Review | K-drama review: One Dollar Lawyer – Disney+ series starring Namgoong Min elevates legal tropes with emotional backstory
- The Disney+ series follows flashy and eccentric lawyer Cheon Ji-hoon (played by Namgoong Min), who takes, and wins, cases for a dollar
- We discover his backstory, why he is so eccentric, and his love for lawyer Lee Joo-young, played by Lee Chung-ah
This article contains spoilers.
3/5 stars
Cheon Ji-hoon (played by Namgoong Min) is the sort of K-drama lead character we’re very familiar with. He’s a lawyer, very sure of himself, can magically fix any problem and doesn’t care about money because he’s already loaded. He’s also a flashy dresser who leads a life filled with eccentricities.
His personal quirks, which includes wearing sunglasses at all times, a ramshackle lawyer’s office, and an intense fondness for black bean noodles, at first come across as affectations, a way to make him stand out as a maverick.
It’s to the show’s credit that we eventually discover that there is method in the One Dollar Lawyer’s madness, so to speak. As the show takes an extended midseason trip into the past, we learn all about Ji-hoon’s history as a prosecutor and, most importantly, what became of his personal connections, and how this informed his persona as the One Dollar Lawyer.