Jang Bo-ri Is Here!

 

Jang Bo-ri Is Here!  is a 2014 South Korean weekend television drama series broadcast by MBC starring Oh Yeon-seo, Kim Ji-hoon, Lee Yoo-ri and Oh Chang-seok.^[1] It premiered on April 5, 2014, airing every Saturday and Sunday at 20:40 for 52 episodes.^[2] It won Drama of the Year at the 2014 MBC Drama Awards.

 

Plot

The events center around a renowned Hanbok-making house called Bi Sool Chae. The Master Artisan of Bi Sool Chae, Kim Soo-Mi, focuses on preserving the traditions of Hanbok-making, including hand-dyeing and hand-sewing each garment.

The Master Artisan lives with her two married sons in her traditional Korean estate. Her two daughters-in-law have been her apprentices for a long time. When the time comes for the Artisan to choose her successor, the fierce competition between the two daughters-in-law results in tragedies that reverberate for decades afterwards.

 

Cast

Main characters

·         Oh Yeon-seo as Jang Bo-ri (formerly Jang Eun-bi)

o    Yoo Eun-mi as young Bo-ri

Daughter and only child of Bi Sool Chae's second son (Soo-bong) and his wife (In-hwa), Eun-bi is a kind-hearted girl with artistic talent. She is much-loved by her father, grandmother, aunt and uncle. She loves her mother very much, but is hurt because her mother spends too much time making hanbok instead of with her.

When she is eight years old, Eun-bi gets into her mother's car and falls asleep in the back seat. Her mother, unaware that Eun-bi is in the back seat, pursues her sister-in-law Ok-soo in her car during a rainy night, and causes an accident which claims the life of her brother-in-law. After this accident, a frightened Eun-bi runs away, and her mother, not knowing she was there in the first place, drives off without her.

While wandering the streets, she is subsequently hit by a truck that is driven by Do Hye-ok. Afraid that she will be prosecuted for hitting Eun-bi, Hye-ok takes an unconscious Eun-bi to a nearby inn. When Eun-bi wakes, she has lost her memory, and believes Hye-ok is her mother and Min-jung is her older sister. When a policeman questions her about the accident, Hye-ok is forced to pretend Eun-bi is her child. Since Eun-bi no longer remembers her own name, Hye-ok names her Bo-ri, which means “barley,” because she was eating barley mixed rice at that moment.

Hye-ok does not send Bo-ri to school beyond Junior High, and puts her to work in her small restaurant in a rural town called Jang-heung, where Bo-ri continues to work for the next twenty years. Although mistreated by Hye-ok, who abuses her and treats her like a slave compared to her real daughter Min-jung, she remains affectionate and devoted to Hye-ok, believing her to be her real mother.

Bo-ri's compassion is further demonstrated by her selfless love for Min-jung's abandoned baby Bi-dan, who she believes is a foundling. Bi-dan was born premature and suffered hearing loss as a result. Bo-ri works tirelessly to earn enough money to pay for surgery to restore Bi-dan's hearing. She also never tells anyone that Bi-dan is not her biological daughter, even though many look down on her for having a baby as a single woman.

At some point, Bo-ri fatefully encounters her aunt, Ok-soo, the widow of Bi Sool Chae's oldest son who perished in that car accident. Although her aunt does not recognize her, she teaches Bo-ri the art of making hanbok, for which Bo-ri has a natural talent. Through her hanbok-making skills, Bo-ri ends up encountering her family members again.

·         Kim Ji-hoon as Lee Jae-hwa

o    Jung Yun-seok as young Jae-hwa

A childhood friend of Eun-bi, and nephew of Eun-bi's aunt Ok-soo. His mother died suddenly in a car accident when he was about 10 years old. He was also forced to accept a new stepmother, a brother (Jae-hee), and a baby sister very soon afterwards, as his father quickly marries his mistress of many years.

Instead of working at his father's company, Jae-hwa becomes a prosecutor and ends up in Jang-heung where he meets Bo-ri. At first he has an antagonistic relationship with Bo-ri, but he later falls in love with her, accepting her and Bi-Dan with open arms.

·         Lee Yoo-ri as Yeon Min-jung

o    Shin Soo-yeon as young Min-jung

Extremely bitter about being raised by a poor single mother, Min-jung feels entitled to a better life with wealth and status, which she ruthlessly pursues.

Her first meeting with Eun-bi was at the first Hanbok competition for Bi Sool Chae's successor, in which she served as a model for Ok-soo's hanbok. Her win-at-any-cost attitude is demonstrated when she rips the belt from Eun-bi's hanbok to rig the competition.

After Eun-bi comes to live with her and her mother and becomes Bo-ri, Min-jung purposefully copies Bo-ri's drawing, an evocative image of Bi Sool Chae's dye yard, and wins an art contest and a college scholarship sponsored by Bi Sool Chae. To further gain sympathy, she lies that she is an orphan, and forbids her mother from contacting her, or ever revealing their relationship. She eventually brown-noses her way into becoming adopted by Soo-bong and In-hwa, Eun-bi's real parents who still miss their lost daughter. Min-jung discovers that their lost daughter is in fact Bo-ri, who lived with her as her sister when they were young. She deliberately hides this from the Bi Sool Chae family, preventing them from finding Eun-bi, and effectively stealing Eun-bi's life.

While in college, she pursues a relationship with Moon Ji-sang, who was the son of a wealthy businessman. When she learns that Ji-sang's father lost all his money, she cruelly dumps him. She then discovers that she is six months pregnant, and the doctor informs her that it is too late to terminate the pregnancy. After desperately hiding her pregnancy from her new parents, she secretly travels to her real mother's house in Jang-Heung and gives birth to a premature daughter, whom she promptly abandons. Although she told her mother to bring the baby to an orphanage, the baby is named Bi-dan (“Silk”) and raised by Bo-ri as her own.

Lee Jae-hee eventually falls in love with Min-jung and proposes marriage. Becoming the wife of a wealthy heir is Min-jung's dream come true. But as she is realizing her dreams, her past crimes continue to haunt her: stealing Eun-bi's life, abandoning her mother, abandoning her secret baby, and betraying Moon Ji-sang. He falls in love with Min-jung, and gets his company to sponsor her study abroad in the US. He eventually marries Min-jung, even as he is warned of her treacherous nature by her former boyfriend, Moon Ji-sang, who was once his trusted assistant. When he finally realizes who Min-Jung truly is, he is horrified that he let himself trust her.

·         Oh Chang-seok as Lee Jae-hee

o    Jo Hyun-do as young Jae-hee

Lee is Jae-hwa's half-brother whose mother was their father's mistress for many years. Although as a child he was friendly with Jae-hwa, due to a misunderstanding, as an adult he envies Jae-hwa for being a potential threat to inheriting their father's business, and his inferiority complex causes him to behave in unscrupulous ways.