The Good Bad Mother: A Comedy Drama About Love, Family and Loss

It has been a few months since I’ve written about K-dramas, but after watching The Good Bad Mother, one of the latest Korean Netflix releases, I couldn’t wait to write a review about it!

If you still haven’t watched this comedy drama, this is an excellent way to learn more about it, but I will warn you immediately that there will be some spoilers, so pay attention to the spoiler alerts.

The series starts with an exciting metaphor between pigs and humans: they are the only "animals" whose every part has a use, and they were both condemned (by humans ironically) to live in cages, which caused them to become irritable, dirty, and sad.

Pigs, in particular, cannot naturally look up at the sun, if not only when they fall, and, in the same way, humans too often need to fall for them to look at things in a new light.

After this long introduction, which contains all we need to understand this comedy drama's themes, we are introduced to the "mother," Jin Young-Soon.

We see her getting married and pregnant and losing her husband due to the corruption and illegal activities of some characters we will meet again later.

After empathizing with her for most of the first episode, we later see how she behaved with her son Choi Kang-Ho during his childhood and disliked her inevitably.

She was very strict with her son, not allowing him to do what most children and teenagers usually do, and their relationship seems also strained when he is an adult.

However, as the introduction may have hinted, a few episodes into the series Kang-Ho has an accident, which causes him to regress to his seven years old self.

This becomes a chance for him and his mother to relive his childhood and heal their relationship. Besides that, this comedy drama also deals with the mysteries behind his father's death, love, friendship, and much more.

Playing the role of Jin Young-Soon is Ra Mi-Ran, an actress known to most for her role in the iconic series Reply 1988, where she also played the mother of one of the main characters.

In this comedy drama, more than showing off her ability to play funny and lighthearted roles, as she did in Reply 1988, she can show off her excellent acting skills in a very complex and nuanced character.

As I said, in fact, during the series, our opinion of Young-Soon changes many times; we see her being a perfect wife, we see her being a terrible mother, we see her being worried, sad, harsh, selfish, selfless, she does things we like and things we don’t.

At the end of the series, we almost stop considering her a character, and we think of her as person we know in real life.

Playing the role of Choi Kang-Ho, Lee Do-Hyun again proves to everyone his undoubtable talent.

He recently participated in The Glory, where he played Joo Yeo-Jeong, the protagonist’s love interest.

Despite having little screen time there, he delivered an outstanding performance but could show off his range here.

Choi Kang-Ho is a child who missed out on living his childhood due to his father’s death and his mother’s strictness and apparent lack of affection.

Despite that, he grows up to be a great man, although it may seem otherwise.

Despite the many difficulties she faces in life, Lee Mi-Joo is substantially a cheerful and bright character.

We learn almost immediately that she started having a crush on Kang-Ho while still a young child, and she never falters in her love, even when hating herself for her loyalty.

She is not academically brilliant but often shows a deep emotional maturity, which is one reason her character is so likable.

I haven’t seen anything else with Ahn Eun-Jin, but I think she is a great actress, and I hope to see other K-dramas with her in the future.

Bang Sam-Sik, despite his bad decisions, is guilty of often believing the wrong people and always looking for an easy solution to his problems.

He has always been in love with Mi-Joo and envied Kang-Ho for his successful academic career and his relationship with Mi-Joo.

He primarily covers the role of comic relief but still is a reliable friend for Mi-Joo and helps her and Kang-Ho when most needed.

Yoo In-Soo is a very good actor who recently gained more attention thanks to his participation in many engaging titles like All of Us Are Dead and Alchemy of Souls.

Alongside them, many other incredible actors like Choi Moo-Sung (in the role of Song Woo-Byeok), Jung Woong-In (in the part of Oh Tae-Soo), and Kang Mal-Geum (in the role of Mi-Joo mother, Jung Gum-Ja).

If the plot and the cast haven't entirely convinced you, I will give you some reasons why you should give The Bad Good Mother a chance:

It is a series for those who, like me, like stories regarding family, friendship, and human relationships.

This comedy drama doesn't deal uniquely with the relationship between Kang-Ho and his mother but also between the strong bonds the villagers of Jouri have formed and how their friendship is often a much-needed point of support for them.

The series is both a comedy drama, a melodrama, and a thriller.

The three genres are mixed perfectly, making the viewer feel wholly immersed in the story and emotionally involved.

Mi-Joo and Kang-Ho's love story is heartwarming, and the chemistry between Lee Do-Hyun and Ann Eun-Jin is perfect.

They both have cute and heart-wrenching moments, all of which are P-E-R-F-E-C-T!

This comedy drama is full of memorable scenes:

But here are some of my favorites:

After Kang-Ho’s incident, his mom is, of course, forced to help him with everything since he did not only lose his memory but also his ability to walk and move his hands.

To regain his previous life, he needs to regain his strength first and foremost by eating, but he initially refuses to eat.

Young-Soon is confused by his behavior until he reveals to her that he doesn’t want to eat because ‘if he overeats, he wouldn’t be able to study,’ something she often told him as a child.

In front of this revelation, she is stricken by her guilt.

In episode 12, after a fire breaks out in the hovel, Kang-Ho and his mother run there to try to save the pigs, and Kang-Ho gets stuck in the building.

While there, he gets hit in the head, and, in some way, he regains his memory.

He knows that he has to put in jail the people who ruined his and his mother's lives again and again, because he is well aware that they will never leave them alone.

He initially tries to hide the truth from his mother, but she can immediately see that he is lying; the moment she reveals to him what she knows is highly emotional.

Kang-Ho and Mi-Joo's love story is one full of highs and lows. They had to break up years before due to Kang-Ho's quest to get revenge.

Despite their past, Kang-Ho's accident was a way for them to find peace and restart their relationship (after also having the chance to clarify their past misunderstandings).

This is their first kiss after Kang-Ho regains his memory in episode 13:

Kang-Ho worked for years to get to this point, but despite that, due to his accident and other events he had no control over, he lost all the proofs to use against the people who killed his father.

Luckily he still manages to get revenge for his father and, most of all, for his mother.  

This is probably the most satisfying moment of this comedy drama:

Despite not having much time to watch K-Dramas lately and, sadly, not having the chance to binge-watch this series, I enjoyed it like I usually do.

This is one of the best comedy dramas released this year, both performance-wise and story-wise. Even though I found it a bit slow initially, the plot is exciting, and the relationships between the characters are intriguing and well-written.

Hurry up and watch it on Netflix!