Divorce Attorney Shin (Review)
Divorce Attorney Shin is a legal drama which aired on Korean JTBC but also internationally on Netflix. The main character is Shin Sung-han (Cho Seung-woo) a former pianist turned attorney. He specializes in divorces. Like many legal dramas, it is a procedural drama, where every two episodes Shin Sung-han deals with another case. There is also an overarching arc focused on Sung-han’s conflict with a chaebol family of Daenam Electronics. That’s a not a usual chaebol conspiracy plot, though.
Despite the fact that divorce is a titular concept of the show, the series focuses on family and familial relations. That’s obviously not unusual for K-Dramas: family values are at the center of many dramas. Divorce Attorney Shin takes an unusual spin though: it explores the possibility when breaking a family might be sometimes better than preserving it (hence divorce, but not only).
The series starts with the case of Lee Seo-jin (Han Hye-jin), a former radio D.J., who wants to keep custody of her child son during her divorce case. The additional difficulty is that she cheated on her husband and the resulting scandal ended with her losing her job. We learn that her family was dysfunctional much earlier, and she is fighting for the well-being of her son. Such an unconventional approach, where there is always some hidden truth, or not an obvious resolution, characterizes the cases which Sung-han tries to resolve. Lee Seo-jin becomes the female lead of the show, so from time to time the show returns to her life.
Sung-han himself is struggling with a matter of his nephew: his sister died in the accident, and her husband (an heir to Daenam Electronics) took a new wife, Jin Young-joo (Noh Susanna), who is the main antagonist of the series. Jin Young-joo doesn’t want her stepson, Sung-han’s nephew, to have any contact with his uncle and has a personal vendetta against Sung-han. That arc will become more complex in the course of the show, ending with the final case in the finale.
Besides the characters related to ongoing divorce cases, we meet Sung-han’s team, that is, his employees and friends. They usually provide some comedic relief in the show, rarely do we get some more insight into their lives or problems. The show is particularly focused on slowly revealing Sung-han’s past, his previous dealings with Daenam Electronics family, and circumstances leading to his sister’s death. This focus serves the show well, because in only 12 episodes we rarely have time for more. Unlike in most K-Dramas, there is no usual romance arc in the show, there is only something approaching it among supporting characters, but main leads are not involved in any romance.
Nevertheless, I would say this is not a show for everybody. Contrary to, e.g., Extraordinary Attorney Woo, the best recent legal K-Drama, and one of the best shows of 2022, Divorce Attorney Shin definitely expects more of its viewers. While there are lot of similarities between these shows, the division between right and wrong is not that clear in Divorce Attorney Shin as in the Extraordinary Attorney Woo. The characters in Divorce Attorney Shin are not always immediately likable, and the show has overall a somewhat moody atmosphere. Nevertheless, as usual in legal dramas, the cases which Shin Sung-han takes have always a happy ending, and, in the end, the show has an optimistic message.
Divorce Attorney Shin on Wikipedia and MyDramaList
