I’m the type of person who gives lots of second chances to dramas. Better later than never. It happened more than once when a drama turned out to be a total gem if you dig deeper into its story and ‘My daughter Geum Sa Wol’ is no exception.
Even though I did a shameful act for the first 5 or so episodes (ehem fast forwarded), later on the story turned out to be quite exciting. But as any other family dramas, this one also has birth secrets, chaebols, revenge and utterly savage second female lead – believe me there’s no one meaner than a family drama’s second female lead (some are even criminals).
Albeit fast forwarding the first episodes, the story is easy to understand and around episode 9 the story gets pretty easy to get. For now, what everyone needs to know is that there’s a lot of revenge going to happen – it happens not only in the parents’ world but also in the younger cast’s world. After the orphanage Sa Wol and Hye Sang lived in collapsed, both are adopted by the man who is supposed to be Sa Wol’s father. While everyone thinks that Hye Sang is the real daughter of Oh Min Ho and Deuk Ye, in fact Sa Wol is the real daughter.
As for the romance part of the show, the arrogant (duh!) main lead guy falls in love with the Geum Sa Wol. However, Hye Sang wants to have both her adopted parents and Chan Bin for herself thus she messes up with Sa Wol’s life making her responsible for various incidents. Honestly, I don’t want to say more about the story, it will spoil the whole fun. But I do want to mention that there is also someone who falls in love with Hye Sang and that person is Se Hoon.
Since I already mentioned the evil second lead female character, Hye Sang is the type that everyone hates. I bet a cookie that no one will like her character – she’s that twisted. Even from childhood, Hye Sang acted as Sa Wol and to put it simple, she stole the later one’s life. Now, during their 20s, Hye Sang continues to mess up with Sa Wol’s life, not only that she wants to make everyone go against her but even during work she wants to put the life of the other one in danger. By using despicable ways, Hye Sang’s only wish is for Sa Wol to disappear from everyone’s life so she can lead a happy life with her parents and Chan Bin.
Regarding Sa Wol – she is the typical family drama female lead. Not necessary weak but the type that needs protection even if the girl shows some determination to break away from certain situation, the prince, Chan Bin will always runs to save her.
Chan Bin, as already mentioned is an arrogant guy. But that’s just the surface of him as a character. By seeing him more and more, one will understand that arrogance isn’t everything about him. In a way, he doesn’t agree with the things his father does and wants to build his own architecture portfolio all by himself. On the other hand, Chan Bin becomes a fool whenever Sa Wol is around.
Se Hoon didn’t show up much, but his appearance is intense especially after he formed a team with Sa Wol’s real mother, Deuk Ye, to go against the lady’s husband, named Man Ho, since both want to take revenge on the man. The scenes with these two are my favorite – they have such an interesting partnership and make a great team while understanding each other’s next step just by look into the other’s eyes. There’s no romance between them so don’t misunderstand!
In terms of acting, comparing the two female leads, I must say that Park Se Young is doing a better job than Baek Jin Hee. Maybe it’s because Se Young’s character, Hye Sang is more powerful and that gives her a bigger part of the spotlight. The two actors of Se Hoon and Chan Bin, Do Sang Woo respectively Yoo Hyun Min are doing okay. Of course Do Sang Woo is still green but I’ve seen all of his dramas and I can say that he is improving with each work.
The writing is good and the story moves fast but still gives time to the viewer to get used with the changes or the development of its characters. I’m actually looking forward to see how the characters will change throughout the drama although I do hunch a bit of the further progress. The writer, Kim Sun Ok is a master when it comes to revenge dramas (past works: Temptation of an Angel, Come Jang Bo Ri) so if you want to watch ‘My daughter Geum Sa Wol’ don’t expect fluffy bunnies because you won’t see any.
Four Seasons Dramas! 
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