Kim Joon-han, Nam Ji-hyun, Jang Nara and Pyo Ji-hoon star in 'Good Partner.'
Han Yoo-ri gets hired by the prestigious Daejung Law Firm, sure she will be assigned to the firm’s corporate team. Instead she’s asked to join their divorce team. There are a few reasons Yoo-ri, played by Nam Ji-hyun, doesn’t care for this assignment. She doesn’t like divorces and she’s afraid of her immediate boss, Cha Eun-kyung, played by Jang Nara. Eun-kyung gave a seminar at her school when Yoo-ri was a law student and she did not treat her kindly. Eun-kyung has a great reputation as a divorce lawyer, but a bad one as an employer. She’s already intimidated several rookie lawyers that didn’t measure up to her high standards and they left the firm. She’s pretty much Miranda Priestly with a law degree.
The law firm where they work at is bizarrely configured. The senior lawyers have offices on a recessed level above so they can look down on their staff. That’s not the only reason that staff members have learned to be afraid of Eun-kyung.
Yoo-ri’s first court case involves a woman accusing her husband of an affair and on those grounds asking for a divorce. The rookie lawyer wants to believe her client, the husband, is innocent, but the truth is complicated. Her assignment is to win his case and that means making some pretty outrageous claims on his behalf. It only takes a few days for her to type a resignation letter, then she learns something about Eun-kyung’s husband, a secret that might illuminate her superior’s cynical take on marriage.
Nam Ji-hyun and Jang Nara play lawyers who must work together.
Despite their initial friction Yu-ri might be just the rookie lawyer to live up to Eun-kyung’s high standards. They might form a workable partnership. While the divorce drama’s cases focus on disintegrating relationships, the drama will focus on the working relationship between Yoo-ri and Eun-kyung.
Jang Nara remains an in-demand star because whatever character she plays she has enough charisma to make viewers curious about her characters. Whether she’s a real estate agent selling haunted houses in Sell Your Haunted House (2021), a magazine editor deciding who will father her baby in Oh My Baby (2020) or a woman dealing with a department store’s VIP clientele in VIP (2019), her characters are magnetic. Her presence compels in this drama too, as she plays the icy Eun-kyung, whose composures masks vulnerability.
Nam, whose fledgeling lawyer character has principles worth fighting for, previously appeared in Little Women, The Witch’s Diner and 100 Days My Prince. The drama also stars Kim Joon-han and Pyo Ji-hoon as fellow attorneys, with Eun-kyung’s husband, Ji-sang, played by Ji Seung-hyun, who also played a less than enviable husband in Why Her. Yuna, who played a kidnapping victim in The Kidnapping Day, plays Eun-kyung’s daughter. The SBS drama was directed by Kim Ga-ram, who directed the dramas Nevertheless and Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency.
In the U.S. the drama can be seen on Viki.com.
