This is actually my 124th K-Drama, 123 was Squid Game 2. But Squid Game 2 feels like the first part of a series and not the complete story so I’m not reviewing it just yet. I decided to push forward to The Trunk, Gong Yoo’s newest series. I first watched Gong Yoo in Goblin. Gong Yoo shares the screen with Seo Hyun-jin, who I first watched in The Beauty Inside. Both are really good actors so I was quite excited about what they’d bring.
The Trunk is about a very weird arrangement between Han Jeong-won (Gong Yoo) and his ex-wife Lee Seo-yeon. Seo-yeon wants Jeong-won to marry Noh In-ji (Seo Hyun-jin) and stay married for a year if he wants to get back together with her. Jeong-won reluctantly agrees because Seo-yeon threatens him that they will never see each other again if he doesn’t agree. It’s apparently some sort of weird test because as it is later revealed, Jeong-won has a lot of emotional baggage and is psychologically damaged. He is dependent on sleep meds. He seems to be the quintessential physically present but emotionally and mentally absent sort of character. Oh, there is also a literal trunk that In-ji wheels around when she moves in to Jeong-won’s place.
Jeong-won is barely civil to In-ji at first, but they quickly warm up to each other after talking and hanging out. In-ji is a professional bride and she’s very good at her job. She goes into contract marriages for a variety of reasons — gay dude who needs to show the world he is married, terminally ill dude who doesn’t want to be alone in his final days, and so forth. It’s kind of like Park Min-young’s character in Love in Contract except a lot darker and more serious. Jeong-won and In-ji’s relationship takes an unexpected turn when they start falling for each other. Unknown to them, Seo-yeon is watching their every move because the entire house is bugged.
The Trunk intersperses a psychological drama with a murder mystery. Both unfold at the same time. We keep going back to police interrogations trying to track down a killer because they found a dead body in the river. The pace is good. The fact that it’s only eight episodes keeps the plot and pacing tight. Gong Yoo and Seo Hyun-jin do not disappoint with their acting chops — they know when and how to up the intensity and when to cool down. They’re sooo good. Frankly I was shocked by all the sex and nudity thanks to Seo-yeon’s nymphomaniac-ish character. Though Gong Yoo and Seo Hyun-jin get their own sexy time too, albeit more tastefully done.
I would still recommend The Trunk as it’s a really good series. It’s a lot different from the usual K-Drama which I quite enjoyed. I actually found it more engaging than When The Phone Rings which I also started watching. This is streaming on Netflix.
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