A mother-child relationship is one of the most pious relationships to exist. A parent nurtures a child with values, love, and support to help the child grow and prosper. But sometimes, in a flurry of one’s ambition and past hurt, the parent might forget that their child is still a child. The parent might end up putting high expectations on the small soul, leading the child to not feel very welcome towards the parent. In such cases, the child grows up with resentment and dislike towards their parents and does not wish to acknowledge the parents after the child is grown up. The drama we are looking at today is one such drama which deals with this delicate relationship of a mother and her son against the backdrop of politics and corruption. After charming the audiences in The Glory, Lee Do Hyun has come back to Netflix with another emotional story with The Good Bad Mother. Ra Mi Ran stars as Lee Do Hyun’s mother in the show. The Korean title of the show simply translates to ‘A Bad Mother’ but the English title is where the main idea is hidden. The Good Bad Mother premiered on April 26, 2023. The first two episodes set the wheels of the story in motion. We were introduced to all the leads and the supporting cast who would play pivotal roles to take the story ahead.
The Good Bad Mother has a promising start when it comes to the story. In true K-Drama fashion, the makers set up good background stories for our leads to show their motivation for the actions that are to follow in the future. Lee Doo Hyun’s character is Choi Kang Ho who is a present-day prosecutor in Seoul, but his character is very gray and corrupt. He is a highly ambitious man who is smart enough to manipulate the situation for his benefit. He grew up without knowing his father who was killed by a corrupt real estate business owner, and his equation with his mother Young Soon has been rocky since the start. The woman had to start from scratch in a new town all by herself and also look after her son. Somewhere along the way, she lost sight of being a mother and took up the role of a guardian for her son Kang Ho instead. Young Soon and Kang Ho as a mother and son never saw eye to eye. For Young Soon, Kang Ho was more of a means to rise in power so that her son won’t face the same fate as her husband did. She barred her son from going to school picnics or going out with friends. Kang Ho grew up spending all his time studying and preparing to become a prosecutor. In the present we see Kang Ho holding no respect or regard for his mother. To scale up the social ladder in his life, he is ready to separate from his mother as well. He is working with the same real estate owner who killed his father. And he is also planning to marry the daughter of the prosecutor who was responsible for his father’s case back in the day.
We also have Ahn Eun Jin as Mi Joo who is Choi Kang Ho’s childhood friend. The two share their birthday and on most occasions have celebrated it together as well, being in the same town. Mi Joo is living as a salon stylist and has two kids. Her mother has been lying in the town where Mi Joo is living in the US with her husband, despite that not being the reality. Mi Joo has been trying to be Kang Ho’s close aide since their childhood but Kang Ho maintained his distance and chose to be aloof instead. Mi Joo has faced hardship in her life but aims to become successful so that she, her daughters and her mother can live a life of comfort and luxury. It was a welcome change to see Ahn Eun Ji in a new avatar after seeing her as the bumbling resident doctor in Hospital Playlist.
At the end of the second episode, we see that Kang Ho’s car is pushed down the cliff by a passing truck. Now is when the actual story will start. The first two episodes of the show set up the story and put all the wheels in motion. We know which characters to begin to love and which to dislike. What makes The Good Bad Mother a different drama is that despite carrying a similar DNA of revenge drama, the main focus lies on the mother-son relationship? Usually, we see how an incident becomes a big motivator for the characters to exact revenge. Sure, we can see how it affects the characters, but in this drama, we see the after-effects on a more grassroots level. We see how it has left years and years of unresolved trauma between a parent and a child.
The characters in The Good Bad Mother are quite relatable and heartwarming. We see such characters everywhere around us. They are maybe in our own families or our neighbourhood. The drama shows promise for the forthcoming episodes, especially with Young Soon and Kang Ho’s relationship as they get a second chance to reconnect and repair what is broken between them. It remains to be seen what happens to the rest of the cast, and if Kang Ho knew about his father’s murderers as well. One thing is for sure it will be a very heartwarming tale to see as Young Soon and Kang Ho rebuild their parent-child relationship, and heal from the years’ worth of unhealed trauma.
The post The Good Bad Mother Review: Ra Mi Ran and Lee Do Hyun are estranged mother-son in slice-of-life drama about second chances appeared first on Bollywood Hungama.
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