Although she is supposed to be living a quiet life on her family’s compound, Soon-deok secretly spends her days as a cocky matchmaker with a Sherlock Holmes-like ability to figure people out and bring them together.
9 of the best new Korean drama series to watch in November 2023
9 of the best new Korean drama series to watch in November 2023
Given her status as the top matchmaker in Joseon and the fact that she struts around in broad daylight in eye-poppingly colourful hanbok dress, how she manages to keep this identity a secret is a mystery.
Handsome scholar Sim Jung-woo (Rowoon), on the other hand, doesn’t really have a gift for reading people, but he’s good at pretty much everything else. The only things he is missing are a sense of humour and perhaps a little good fortune.
Jung-woo is the youngest person to place first in the state examinations. He so impresses the king that he is offered a high-level appointment straight off the bat.
However, when the king’s daughter has eyes for him and his clan stands to gain more from the union, his considerable aspirations are put on hold.
Unhappy, he goes along with the union, but on his wedding day his young wife, who he hasn’t even spoken to, suddenly dies.
Rather than freeing him to be a scholar again, this dooms him to remain a widowed royal son-in-law, barred from holding any official post.
Eight years pass and his combination of bitterness and legal prowess turn him into a feared figure in the land. People who catch him on a bad day – which tends to be every day – are in danger of having the book thrown at them for the most minor of infractions.
Meanwhile, in the palace, the king (Jo Han-chul) is continually frustrated in his attempts to marry off his sick son. His ministers thwart his attempts under the guidance of vice-premier Jo, who hopes the prince will die before producing an heir so he can install someone new on the throne.
What amuses the king are Jung-woo’s ingenious legal arguments to dissolve his marriage to his daughter. He has no intention of letting him off the hook, but he sees a way out of his predicament in the young scholar’s brilliant mind.
The king threatens to poison Jung-woo for his treasonous attempts to abscond from his royal duties and offers him a way out. If he succeeds in marrying off a few unmarried noblewomen, which would give the king a pretext to marry off his own son, Jung-woo can earn his freedom.
Jung-woo attacks the task with typical gusto, but while he has been able to master fields such as music, arts and medicine in a few short months, this proves beyond him.
The only person who can help him is Soon-deok, the young woman who gives him mysterious chest pains each time he bumps into her.
Romantic comedy leads often have to walk a fine line between appearing off-putting and charming, a line which blurs over the course of the story. In this regard The Matchmakers is off to a bad start.
Jung-won is a handsome and brilliant scholar but also tediously grumpy and arrogant. The cockiness is standard issue for a male lead in a K-drama, but here the balance is off.
He comes off as dry and unlikeable, a personality which even the buffoonish image of the tall Rowoon riding around town on a tiny donkey is helpless to dispel.
Soon-deok is equally cocky and takes the lead in this screen pairing; during their obligatory fall-and-catch meet-cute, it is she who catches him, not the other way around.
Yet Cho, playing a very different character in her first lead role since All of Us Are Dead, struggles to make the character appealing. She doesn’t have many tricks up her sleeve beyond cutely wrinkling her nose all the time.
Whether The Matchmakers will be a suitable match for its audience remains to be seen.
The Matchmakers is streaming on Viu.