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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Ju Ji-hoon, Ha Ji-won, Nana, Cha Joo-young
Latest Nielsen rating: 3.8 per cent
Ju Ji-hoon returns to our screens following last year’s hit medical drama The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call, once again playing the smartest man in the room. While his previous role used that intellect to save people, in the new ENA drama Climax, he plays a man who seeks only to serve himself.
Co-starring Ha Ji-won (Curtain Call), Nana (Mask Girl) and Cha Joo-young (The Glory), this scheming tale of high-society ambition and back-stabbing is a slick, febrile prime-time soap opera that marks the television drama debut of writer-director Lee Ji-won, known for the indie breakout Miss Baek.


Much like Zo In-sung’s protagonist in the 2017 big-screen hit The King, Ju’s character Bang Tae-seob is a man from a working-class background who is determined to elevate himself to the highest echelons of the power ladder through South Korea’s powerful prosecution service.
But without the wealth and connections that other prosecutors can rely on, Tae-seob must work twice as hard – and play twice as dirty – to achieve his ruthless ambitions.
Climax opens with Tae-seob driving into the wilderness during a torrential downpour at night. Stepping out of his Mercedes in a raincoat, he marches into a forest, reaches an ancestral gravesite and begins digging.
To fill in how Tae-seob reached this low point, Climax skips back to his days as a young man, surrounded by books in his cramped bedsit, studying for the bar. We learn that he was inspired to become a prosecutor to avenge his father, a labour activist who took his own life.

The show then introduces top actress Chu Sang-ah (Ha). The two lock eyes in a corridor before the timeline lurches forward several years into their marriage.
Tae-seob is still hustling his way up the ladder, while Sang-ah is attempting a comeback following a tax evasion scandal. Their ambitions are tethered to the all-powerful, family-run WR Group and Lee Yang-mi (Cha), the young and devious second wife of its chairman, Kwon Se-myeong (Kim Hong-fa, The Judge from Hell).
Through her preferred technique of sexual extortion, Yang-mi gets people to do her bidding as she conspires to position her political puppet – the current mayor of Seoul – in the coming presidential race. Because Yang-mi financially backs Sang-ah’s agency, the actress is caught in her web.
With the help of his shadowy operative Hwang Jeong-won (Nana), Tae-seob is trying to scupper Yang-mi’s political scheming to curry favour with WR Group heir Kwon Jung-uk (Oh Jung-se, It’s Okay to Not Be Okay).

Tae-seob and Sang-ah’s destinies are dangerously intertwined. With both spouses hiding major secrets from one another, expect plenty of dramatic fireworks going forward.
Furthering the ambitions of previous prime-time soaps like SKY Castle and The Penthouse, Lee fully embraces the makjang (Korean soap opera) formula. She adds cinematic gloss and an unusually high calibre of acting talent to a series that bridges politics, business and entertainment – think Inside Men drenched in melodrama.
Lee’s gambit mostly pays off. The series moves at a brisk pace and is peppered with outrageous, meme-ready outbursts – such as Yang-mi humiliating Sang-ah by smashing a raw egg over her head.
The only miscalculation is a clash in tone among the cast. Ha and Cha, in particular, lean heavily into the melodramatic excess of the material. Meanwhile, Ju and Nana deliver restrained performances better suited to the sober, hard-boiled thrillers of their pasts.

Each performance works in isolation, but together, it is not always clear what kind of show we are watching – a problem stemming less from novelty than from directorial indecision.
Climax has a lot of energy and much on its mind, juggling social corruption, gender politics and domestic drama, but a focused throughline to guide us along its thematic ambitions has yet to emerge, in part thanks to the restless, chopped-up chronology.
There is a wealth of mystery and intrigue, but few grounding elements to give us a sense of what we are missing. After all, a climax is a peak to be built towards, not a pitch to be sustained throughout.
Climax is streaming on Viu.


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While glossy, well acted and filled with meme-ready outbursts, ENA’s new Korean drama Climax suffers from directorial indecision


While glossy, well acted and filled with meme-ready outbursts, ENA’s new Korean drama Climax suffers from directorial indecision.


K-drama Climax: Ju Ji-hoon covets high-society power in slick and juicy prime-time soap

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}While glossy, well acted and filled with meme-ready outbursts, ENA’s new Korean drama Climax suffers from directorial indecision

While glossy, well acted and filled with meme-ready outbursts, ENA’s new Korean drama Climax suffers from directorial indecision