One Dollar Lawyer (Review)
(천원짜리 변호사; aired from September 23 to November 11, 2022; 12 episodes)
One Dollar Lawyer (or, actually, 1000 Won Lawyer) is a legal K-Drama. It starts as a procedural drama and legal comedy, however episodes 7–8 make a genre U-turn, and the drama continues as political/legal thriller. It aired only 12 episodes despite initially being planned for 14, and was cancelled afterward. The whole show is pretty uneven and is definitely overshadowed by the most popular legal drama of 2022, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, which not only ran for 16 episodes, but is expected to have Season 2.
The premise is somewhat simple: Chun Ji-hoon (Namkoong Min) is a former prosecutor, now working as an attorney who asks for only 1000 won of legal fees from his clients (which now is around $0.8, not exactly one dollar; nevertheless K-Dramas and their translators like to pretend 1000 won is one dollar for a simplicity's sake). Chun Ji-hoon gets an unlikely subordinates in Baek Ma-ri (Kim Ji-eun as a granddaughter of the owner of the leading law firm, Baek Hyun-moo played by Lee Deok-hwa); and in Sa Ma-jang (Park Jin-woo), an owner of the nearby dry-cleaning store.
The trio pursues various cases of the clients who usually cannot afford more expensive lawyers because they are impoverished, unprivileged, or in some other difficult situation. So, the overall theme is a usual for K-Dramas conflict between honest and unprivileged people against devious and wealthy. Nevertheless, do not expect here a depth similar to some other K-Dramas dealing with that problem, like recent Anna or Little women.
And then, suddenly, since episode seven we’re learning about Chun Ji-hoon’s past, which the show was not so subtly hinting in the first six episodes. Episodes 7 and 8 are a prolonged flashback, 180-degree shift in tone to thriller genre with corruption, intrigue, and murder, and obviously, revenge (recently, no K-Drama is good without a revenge plot). That tonal shift is very jarring: the show begins as a legal comedy, and then, suddenly, continues as a completely serious thriller. At least for me, I like consistency in TV shows, and this is anything but.
Namkoong Min portrays Chun Ji-hoon as a very eccentric person, a sort of lawyer version of Sherlock Holmes (and some episodes are really more crime mysteries than legal dramas, yet another problem with a consistency). So, Chun Ji-hoon has his quirks and unusual behaviors, yet always succeeds with finding a resolution for the case. Nevertheless, this portrayal yet again invites a comparison with Extraordinary Attorney Woo, where the lead is also is not your typical lawyer: and Namkoong Min’s performance, while very good, just pales in comparison to Park Eun-bin as attorney Woo.
Two other main characters, Baek Ma-ri and Sa Ma-jang are mostly introduced as comic reliefs. Sa Ma-jang gets one flashback with a sort of his back story, or explanation how he knows Chun Ji-hoon. To be honest, I don’t really understand why we even have a character of Sa Ma-jang in the show: his removal wouldn’t change anything about the show but would definitely allow for developing some other characters more.
Baek Ma-ri is a second lead character, and her arc is revolving around her relationship with her grandfather and his law firm, but is mostly a wasted opportunity (another recent drama with Lee Deok-hwa, Business Proposal, makes much better use of him; he is again a grandfather of a main character, and this relationship is much better developed). Kim Ji-eun is a bit underused in One Dollar Lawyer, and often limited to being just a comic relief (yup, we’re again getting those annoying scenes where a main female character is completely drunk and is embarrassing herself and everybody around, an unfortunate trope which K-Dramas should have abandoned a long time ago). She is mostly a support character introduced only to highlight the main male protagonist and make him more exceptional.
In conclusion, One Dollar Lawyer was unlucky to be released in the same year as Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and the comparison is not flattering for the former. One Dollar Lawyer characters are often shallow and pointless. The show undergoes a tonal U-turn in the middle, which is pretty jarring. The series also suffered because of behind-the-scenes problems, and it shows.
One Dollar Lawyer on Wikipedia and MyDramaList
