What happens when the character you are writing comes alive?
Oh Seung Moo’s character, Kang Chul, is everything the webtoon artist is not: young, righteously heroic, and popular. Scarred at an early age when a mysterious killer shoots his family dead and frames Kang Chul for the crime, Chul has devoted his life to solving mystery cases and fighting injustice. The combination has made him heroic in both the webtoon, and also the real world, where “W” has become the most popular comic in South Korea. But when Kang Chul begins to reject his creator’s plot lines and tries to think for himself, Oh Seung Moo freaks out. It’s time for the creator to exercise judgment. It’s time to end Kang Chul.
Oh Yeon Joo, the cartoonist’s daughter, is a second year cardiology resident who stops by her father’s studio to help his assistants find where he has disappeared. She is pulled into the comic, where she finds herself on the roof of a ritzy hotel – and lying at her feet is a man who has been stabbed. She uses her medical skills to save his life, and only later realizes that no matter how unreal it may seem – this man is Kang Chul. And she now has a place in his webtoon.
Oh Yeon Joo is caught between trying to respect her father – who is an alcoholic, a failure at family life, and hellbent on destroying Chul – and saving her comic book hero who is increasingly real and who she is falling in love with.
The drama W-Two Worlds is full of exciting plot twists and includes multiple genres, such as action, fantasy, romance, comedy, melodrama, and even a bit of horror. But the heart of it deals with questions of real life: the importance of free will, as Kang Chul struggles against fate to choose his own path in life. How to find a new purpose and hang on to life when everything you had and knew is taken from under your feet. How to make tragic mistakes but learn from them. How to figure out what is truly most important, and sacrifice for that.
The eternal nature of love, which can reach across worlds and beyond the grave to change someone. W has moments of hilarity – we are all at one time or another the bumbling and excitable assistant Soo Bong, or the fanboy professor they call Crazy Dog. But it has piercing heartbreak as well, in particular for Oh Yeon Joo’s character, who is called on to make incredibly painful sacrifices.
The drama is brought to life by amazing actors: Lee Jong Suk as Kang Chul, Han Hyo Joo as Oh Yeon Joo, and Kim Eui Sung as cartoonist Oh Seung Moo. Watching it is a visual feast, as the extensive artwork of the comic melts seamlessly into live action. The chemistry is incredible (best kiss scene in all of dramaland), the humor and heartbreak will touch your core, and the plot will have you on the edge of your seat, wishing there was some way for you to climb into your favorite story as well.
Rose Green is a writer, editor, and artist who has lived on three different continents and considers herself a resident of planet Earth. She has a fascination for all things Korean, and wishes one of her characters would take over the storyline and write it for her while she was sleeping.
