KBS2’s New Wed/Thurs Drama “Thorn Birds” Review

KBS2 has launched its new Wednesday-Thursday drama “Thorn Birds.” The first episode was broadcasted on March 2^nd. “Thorn Birds” centers around the lives of ill-fated children born from women who wished to escape their unhappy and burdened lives. The story starts off as a couple of underprivileged women meet well-off guys to survive. To maintain their relationships with them, they gave birth. However, they were either abandoned without second thought or forced to give up their child. The women ended up destitute once again, and those who were able to keep her child ended up having one more mouth to feed. Unfortunately, they too abandon their kids, and that is where this tragic story begins.   

This tragedy has a lot of pained women. First, we have top actress Lee Ae Rin (Cha Hwa Yeon). Ae Rin gives birth to a daughter, but the biological father ends up abandoning her and the baby. Unfortunately, Ae Rin’s manager knows about this secret and uses it to his advantage by controlling her. She too ends up ditching her daughter, Yoo Kyung, too. Second, we have Kim Gye Soon (Song Oak Sook) who has a son with a married chaebol; she ends up losing her son. The pain and sadness moves on to the next generation. Yoo Kyung (Kim Min Jung) is full of wrath against her biological mother for leaving her while Jung Eun (Han Hye Jin) dreams of becoming an actress to find her mother. Then we have Young Jo (Ju Sang Wook), the illegitimate chaebol son, between our two female leads. To Jung Eun, Young Jo is the person she shared her pain with. To Yoo Kyung, he is the person who can fulfill her ambitions. To Gye Soon, Young Jo is a heartbreaking wound. “Thorn Birds” revolves on how these unfortunate women interact with Young Jo and show their true colors.         

“Thorn Birds” starts by daringly exposing the characters’ birth secrets. In the first episode, young Jung Eun and Yoo Kyung, portrayed by child actresses Kim So Hyun and Yoon Jung Eun respectively, along with Young Jo find out that their motherly figures aren’t so motherly after all. Jung Eun tries to defend her mother by telling herself “there must be a good reason.” However, she discovers through the police that her mother wanted nothing to do with her. Young Jo learns from his mother directly that she chose money over him. At the beginning of the series, Yoo Kyung is portrayed as a bright and lively girl but develops into the sad and dark femme fatale. The three are childhood friends and support each other through rough times. That is until Yoo Kyung found out she was an adoptee.

“Thorn Birds” is a drama that stems from the topic of maternal love. The careless adults irresponsibly had children to secure their happiness, which they ultimately failed to do, and the children had to go on living with the pain that their mothers abandoned them.    

Actors Han Hye Jin, Kim Min Jung, and Ju Sang Wook finally made their appearance on the second episode which takes place a decade after their childhood. The three characters run into each other at a film company. Yoo Kyung joins the company, where her biological mother/top actress Lee Ae Rin also belongs to, as a producer. Young Jo also works at the company as producer/successor while Jung Eun, who dreams of becoming an actress, works as an extra. As he re-encounters them, Young Jo starts to develop feelings for both Yoo Kyung and Jung Eun. The story will develop as these ill-fated characters continue to overcome obstacles in their lives.

Written in Korean by song@soompi; translated by hotshotlover30@soompi