Queen of the Mask: Episode 1 (First Impressions)

by missvictrix

Channel A drops their latest melo thriller Queen of the Mask, and I’ll just be honest — it’s a bit trashy and not in a fun way. I came in hoping for the makjang charm of Lies of Lies, and instead I got a drama that made me want my hour and twenty minutes back.

Editor’s note: This is an Episode 1 review only. For a place to chat about the entire drama, visit the Drama Hangout.
 
EPISODE 1

This is the second Kim Sun-ah project that’s gotten my hopes up and then dashed them to the ground. After loving Secret Boutique — which did revenge so well and was entertaining but didn’t make you hate yourself — I got The Empire (pass), and now Queen of the Mask (hard pass).

The drama opens by basically giving us every bit of footage we’ve already seen in the trailers: four glamorous women in white arrive at a fancy VIP host bar, decked out in smiles and masquerade masks. All four friends are there like the guests of honor, but it’s actually one of the women’s bridal shower… and there are four “hosts” on the stage ready to dance raunchily and help the women enjoy their evening.

To make the introduction to these characters quick and fast, the bride-to-be’s rose-bearing fiancé appears. He acts romantic, and then introduces the four women to the hosts, complete with their career status. Cause that’s not tacky.

Our leading woman is DO JAE-YI (Kim Sun-ah) a passionate public defender. Then there’s YOON HAE-MI (Yoo Sun), the marketing director at a big hotel, and fashion designer GO YOO-NA (Oh Yoon-ah). Finally there’s the bride-to-be, JOO YOO-JUNG (Shin Eun-jung), who’s the daughter (read: heiress) of a cultural foundation. Everyone is happy and sparkly. Via quick flashback and Jae-yi’s narration, we also learn a little about the women’s friendship and their “role” in the group to give us some context on their characters as they unfold in the bar.

Okay, thinks the drama, setup out of the way. *Shakes off the dust* Time to call in the train wreck! We then get a cadence of reveals about these characters, one more wild than the next.

Our heroine Jae-yi accidentally sees a text message on her friend’s phone when it drops on the floor. The groom-to-be texted Yoo-na — totally not the woman he just handed a rose of true love to — to come to his hotel room. Then, Hae-mi runs off with the host assigned to “take care of her” and pulls him into a bathroom stall to do just that. Except what she really wants is drugs (she’s clearly an addict), but he doesn’t have any.

Then, as Jae-yi confronts Yoo-na on the text message, we learn that the groom-to-be is also a drug addict. Oh, and Jae-yi can’t tell her dear friend because she’s four months pregnant — the baby moves for the first time at the party and she finally announces her pregnancy to her friends. If you couldn’t tell, this bridal shower scene is a giant disaster, and not in a good way — it’s messy and off-putting rather than intriguing and layered.

Early on, Jae-yi narrates that the women’s friendship was perfect until that night — and she’s not kidding. The night is only getting started, and all those ugly reveals were just the tip of the iceberg. After we’re through them, we get to the real awfulness, which is a rape and the brutal murder of the groom-to-be. But here I have to comment on the drama’s editing style — it has a penchant for quick cut flashbacks and blurry, obscure scenes of bad things happening. We get these scenes throughout the first episode to showcase traumatic incidents and memories, but the consequence of this style is that we have no idea what’s going on or what’s happened to whom.

After the murder, the four women are all arrested, but before much can happen, Yoo-na is hauled off. It seems she wasn’t a designer after all, and worked at a hostess bar herself. The friendship is shattered, Yoo-jung has a (graphic) miscarriage, and Yoo-na goes off to prison screaming that she’s innocent — but her friends don’t listen.

We catch up with everyone again nine years later. Though they’re all successful, it’s clear there’s more going on. Yoo-jung is getting married to a guy that works for her; Hae-mi is married to a young guy whose sole purpose seems to be to wear a bathrobe, give her massages, and keep her from returning to drugs; and Jae-yi has earned quite the reputation for herself as an attorney. Beautiful, wealthy, and highly successful, we see her take on a rape case and win through less-than-legal means that are actually not hard to overlook considering the vileness of the crime.

We peer a little too closely into said crime and it’s totally disturbing — this perverted rapist wears a masquerade mask while attacking women, and we learn that the mask is where Jae-yi’s focus is. Sure, she wins the case for the woman and it’s great to see justice at play… but our heroine has something at the back of her mind. And the back of her closet. No, it’s not a murder wall. It’s a wall covered with various masquerade masks she’s ostensibly gathered over the years. Jae-yi is highly traumatized when she sees them, as she is by the rape victim’s story. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that Jae-yi herself was assaulted by a masked assailant and it was likely nine years ago on that fated night.

The drama lets us guess, though, and we follow Jae-yi around a bit, learning about her political aspirations, and what she’s willing to do — and not willing to do — to get there. Just when it looks like all her scheming is paying off and she’ll win a local mayoral seat, there’s a cold-blooded crime of passion by a mentally disturbed woman in the middle of the political event. (Yes, this is the sort of drama that this is.)

As the episode closes we see our three friends in black at the memorial of the murdered mayor (from the aforementioned political event). Suddenly, a woman with red heels and a red umbrella walks over — clearly the most irreverent of actions. She cheekily introduces herself… it’s Yoo-na, and she’s back for some revenge.

But that’s not enough drama. There’s more! In the epilogue, we are forced to watch a blurry replay of the night from nine years ago. Previously we only learned that the groom-to-be was at his hotel door and brought someone in. We saw quick cuts of all the women in the room, so we weren’t sure which was true (or maybe all of them were?). But then, our final scenes make it clear that Jae-yi herself was assaulted in that room, and certainly stabbed a certain someone. She’s also got a not-so-subtle reminder on her phone that the statute of limitations for a rape case is nearing its cut-off.

So yeah, this drama didn’t do it for me. It had none of the charm I was hoping for, and I found it unenjoyable to watch the mayhem unfold. The drama felt like a thriller romance paperback, if you’ll forgive the analogy — cheap supermarket material that gives you all the sensationalism but none of the actual meat that makes a good story.

Also, the men in the drama are either perverted rapists, cheaters, drug addicts, or exist purely for the pleasure of the female characters. There’s nothing progressive or powerful about this; it’s annoying and doesn’t help the story gain any strength at all.

And as for the women in the story, they’re all driven by… actually, I have no idea. Their motives — outside of self-preservation — are not clear at all. Jae-yi is the only one who has anything interesting going on (viz., justice for herself), but I don’t even think I care enough about her scheme to tune in for more. If I want to see Kim Sun-ah scheming in a way that’s actually satisfying and a bit more substantial, I’ll just watch Secret Boutique again.

 
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