[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Make a Woman Cry" Episode 33

Eun-soo is at it once again with her terrible and blatant emotional manipulation. But the blowback ends up being more immediate than anticipated. Hyeon-seo has always been a thoughtful, considerate young man, and meeting his father answers a lot of questions. Namely, why Hyeon-seo is thoughtful and considerate when everyone else in his family is so mean. Jin-han is thoughtful and considerate too. He doesn't go for all or nothing. Which is why for all Eun-soo's outrage, Hyeon-seo really is satisfied with just a heartfelt hug.

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I've been very critical of Jin-han's lack of involvement in the story but Jin-han himself provides a pretty good argument for that. He's not, in any meaningful way, an heir to a major corporate empire. Jin-han runs a street snack stand with a wife who's fairly dependent on him. It's hard to imagine what good could possibly come out of Jin-han returning to the family home. These people are quite simply completely dysfunctional- even if, ironically enough, from Jin-han's point of view they've gotten along fine without him.

There is an odd edge to Eun-soo's behavior, though, which makes me wonder what was really going on with her and Jin-han. Eun-soo is deliberately being emotionally manipulative in a way that's much less strategic than with anyone in the house. Eun-soo sounds hurt, and she genuinely seems to believe that she's been hurt, even though up until now we've seen that Eun-soo has had little-to-no interest in what happened to Jin-han compared to what happened to her scheming.

My suspicion is that we are going to get a lot of this better explained in backstory, and that Eun-soo's original motivation too is going to be a lot less benign than was originally implied. At the very minimum long ago scheming on Eun-soo's part would explain why she has it in for Hyo-jeong in the present day. We know, and Hyeon-seo knows, that Hyo-jeong didn't want to get involved with Hyeon-seo at all and in fact deliberately discouraged him in a way that could not possibly be interpreted as playing hard-to-get. Yet Eun-soo is unwilling to give anyone benefit of the doubt.

As for the alleged main characters Deok-in and Jin-woo...well, more of the same old really. They have curt conversations without ever actually communicating anything while other plot happens in the background. I doubt at this point that their storyline is going to have a very satisfying conclusion, but I suppose that can't be helped. At least the rich family storyline is taking up the slack.

Review by William Schwartz

"Make a Woman Cry" is directed by Kim Geun-hong and Park Sang-hoon-III, written by Ha Cheong-ok and features Kim Jung-eun, Song Chang-eui, Lee Soon-jae, Ha Hee-ra, Oh Dae-gyu and Lee Tae-ran.