[REVIEW] KBS TV series "The Thorn Birds" - 1st episode

A scene from KBS TV series "The Thorn Birds" [KBS]

KBS TV series "The Thorn Birds" - 1st episode The world inside the small screen is full of the quiet weeping of mothers who have had to abandon their children and the tears of those abandoned children. And "The Thorn Birds" has the potential to place itself within that world as well with girl Jung-eun (Kim So-hyun), the angel of the orphanage she is at, who feels more yearning than hatred for her mother who has left her, Yoo-kyung (Yoon Jung-eun) who used to feel pity for and liked Jung-eun but starts hating her after finding out she herself is an adoptee over worry that she may get infected with Jung-eun's misfortune, and Young-jo (Lee Min-ho) who gets hurt by both his cold-hearted aunt and birth mother. The first episode of "The Thorn Birds" laid forth almost all the possible types of children who have been abandoned including orphans, adoptees and the child of a concubine. And when it comes to placing such conventional characters at the core of a story, the problem lies not in the subject matter themselves but in how they are utilized.

In that sense, the secrets behind two major births that appeared in the first episode of "The Thorn Birds" were cliche without question but on the other hand, it made it possible for another setup to exist. In other words, it is highly predictable that Yoo-kyung's birth mother is Yoon Myung-ja (Cha Hwa-yeon) and that the 'child' that the grown up Jung-eun (Han Hye-jin) and Yoo-kyung (Kim Min-jung) talk about will be Yoo-kyung's biological child. But the reason that this evident fact is exciting is because Jung-eun and Yoo-kyung's lives take to the paths of good versus evil, with the 'child' and Myung-ja at the fork of those roads. Jung-eun is consoled by her imaginary mother Myung-ja and Yoo-kyung passes on the hatred and pain she feels from Myung-ja who abandoned her, while Jung-eun tries to overcome her suffering by raising the 'child' with love. The expectation felt toward seeing the development of the four-way relationship between three generations of mothers and daughters, linked this way and that, was enough to overcome the disappointment usually felt from highly conventional dramas. In other words, the anticipation felt toward "The Thorn Birds" lies not in the pain inflicted on the characters but in how the same pain will affect people's lives differently.

※ Any copying, republication or redistribution of 10Asia's content is expressly prohibited without prior consent of 10Asia. Copyright infringement is subject to criminal and civil penalties.

Reporter : Kim Sun-young (TV Critic)
Editor : Jessica Kim jesskim@