Expectations Rise for Ji Chang-wook and Son Ye-jin’s Pairing in New K-Drama

Reports are rife that popular Korean actors Ji Chang-wook and Son Ye-jin have been approached to star in a Netflix K-drama tentatively titled Scandal. Currently, the artists are evaluating the offers according to their respective agencies.

An epic saga of fatal attractions and consequences, Scandal is supposed to be an adaptation of the 2003 blockbuster Untold Scandal, the fourth highest-grosser in South Korea that year. Set in the Joseon era, it goes over the scandalous love lives of people. 

The movie, starring Bae Yong-joon, Jeon Do-yeon, and Lee Mi-sook and directed by E J-yong, draws somewhat on Pierre Choderlos de Laclo’s 1782 French epistolary work Les Liaisons dangereuses, aka Dangerous Liaisons in English.

Untold Scandal follows an attractive, crafty noblewoman who lures her impulsive Casanova cousin into a fatal sex and seduction game in which he must court a young woman who threatens her married life. The guy falls for it and accepts, but he’s soon intrigued by a different woman. Reckless acts of desire and passion ensue, ending in undesirable, albeit far worse, outcomes.

Given the sexually explicit nature of Untold Scandal, Ji Chang-wook and Son Ye-jin’s collaboration in a steamy opus like Scandal raises serious thoughts and expectations. Jung Ji-woo, famed for his films Happy End (1999), A Muse (2012), and Tune in for Love (2019), is believed to be in charge of the period drama.

As far as I’m concerned, the prospect of Ji and Son sharing the screen and delving into the recesses of a racy, intense narrative sparks my interest a lot more. The drama is expected to go into production sometime next year. 

Meanwhile, Ji’s next project is the highly anticipated crime thriller Gangnam B-Side, where he has Yoon Gil-ho, an illicit agent ruling Seoul’s Gangnam area, and helps a detective crack a case of missing women within the dark arts of vice, drugs, and crimes. Ji is also in talks to co-star with Ma Dong-seok (Don Lee) in the upcoming superhero drama Twelve. 

Twelve features a cast of actors playing superheroes joining forces to protect Korea from bad elements. It also stars Park Hyung-sik, but this time as the villain! Ji is said to have secured a spot among the superheroes, with Ma playing their leader.

Son Ye-jin, on the other side, has teamed up with Lee Byung-hun and is working on No Other Choice, aka I Can’t Help It—a thriller film inspired by Donald Westlake’s novel The Ax—and led by noted Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook. It’s a tense dark story of a man who gets sacked from his steady job and, in trying to make ends meet thereafter, goes pillar to post for work but ends up turning to criminal activity.