ReviewNetflix K-drama review: Queenmaker – The World of the Married star Kim Hee-ae returns in slick and vicious election drama

Politics, scandals and corporate greed feature in Netflix Korean drama Queenmaker, starring Kim Hee-ae as a mistreated corporate employee seeking revenge

She teams up with a human-rights activist, played by Moon So-ri and abused by the same corporation, to help her run for mayor of Seoul, the South Korean capital

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Netflix K-drama Queenmaker stars Kim Hee-ae (left) as a disgruntled corporate fixer who joins forces with a human-rights activist (Moon So-ri, right) to help her run for mayor of Seoul. Photo: Kim Ji-yeon/Netflix

Published: 7:15pm, 18 Apr 2023

3.5/5 stars

Three years after leading the smash hit drama The World of the Married, actress Kim Hee-ae returns in Netflix’s Queenmaker as a legendary fixer teaming up with a budding politician, played by acclaimed actress Moon So-ri (On the Verge of Insanity).

Much like the similarly titled film Kingmaker last year, featuring Sul Kyung-gu and Lee Sun-kyun, this series chronicles the uneasy alliance between a strategist and an idealist who have very different views about what kind of tactics are permissible in an election.

Kim is Hwang Do-hee, the fearsome leader of the strategic planning department at the all-powerful Eunsung Corporation. She has been loyally and effectively serving chairwoman Son Young-sim (Seo Yi-sook) for a decade, cleaning up the scandals of her petulant adult children Eun Chae-ryeong (Kim Sae-byeok) and Eun So-jin (Yoon Ji-hye).

She has never wavered, setting aside her moral scruples to tear down Eunsung’s adversaries and engineer media narratives in the corporation’s favour.