[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Artificial City" Episode 1

With inaugural ratings of 3.571% "Artificial City" is doing...OK in its initial domestic ratings. The much anticipated drama has had a much more ambiguous international distribution schedule, with the matriarchal corporate thriller only just recently being picked up by Rakuten Viki, where it still isn't quite available to watch. That's no fun for Soo Ae's international fans at all- although it's been so long since Soo Ae appeared in a drama the relevant rights holders might not have realized she still had international fans.

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Anyway! Soo Ae plays Jae-hee, the aspiring matriarch of a powerful business group. A brief flashback seems to imply that Jae-hee wasn't always desiring of power. The disturbing scene has her mother-in-law, art director Han-sook (played by Kim Mi-sook) drag Jae-hee to a gynecologist's office to confirm there's nothing wrong with her reproductive plumbing. The dready backdrop of "Artificial City" has every personal decision be heavily scrutinized for its relationship to the familial empire.

The exact connection between these decisions and the familial empires at times can be rather vague, if only because the overall plot is quite convoluted. Looking over the character correlation chart, I see that apparently Han-sook's sons are unrelated to each other. Han-sook and her husband both had extramarital affairs. This doesn't come up in the first episode, though, the men themselves extremely peripheral figures compared to the various women earnestly seeking each other's approval.

This is most obvious with Yi-seol (played by Lee E-dam), who keeps making meaningful faces at Jae-hee in the midst of some fairly mundane expository scenes explaining the art gallery work that all the women are engaged in. I keep thinking that this work must be more important than it sounds, given the grave severity with which Han-sook demands Jae-hee prove herself as worthy of taking up her mantle. But so far, the exposition has been managerial and not that exciting.

Really, "Artificial City" veers fairly close to boring. Even sex scenes and some unexpected violence at the end can't really detract from the fact that almost nothing actually happens in the story. The women just exchange layered dialog while engaging in aggressive body language, always clearly communicating that the scene is intense without explicitly or verbally confirming why. The men are so brief and transparent in comparison they barely even feel relevant, despite the real power obviously flowing through the convoluted web of family relationships.

Review by William Schwartz

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"Artificial City" is directed by Jeon Chang-geun, written by Son Se-dong, and features Soo Ae, Kim Kang-woo, Kim Mi-sook, Lee E-dam, Lee Hak-joo, Song Young-chang. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2021/12/08~Now airing, Wed, Thu 22:30 on jTBC.

 

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