Queen of Masks

Four friends played by Sun-ah Kim, Shin Eun-jung, Oh Yoo-ah and Yoo Sun are at a pre wedding celebration for one of them. Before the morning one has been raped and the groom is found murdered with all of them under suspicion. Through the series it is revealed that nothing or no one is what they first appear and behind all the intrigue is a mysterious exclusive rich members club where masks are worn. It is a clever plot which does leave you on a cliffhanger at the end of most episodes and thus intrigued as to what will happen next. It is a well acted enjoyable story in which the behaviour of the friends is annoying at times and it may have benefitted with fewer episodes but overall an entertaining ride.

The story started with a big 'who done it' type of plot where every single person on the screen was a suspect. It kept this momentum for a few episodes before abandoning the idea and the 'masks' plot half way through to shift to something else. There was no coherency in this mess and the writer was improvising the story as the episodes went on. Instead of working on the mystery, it took the lazy way at every corner, it pushed most of the weight onto just showing the incident. It revealed the mystery through the brief snippets of the incident at the beginning of every episode. The character Kang Hoo was in particular problematic to the narrative and was handled poorly throughout. The cast was good but that's it, and the supposed sismance came off as forced more often than not, even during its high moments. The entire drama was a really big mess.