“Suits” (슈츠)

By Jae-Ha Kim
jaehakim.com
March 23, 2020

 Go Yeon-Woo (played by Park Hyung-Sik)
Choi Kang-Seok (played by Jang Dong-gun)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

“Suits” is a very enjoyable series and held my attention for much of the 16 episodes. The cases are interesting and the drama within the fictional law firm is well weaved. Most importantly, Park Hyung-Sik got a chance to really show off the range of his acting abilities.

Yeon-Woo is very smart and street savvy. Once he has read and understood something, he remembers it verbatim. This trait would come in very handy in the legal field. Through circumstances beyond his control, Yeon-Woo wasn’t able to attend law school. He had the brains, but not the money to pay for school and support his hospitalized grandmother. He survives doing some shady work until he stumbles upon Kang-Seok — a former prosecutor who now is the ace at a prestigious law firm. Never having lost a case, he’s the firm’s rainmaker.

The two forge a contentious relationship that works well for both. Kang-Seok mentors Yeon-Woo, who is allowed to work on cases with him, but has to pretend that he legally is an attorney.

This is where I was flummoxed. Both knew that it was illegal for Yeon-Woo to represent clients. While he  may have been as smart as any attorney, he didn’t have the experience or, more importantly, the diploma. That was a huge liability to the firm. It wasn’t difficult for their adversaries to figure out. There was actually no reason for him to take on the role of a lawyer when he could’ve worked as Kang-Seok’s assistant, while attending law school at night. He had already passed the bar (albeit in a cheating scandal where he took the test for a law student). He just needed to go through the paperwork to get his own rightful documents.

But, of course, if they had done this, the series wouldn’t have existed.

I was delighted to see two actors from “Call Me Mother” reunited here. Ko Sung-Hee  and Son Seok-Koo played a pair of sadistic child abusers in that superb K-Drama. Here, Ko portrays Jin-Na (Yeon-Woo’s love interest) and Son plays David Kim, a Korean American attorney who takes an instant dislike to Yeon-Woo. Many Korean actors are given English lines to speak in K-Dramas to prove their character’s foreign language proficiency. I’m not sure of Son’s real-life background, but his fast-delivery English sounded authentic and added cockiness to his smarmy role.

As expressive as Park was, his co-star stuck to a monotone delivery that grew old fast. I’m sure that Jang Dong-gun was told to act in that manner. But it was almost like listening to a human metronome, rather than an impassioned law firm partner sticking up for his underling.

Actress I hated in a different K-Drama: Ye Soo-Jung played Park Hyung-Sik’s sweet grandmother. The role was quite a change from her previous one in “Search: WWW,” where she played an overbearing and immoral mother-in-law/businesswoman. Here, she was absolutely lovely as his only surviving relative … and the glue that held his life together. She made him want to be a better man.

Airdates: KBS2 aired 16 hour-long episodes from April 25 to June 14, 2018.

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