Woman in a Veil

Woman in a Veil (비밀의 여자), or Secret Woman, is a 103 episode melodrama from Korea that was broadcast between March and August 2023.

About

The story centres around three women.

Jung Gyeoi, who witnesses her husband, Nam Yoo Jin, having an affair with her friend Joo Ae Ra. Her Father is murdered, she loses her eyesight and becomes a victim of lock-in syndrome.

Oh Se Rin is arrogant and cold-hearted but her sister is murdered and seeks revenge.

Joo Ae Ra is desperate to be the first lady of a large corporation and nothing will get in her way, but she also is seeking revenge.

Cast

An all-star cast from the world of South Korean soap operas, too many to list here.

Lee Chae Young (이채영) as Joo Ae Ra
A talented actress who we don’t see enough of, she seems to appear a lot on non-drama TV shows including playing football.
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Choi Yoon Young (최윤영) as Oh Se Rin and Jung Gyeol
Her notable appearance to me was in Uncanny Counter season 1 probably because this was one drama that got international exposure.
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Han Ki Woong (한기웅) as Nam Yoon Jin
As far as I’m aware he hasn’t had any movie roles but I’ve seen him in daily dramas “Love to the End” and “Second Husband”. His characters were quite hen-pecked in both Second Husband and Woman in a Veil.
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Lee Sun Ho (이선호) as Seo Tae Yang
Haven’t seen this actor anywhere else, he has been in TV dramas since 2005 including a fair share of dailies. To date he has been in 5 movies. In Man in a Veil he spoke English for a short while, he seemed pretty fluent.

Lee Eun Hyng (이은형) as Jung Young Joon
A growing list of main and support roles for this talented actor, we’ve not seen him in anything else but hopefully more soon.
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Shin Go Eun (신고은) as Jung Gyeol and Oh Se Rin
She was listed as a main character but jumped in and out of the series. She is a Korean pop singer and seems to have made her on-screen debut with a guest role on a drama series called The Last Empress.
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Review

The makers of this show packaged it as though it was the follow-on from Man in a Veil, however, it wasn’t. The only similarity was the cast lineup and maybe the slightly “different than normal” daily drama twist. Man in a Veil was definitely better but I also enjoyed Woman in a Veil a lot too.

Episode 20 was quite prominent whereby many reviewers said “Oh this is ridiculous” but I thought “This is brilliant”. Even though many thought the twist was ridiculous they appeared to keep watching. I think it gave actresses Shin Go Eun and Choi Yoon Young interesting challenges since they were both playing two different characters, and both of them did well in switching between “evil” and “good”. Lee Chae Young is such a good actress, even though her performance was better in Man in a Veil I am hoping to see her in other non-daily drama performances. The “evil” characters were written such that you had sympathy for them at some point or the other.

The script was well-written and had numerous surprises throughout. There was a slight issue with either continuity or directing, something didn’t quite feel right. They made some scenes longer than they should have been, maybe killing time.

The script was written to give every actor a major role, even if it was for a short while, I really like how this was achieved. One of the actors, who I won’t name, just appeared to be going through the motions and could have given a more believable performance. Han Ki Woong appeared to be the most excited about the role on and off-screen. From the behind-the-scenes clips, I saw Bang Eun Hee, who played Jung Gyeol’s mother, appear to be the life and soul of the party. The most annoying character was played by Lee Jung Young, he played such a great evil character in Man in a Veil but the role he was given in Woman in a Veil wasn’t great.

I liked how they had similar incidental music used in “Man in a Veil” even though the decibels could have been higher in some of the dramatic scenes. The first end theme was good but that changed just after halfway through which turned out not so exciting.