LATTE&STILETTOS


Drama Review: Cunning Single Lady / 앙큼한 돌싱녀


Ae-Ra (Lee Min-Jung) is focused on her appearance as she believes it will lead her to a better life. She then meets Jung-Woo (Joo Sang-Wook) who studied engineering. They eventually get married, but they also get divorced. After their divorce, Ae-Ra goes through difficult times. Unlike Ae-Ra though, Jung-Woo becomes a successful IT developer and very wealthy. Now, Ae-Ra tries to seduce Jung-Woo to marry her again.

Rating: 9/10

Spoilers! Do not click unless you have already watched it or do not intend on watching it. Thanks!




I watched this drama because I enjoyed Joo Sang Wook in Birth of a Beauty a lot. His laughs to avoid whatever was being discussed at the moment cracked me up - nice to see it's the same acting in this one as well! I read through the plot previously and it never interested me enough, but when I realized Joo Sang Wook was in it, I just had to watch it. Please do not judge this drama based on the plot description above. It's SUCH a bad depiction of what the drama is really about.

Maybe this is more accurate:

"Na Ae-Ra and Cha Jung Woo married at a young age, however many, many bumps and misunderstandings in the road later lead them to divorcing. They divorce on bad financial terms, leaving Ae-Ra to struggle several low end jobs to make ends meet. One day, Ae-Ra finds out about her ex-husband's success as an IT leader and the CEO of DONTALK. Her intent to seek revenge after being hired at DONTALK turns into complicated tangles as she finds herself lost in a story of love triangles, success and money."

?? I'm not great at writing these but that's more accurate than the one being passed around.

In the beginning of the story, my impression was that Jung Woo was a super nerd who was incredibly lucky to have Ae-Ra, a beautiful woman who a lot of men wanted to have. Later in the first episode (I think, memory is blurry), she was depicted as a gold digger. They didn't really show or state that she struggled four years to support Jung Woo's struggling businesses so in the audiences' eyes, it really seemed like she was at fault by divorcing Jung Woo the moment he quit his stable job to start a business. However! We learn later in the drama that she really did love him a lot but that she struggled for much too long - to the point where she collapsed at work and even lost their child due to a miscarriage.


Their early marriage days :3

I shipped Ae-Ra and Jung Woo from the start. I'm watching this drama for Joo Sang Wook/Jung Woo so I had no other choice but I really also started loving Ae-Ra's character a lot. She is someone who is honest, will stand up for herself but she knows her place and will hold back when necessary. She seemed like a more realistic character than any drama I have watched and it felt more real to me.


Jung Woo (or maybe it's just Joo Sang Wook in general) is such a desirable man. He's smart, successful, works VERY hard, listens to his loved ones, takes abuse very well (I'm only half joking) and cares a lot. My heart hurt a little for Jung Woo when Ae-Ra was cold towards him/reject his offers to spend time together.

There have been many dramas in the past where I end up falling for second leads and wish that the mains would end up with them. However, I can tell you that this is absolutely not the case. I found Seung Hyun really annoying - he's always meddling in between Ae-Ra and Jung Woo and not intending to give up on her either. Same with Yeo-Jin - always appearing and ruining everything. At first, I actually liked her and I was like hey, she's not so bad - she seems like she has her mind in the right place and has good intentions. She was even nice to Ae-Ra and brought her out despite her being an intern. I started to wonder how a nice second female lead would make a drama work... But as all dramas go, female second leads are usually evil and she had bad intentions in treating Ae-Ra well.


Knowing Ae-Ra is Jung Woo's ex-wife and asking her to pick out a tie for her "man" (who she does not reveal to Ae-Ra at this point) and INTENDING on giving it to Jung Woo in front of her. That is the most juvenile and high school-ish thing you can do. How are you a Director, girl?? In addition, she would avoid questions about her and Jung Woo getting married to imply that they are without up front lying. She did the same exact thing when Jung Woo asked if it was her who took care of him when he was unconscious. Instead of being an upfront liar about it (like most evil second female leads), she just does it in a very shady way - oh, you kdrama writers.

Although it seemed like Director Guk tried to hide the secret of her lost leg/prosthetic leg, it was only because she didn't want Jung Woo to see her as a "disabled" woman and she ultimately used this as one of the reasons that Ae-Ra should back off. Also that prosthetic leg was such a random and inconsistent plot twist - pretty sure I saw her leg looking very real in previous episodes but I am far too lazy to go back and look.

Secretary Gil caught my eye very quickly. He has such a charming appearance and personality. When I looked him up, I was like my god - of course he's in a kpop band! (My faves are 2pm and EXO so my knowledge in kpop bands outside those two are quite limited).


He's got such a cute face

The one thing I will never understand is the whole thing between him and Pi Song Hee. I thought a romance would blossom between them but I guess it's implied that they have some agreement to not say anything about how they met outside of work. Pi Song Hee took the award for most annoying character for me. She power trips (really, she can only power trip on interns), wants to have the CEO to herself/acting like she's actually worth his time (lol girl no) and is willingly to throw anyone under the bus, especially Ae-Ra.


And the most annoying character award goes to...

To sum everything up, I really enjoyed this drama although there were many minor points that didn't completely make sense to me. I liked that Ae-Ra is portrayed as a very real and strong woman - not really succumbing to Jung Woo when he starts to like her again and also being up front with not being able to accept Seung Hyun's heart. Despite all this, it was nice to see her stand up against Director Guk towards the end because we only saw very civil interactions between them.

I have not seen a divorced couple getting back together type of kdrama before so it was refreshing for me to see something different (EDIT: I lied, My Secret Hotel - bad memory) The ending was very sweet - it reminded audiences of how Jung Woo was living when he was a struggling businessman and that he was still the same man inside. This time he has the support he needs - Ae-Ra, Secretary Gil, Team Leader and Manager Kang. We also see the marriage proposal between Ae-Ra and Jung Woo - when it seemed like she was rejecting him I was like NO, ANDWAE!!!! But it turns out it's one of those "no I don't love you... cause I really love you" things.


I caught that Ae-Ra and Jung Woo chose their real life names as the baby's name saying it sounds like a pretty girl and handsome guy's name (LOL) - nice one. I loved that this couple bickers and that it's a normal part of their relationship. It hit hard for me because that's how I tend to be in relationships.

I would have liked to see more of Yeo Jin and Seung Hyun in the end and learn their reactions to Ae-Ra and Jung Woo finally being together. I know we can use our imaginations but I guess I'm evil and just want to see Yeo Jin scream again, like she has many times in the drama *smirk*

I am so sad that this drama is over :( I sped through the last couple of episodes because I really wanted to just see Ae-Ra and Jung Woo together without any problems but wow, I just really loved this drama and the OST is perfect as usual!!

유승우 (Yoo Seung Woo) - 어떡하나요 (What Do I Do?)



유성은 (Yoo Sung Eun) & 길구봉구 (GB9) - 정말 사랑합니다 (I Really Love You)



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ABOUTME

Hi, I'm Tracy - welcome to my blog! I like to talk about Asian dramas and Korean Pop. Feel free to leave a comment or connect with me via my social media links. Enjoy your stay

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