In "Emergency Couple," Choi Jin Hyuk blames all his life's failings on his ex-wife, played by Song Ji Hyo, but what he doesn't realize is that his immature interfering mother is really to blame for many of his problems.
No actress can play the part of the immature interfering mother better than Park Jun Keum. She's played mom to several top k-drama actors and it rarely turned out well for their characters.
She acted as Lee Min Ho's mom Jung Ji Sook and was head of Jeguk High in the hit drama "The Heirs." Not only did she not approve of his biological mom, but she also did not care for his girlfriend played by Park Shin Hye.
But that wasn't even her first role as a mom obsessed with arranging a son's marriage merely for wealth and power. She also made life miserable for Ha Ji Won, for daring to consider dating her son, played by Hyun Bin, in "Secret Garden."
It's a role she is perfect at, a sort of frozen little girl, obsessed with everything superficial.
But in real life, actors who have worked with Park Jun Keum say she is very sweet and sincere, not at all concerned with the superficial. She treats the actors who play her onscreen children much better than her character would. And she has praised them in interviews, saying she feels very maternal toward them.
"Hyun Bin really has a good personality," she said of her "Secret Garden" co-star at the time. "He came to my car on the first day of shooting and bowed to me, saying, I am a Hyun Bin who will be your son. He made it so much easier to play his mom. I could see in his eyes that he was really determined to do his best as an actor."
Park Jun Keum plays the kind of mother-in-law that any k-drama female lead must either win over or get past to win the hand of the princeling chaebol son she has raised. In "Emergency Couple," her mother-in-law behavior made Song Ji Hyo so nervous that she developed a bald patch on her head.
Six years later Song Ji Hyo is a doctor and has more self-confidence. Either she will have to ignore her former mother-in-law's unrepentant scheming or Choi Jin Hyuk's character must learn to ignore her meddling.
Either way, Park Jun Keum is fun to watch as she tries to control the lives of her k-drama children.
