By Pierce Conran

Copyright scmp

Lead cast: Kim Yoo-jung, Kim Young-dae, Kim Do-hoon
My Demon star Kim Yoo-jung is back as a devious femme fatale in the brash and playful melodrama noir Dear X, based on a web comic of the same name by Ban Ji-woon.
This high-energy series charts the evolution of a young woman who uses the people around her: whether to get ahead in academia and her career, or to exact revenge on those who have crossed her.
We first meet Baek A-jin (Kim) as a star flashing her million-dollar smile for an army of clicking cameras on a red carpet. However, Dear X then begins to reveal how she made it to this point: A-jin’s devilish story goes all the way back to her childhood.

As a child, A-jin lived in an impoverished household and was regularly beaten by her alcoholic mother.
One night, her equally degenerate father gets into an argument with her mother and this time snaps. When the mother heads out in the middle of the night to buy more booze, he appears behind her and shoves her down some steps.
The young A-jin emerges from the house, gazes at her collapsed mother with empty eyes and coolly walks down to her. Her mother is still breathing, begging her to call an ambulance. A-jin looks on, doing nothing, with not a hint of emotion in her eyes – this is no ordinary child.
The series then flashes forward to her high school years, right as her homeroom teacher is rushing out of the school in a panic, after having had her affair exposed. The smiling teenage A-jin trots up to her side, pretending to comfort her and revealing that she was the one responsible for outing her.

The story then focuses on A-jin’s high school years and her relationships with her fellow students. These include Yoon Jun-seo (Kim Young-dae, No Gain No Love), who lets himself be used by A-jin and often assists in carrying out her plots.
She also has Kim Jae-oh (Kim Do-hoon, Moving) wrapped around her finger; he runs an illegal business on her behalf and takes the fall for her when things go south.
Just like Jun-seo, Jae-oh has feelings for A-jin, which she plays with to take advantage of him. But, unlike Jun-seo, he does not seem to realise that he is being played.
A-jin’s major target during her school years is classmate Shim Sung-hee (Kim Yi-kyung, A Good Day to Be a Dog), the top student in school who comes from a well-to-do family. When A-jin starts to threaten Sung-hee’s position as the top student, Sung-hee makes the big mistake of trying to put her in her place.

While the first two episodes previewed at the Busan International Film Festival last week did not clue us in on how A-jin became an actress, it is not difficult to see how she could find herself in the limelight.
She has all the beauty, poise and confidence in the world, and judging by how easily she lies to people and manipulates them, pretending to be a different person for the cameras is surely just a lateral move.
Early on, A-jin is described as a sociopath, and her key weapon in her malicious schemes is her smile. She seduces her targets, whether through the suggestion of romance or friendship, lulls them into a false sense of security and unleashes her torment when they are at their weakest.
The series is co-directed by Lee Eung-bok, one of the top names in K-drama known for Descendants of the Sun, Mr. Sunshine and Sweet Home; and Park So-hyun, who co-directed Sweet Home seasons two and three with Lee.

The pair, reuniting for a tighter show on a smaller scale, frame this through-the-years patchwork of revenge sagas with a glossy sheen, slickly moving the story through its many different styles and locations. Yet the focus remains on A-jin, and the statuesque and commanding Kim ably carries the show.
While the series employs some of the melodramatic excess of shows like The Penthouse, it holds back from being a full-on primetime soap, instead opting for a heightened noir register, replete with exaggerated expressions.
Dear X is off to a compelling start, and viewers will no doubt want to find out just how far A-jin is willing to go to crush people to get what she wants. Whether there is a hint of humanity hiding somewhere behind that fake smile remains to be seen.
Dear X will premiere on Tving on November 6.