[Orion's Daily Ramblings] Park Hee-soon, Choo Ja-hyun, Oh Man-seok and Cho Yeo-jeong Cast in Drama "Beautiful World"

JTBC is on a roll with "SKY Castle", and its follow-up aims to follow suit. "Beautiful World" has cast Park Hee-soon, Choo Ja-hyun, Oh Man-seok and Cho Yeo-jeong as rival parental pairs in a case of school violence. Writing this is Kim Jee-woo and she is once again joined by PD Park Chan-hong, following their collaboration in works such as "Memory", "Don't Look Back : The Legend of Orpheus" and "Devil".

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"Beautiful World" is a story about a boy on the brink of death due to bullying, and his family's efforts to discover the truth on behalf of their son. It explores the search for hope through the healing of one another's pain, even in a selfish world filled with lies, deceit, distrust, exposure and the disregard of others' suffering.

Park Hee-soon and Choo Ja-hyun play Park Moo-jin and Kang In-ha. They are the parents fighting to discover the truth of the violence faced by their son, who is in junior high school. What used to be a perfectly normal and happy family saw their life turn into a nightmare overnight, following In-ha's decision to move into a neighborhood with prestigious schools for her son. Their concept line reads "Just forget it? I can't do that. I need to know what happened, and why".

Oh Man-seok and Cho Yeo-jeong play Oh Jin-pyo and Seo Eun-joo, a couple formed through an arranged marriage, and the rich and powerful parents of the student who exercised violence. Since they have never experienced poverty or misfortune, they are blind to the pain of the socially underprivileged, so they try to hide their son's crime by pulling strings. Their concept line reads "As a parent myself, how could I not understand what you're feeling? But the kids were just joking around. Isn't your kid the one with the problem?"

I do worry about Dramaland's love for the "evil messed up rich". I feel it tends to miss the opportunity for more relevant exploration of these topics, in favor of the usual catering to audiences' curiosity about, and hate for the elite. It's a good decision to draw in viewership, but not as narratively interesting anymore. Worries aside, this is an exciting project I'll be keeping an eye on.

Written by: Orion from 'Orion's Ramblings'

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