, so she is not your typical young woman, which is how she pulls this off.
Her route is not entirely obvious, though, as she must overcome two challenges: Go Yo-han (Yoon Park), her zany and overly attentive probation officer, and Han Moo-young (Kim Dong-wook), her sympathetic lawyer.
A successful attorney named Moo-young experiences hyper-empathy syndrome. He is the complete antithesis of Ro-woon's cold psychopath in K-dramas, which typically show an emotional gap between the starring men and women characters.
Moo-young’s condition makes him feel strongly the emotions of everyone around him. It can get so intense that he will sometimes suffer their physical pain as well.
He discusses his condition on a regular basis with his therapist Mo Jae-in (Sojin of the K-pop group Girl's Day). Moo-young and Jae-in frequently engage in lengthy, extremely expository conversations that are only intended for the audience; they are stating the obvious to one another so that everyone may understand.
Following his triumphant defense of a card shark in court, Moo-young takes on a new client: the man who has admitted to killing Ro-woon's parents. He sits down with the man and listens tolerantly while he complains about his sins and suggests how he might hoodwink the jury into passing a lesser sentence.
In order to ensure that the man is promptly arrested and Ro-woon is freed, Moo-young captures this exchange and makes it public.
Putting feelings aside, this looks like a blatantly suicidal strategy for a lawyer. Korea may not have the same unwavering legal professional-client privileges as some other countries, but this is a difficult approach to take seriously.
After that, Moo-young will go to jail to wait for Ro-woon when she is let out. When he takes her to a cafe, he brings her new clothes and behaves impeccably. Additionally, he promises to represent her in her upcoming defamation case against the government for unlawful detention.
Although Moo-young's ultimate goals are unclear, it is clear that he knows a lot more than he is letting on. He is aware that, for example, the man currently serving a sentence for the murders is likewise innocent, which raises the question of why he orchestrated the man's incarceration.
He is aware that Ro-woon is not the innocent girl she claims to be, but he does not believe that she is the murderer. Instead, he feels that another, as of yet unidentified, someone is responsible.
In many of the "set pieces" in Delightfully Deceitful, Ro-woon is depicted as being at ease, deceiving people with her clever plans. She crashes into businesses posing as a detective or bursts into a hospital pretending to be a guest speaker in order to gain access to the VIP ward.
Throughout each of her schemes, Ro-woon breaches the fourth wall to speak straight to the audience, explaining what she is doing and why people fall for it.
Her illusions are entertaining to see, but her justifications are far less so. A terrible match for Ro-woon, who as a psychopath should not care about our opinions, it is a ploy that detracts from the action.
Additionally, it shows a lack of assurance in the writing. Do the creators believe that if we don't, we won't buy into these sequences?
An unusual, but not entirely unattractive, mixture results from this aggressive approach combined with an overuse of psychobabble.
K-dramas can occasionally use a little extra room for takeoff and flight. Let's hope Delightfully Deceitful is like that.
