Review | Netflix K-drama review: Divorce Attorney Shin – Cho Seung-woo legal drama ends on a heart-warming note, taking the easy way out
- Despite the name, Divorce Attorney Shin is not really about divorce – it is about people facing adversity and coming through it, often by getting back together
- As such the show was breezy, comfortable viewing, with several emotional and humorous highs along the way, but its heartfelt approach felt at times halfhearted
3/5 stars
Shin Sung-han (Cho Seung-woo) is a divorce lawyer in his 40s – but before that, he was a music professor at a prestigious university in Germany. Even earlier, he was a wunderkind pianist.
His sudden career U-turn happened after the death of his sister, who had recently divorced and had lost custody of her child.
Sung-han’s nephew Seo Gi-yeong (Kim Joon-eui) was forced to live with his mealy-mouthed father Seo Jeong-guk (Kim Tae-hyang) and his cruel, vindictive stepmother Jin Yeong-ju (Noh Susanna). Yeong-ju runs the powerful Keumhwa Law Firm.
Sung-han does not take on cases at random – he needs to be able to feel a personal connection to a potential client’s situation before he agrees to help them.
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Once he commits to a case, Sung-han goes all in. He will not back down from a fight, nor is he above bending the rules – embittered as he is by first-hand experience of just how unfair they can be.
Sung-han also accepts cases he can connect to his other area of expertise – music. Knowledge of precedents is essential for any lawyer, but these are usually legal ones. In Sung-han’s case, they are often musical.
When representing Park Ae-ran (Hwang Jung-min) in her divorce case against her husband – and her cantankerous mother-in-law – he is reminded of the complicated romantic life of composer Robert Schumann.
Later, when he represents Yeong-ju’s mother-in-law Ma Geum-hi (Cha Hwa-yeon) in her divorce battle, she asks him what his strategy is. Rather than explain, he tells her the story of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, which was first performed without a complete score but nevertheless received a rapturous response.
Schubert and Mozart come up at other points in the show, but Beethoven is the strongest influence on Sung-han. No small wonder, since the composer was also involved in a bitter custody battle with his sister-in-law over the custody of his nephew.
Divorce is a sensitive subject in South Korea – a generation ago it was not very common, but now it is a regular occurrence.
As recent headlines have highlighted, the country’s divorce rate per capita went down during the coronavirus pandemic and shot up in other countries. These reports omit a crucial point – that South Korea’s rate of marriage has been falling faster than its divorce rate.
Its low marriage and birth rates are one reason it has a rapidly ageing population, and this is steadily taxing the country’s already overstretched social security system.
With that in mind, it is interesting to consider how Divorce Attorney Shin tackles the subject of divorce. It certainly does not ignore it, but what is surprising is how many of Sung-han’s cases end with the families getting back together.
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This happens with Ae-ran and her husband, and it also happens with rural farmer Ma Chun-seok (Choi Jae-sup), who takes back his Vietnamese wife Dinh Thi Hoa (Kim Huong Ji-yun) after she fabricated abuse allegations against him and revealed that their son was actually fathered by another man.
Perhaps this is because Divorce Attorney Shin is not really about divorce – it is about people facing adversity and coming through it.
Sometimes that means staying together through thick and thin. Other times, when marriages do dissolve, new family units are formed as children in messy situations invariably wind up with people who protect and care for them.
Divorce is often seen as the end of a journey, but this show strives to move on to new beginnings. This applies to characters beyond Sung-han’s cadre of clients as well.
His office manager and best friend is Jang Hyeong-geun (Kim Sung-kyun). Hyeong-geun goes through his own divorce in the show – which, while an amicable one, is no less heartbreaking.
Throughout the course of the series, his frozen heart thaws and opens up to a new love when he encounters Kim So-yeon (Kang Mal-geum), who runs the neighbourhood ramyeon shop that Sung-han, his friends and his colleagues frequent.
Hyeong-geun was one of the brighter lights of the show, an amusing and warm-hearted foil to Sung-han, and his new start is a richly earned one.
Seo-jin, who has been dealing with the trauma of a sex tape since the beginning of the show, also gets a new start when she is finally welcomed back on air. However, her journey was a less satisfying one. Her story was compelling, but the way her character was tied into the whole story was never convincing.
Divorce Attorney Shin was never less than breezy and comfortable viewing, with several emotional and humorous highs along the way, but its heartfelt approach felt at times half-hearted owing to a circumspect narrative that favoured easy resolutions over consistency.
Divorce Attorney Shin is streaming on Netflix.
