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"Make a Woman Cry" Episode 1

"Make a Woman Cry" Episode 1

Deok-in (played byKim Jeong-eun) is an ex-cop who runs a snack shop next to the local school. Jin-woo (played bySong Chang-ee) is a math teacher who does his best to keep his students in line. Together, they fight bullying. Well, eventually. They don't actually know each other as the drama opens- a fact Deok-in takes memorable advantage of in one scene to teach those kids a lesson in plausible deniability.

Kim Jeong-eunreally wears several hats here, actually. On one level Deok-in's just a really tough middle-aged woman who has a very low tolerance for delinquent behavior. But that's only true to the extent she has the ability to stop it."Make a Woman Cry"quickly recognizes that there's really only so much that Deok-in can really do. One late scene has her break down at the school realizing to her disgust and frustration that the bullying is able to persist mainly because, willfully or not, people and especially teenagers are willing to turn a blind eye to it.

This gives Deok-in and Jin-woo a hard-case/straight-edge dynamic that's particularly odd because it's not really being used for the sake of comedy. Jin-woo sort of comes off as a clueless dork- no big surprise that a math teacher can't grasp finer social subtleties. Even so, Jin-woo is still willing to make an effort. Unfortunately he gets relatively little screen time here, and most of the energy is taken up by the rich family.

The rich family is without a doubt the biggest weakness. In the first place it takes way too long to figure out what their story has to do with Deok-in- the main interesting character. But even when that relevance is finally established looking back on these scenes we're really just left with one of the most generic rich jerk families that I can ever recall seeing. To some extent staple tropes like the water insult are unavoidable- even so, that doesn't make them any more fun to watch.

Although it is possible that this storyline suffers to some extent simply from having to compete with Deok-in for attention. I really like Deok-in. She's assertive and tough. And as the cliffhanger demonstrates, Deok-in is way more interested in taking action than she is in standing around and just hoping everything is going to resolve on its own. So far"Make a Woman Cry"is pulling off everything I was hoping for from the promos- let's hope it keeps moving in that direction.

Review by William Schwartz

"Make a Woman Cry"is directed byKim Geun-hongand Park Sang-hoon-II, written byHa Cheong-okand featuresKim Jeong-eun, Song Chang-ee, Lee Soon-jae,Ha Hee-ra,Oh Dae-gyooandLee Tae-ran.

Source from :Hancinema