The Box: A Deep Dive Into The Work Of K-Drama Master Park Ji-eun
As one of the fastest-growing entertainment capitals in the world, it can be hard for a writer’s work to not get lost in the mix of South Korea’s high-volume output of popular television series. An international success, Park Ji-eun has not only made her mark in popular television within the country, but more recently, her work has become part of the “Hallyu” trend, or the global “Korean wave,” of the past decade that has seen Korean pop culture, especially K-dramas, explode beyond South Korea to reach massive audiences across Asia, Europe and North America. The writer for several iconic series, she is known for cultivating great relationships with her leads, resulting in multiple collaborations with some of South Korea’s finest, most popular actors. Her accolades include four Korean drama awards for her writing and two cultural commendations, establishing her as one of South Korea’s biggest television screenwriters today.
Earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Korean Language and Literature from Chonnam National University and a subsequent Master’s in Film from Sejong University, Park Ji-eun began her career in the South Korean entertainment industry in the late 1990s, writing for radio, sitcoms and even a music video before eventually becoming a co-writer on the 2007 SBS K-drama Get Karl! Oh Soo Jung (also known as Oh Su-jung vs. Karl). Based on the real-life relationship of CEO Lee Ju-young and professional golfer Go Man-soo and starring Uhm Jung-hwa and Oh Ji-ho, the romance follows the relationship and reunion between an aging beauty queen and her chemistry with the ugly duckling-turned-prince as they move past their previous relationship. Two years after Get Karl!, Park would go on to get her first solo writing credit with 2009’s Queen of Housewives for MBC.
A story of reversed fates between former high school rivals, Queen of Housewives (also known as My Wife is a Superwoman) focuses on the adult lives of Chun Ji-ae, played by Kim Nam-joo, a queen bee who peaked in high school, and Yang Bong-soon, played by Lee Hye-young, a high school geek-turned-trophy wife. When Ji-ae tries to cozy up to the wealthy corporate wives of Queens Food in the hopes of securing a position at the company for her struggling husband and high school sweetheart, Ohn Dal-soo, played by Oh Ji-ho, she receives the shock of a lifetime when she discovers that Bong-soon has not only become beautiful, but lives a life of luxury as the wife of senior executive Han Jun-hyuk, played by Choi Chul-ho. With its focus on a corporate “wife culture,” Queen of Housewives explores the concept of “naejo,” the traditional role of and expectations for Korean wives in having to sacrifice and give their full support to their husbands and their careers, but with a specialized focus into how support for their husbands turns into tangible social and financial benefits for the wives. For her work on the series, Park would go on to win Writer of the Year at the 2009 MBC Drama Awards.
The success of Queen of Housewives led to Park’s next project, 2010’s Queen of Reversals, a Season 2 renewal of the series. The renewal not only cemented the original series’ status as a smash hit, but it also marked a K-drama rarity, as the Korean drama format is typically built around single-season series that contain full story arcs and a resolution within a finite number of episodes, usually between 16 and 20. While Queen of Reversals featured a new story, which is not uncommon in K-drama sequels, the series was again starred by Kim Nam-joo and maintained its predecessor’s focus on the intertwining of corporate politics and marriage. This time centered around the imperfect marriage of co-workers Hwang Tae-hee (Kim) and Bong Joon-soo, played by Jeong Jun-ho, Tae-hee is a well-intentioned wife who finds herself competing with Chae Jung-an’s character Baek Yeo-jin, a flirtatious fellow co-worker who often uses her looks to get ahead, and also happens to be Joon-soo’s ex-girlfriend. Speaking of the key difference between the two Queen series in portraying working women, Park brought up the fact that “couples who have experienced marriage and office work at the same time,” would be able to relate to the story of Queen of Reversals. Originally ordered for 20 episodes, Queen of Reversals would go on to be extended for an extra 10 episodes, with the end of the Queen franchise capping off a successful solo debut for Park Ji-eun.
In 2012, Park delivered a mega hit for KBS with My Husband Got a Family (also known as You Who Rolled In Unexpectedly and Unexpected You), marking the writer’s third collaboration with Kim and revolving around the marriage of television director Cha Yoon-hee (Kim) with Yoo Joon-sang’s character Dr. Terry Kang. Until she had met Terry, Yoon-hee was certain she’d stay single forever, as the thought of dealing with in-laws, especially a mother-in-law, terrified her. Having been adopted by a Korean American couple from New York, Terry became the exception for Yoon-hee because her in-laws were far from Seoul, and thus the two enjoy marital bliss with Yoon-hee’s seemingly impossible relationship requirement having been met. Through immense twists of fate and strange coincidences, Yoon-hee navigates the struggles of marital bliss and the difficult tolls of marriage and familial strife in her newfound life. As with Queen of Reversals, Park Ji-eun wrote a drama that could resonate with working women while still packaging the core of the series around marriage and relationships. Kim praised the work of her three-time collaborator, noting the writer’s strength in being “able to take a double-edged approach to her subject matter,” writing television content that is “both comical and serious, without getting too skewed to one side.”
Korean Television Ratings, Third Week of August 2012
Kim was not the only one impressed with Park’s ability to write a phenomenal and well-balanced series, as My Husband Got a Family turned out to be a massive audience and critical success. Consistently shattering its own ratings records as the most-watched program every weekend, the AGB Nielsen numbers for the year certified My Husband Got a Family as the highest-rated K-drama of 2012. With ratings that peaked at 52.3%, the series consistently reached the 40 percent mark, at one point averaging a 42.6% rating as the top-rated program when the second-highest program was averaging 26.7% for the same time slot. Audiences were not the only ones enamored with Park’s latest drama hit, but the series also scored a bevy of award nominations and wins in acting, writing and for the series itself, including nominations from the Paeksang Arts Awards, the KBS Drama Awards, the Korean Drama Awards, the Korean Culture and Entertainment Awards and the K-Drama Star Awards. For her part, Park Ji-eun took home three awards for her drama writing.
Park’s next K-drama, this time for SBS, was 2013’s My Love from the Star (also known as You Who Came from the Stars). Unlike her previous series, Park ventured into a new genre by writing a romance story embedded within the science fiction genre, following the love story between Do Min-Joon, played by Kim Soo-hyun, a 400-year-old alien who retains a peak human appearance and physical condition, and human actress Cheon Song-yi, played by Gianna Jun. Like its predecessor, My Love from the Star was an award-winning success, winning not just South Korean television awards, but also garnering critical acclaim throughout Asia. My Love from the Star would become one of the most popular K-dramas in China and inspired GMA Network of the Philippines and Thailand’s Channel 3 to produce local language remakes of the series. In addition to its massive success and popularity, the K-drama also became a major driver in the Hallyu trend, popularizing “chimaek,” a traditionally Korean fried chicken and beer, in China and creating a spike in sales for the Korean fashion brand ShesMiss, which provided one of the coats worn by Jun’s fashionable character. With My Love from the Star, Park not only solidified herself as one of South Korea’s premier drama writers, but also delivered her first international smash hit.
Park continued pushing the boundaries of her work as a K-drama writer, such as blending reality and scripted content for 2015’s The Producers on KBS and with SBS’ Legend of the Blue Sea, a period drama based on a Korean folk tale, in 2016. In 2019, the writer would find international acclaim once again with Crash Landing on You for tvN and Netflix.
Crash Landing on You tells the love story of Yoon Se-ri, played by Son Ye-jin, a South Korean heiress, and Hyun Bin’s character Ri Jung-hyuk, a North Korean army officer, after a paragliding accident blows Se-ri to a crash landing in the North. As outlandish as the plot sounds, Park Ji-eun had gotten the idea for this drama back in 2008 after hearing a news story about a South Korean actress who had accidentally drifted onto the shores of North Korea during a boating excursion with friends. Unlike many South Korean portrayals of North Korea, Crash Landing on You rejects stereotyping, instead portraying North Koreans in a relatable light, showing them not as rigid and cold, but as actual human beings with an entire range of emotions. For her portrayal of daily life in a North Korean village and its people, Park was honored as the South Korea Unification Ministry’s Person of the Year, as the series immersed South Korean viewers in North Korean culture and was ultimately deemed to have provided a positive example that contributed to education on Korean unification. As has become standard with dramas penned by Park, Crash Landing on You was an award-winning hit. And as Park had done for KBS with My Husband Got a Family, she delivered astronomical ratings numbers for tvN, with Crash Landing on You becoming the cable network’s highest rated drama of all time with a 21.7% viewership rating in its finale. Overall, the series has become the second-highest rated cable K-drama of all time and boasts the fifth-highest average ratings for a K-drama on cable television with a 12.2% average viewership rating, which may have been higher were it not for a slow start. Celebrated around the globe, with Variety listing the series among Netflix’s best international offerings and pushing the Hallyu trend into the difficult-to-penetrate Japanese mainstream, Crash Landing on You is a testament to the fact that Park Ji-eun has yet to meet her peak, instead elevating herself and her work as a drama writer with each subsequent series.
As the world continues to grow more enamored with Korean pop culture, the audience for Korean dramas continues to grow as well. With this expanding audience, the television viewing populace at large now gets to appreciate the work of Park Ji-eun, one of South Korea’s finest writers.
