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In stories about domestic violence, the biggest aspect that’s explored is how the victim of the abuse has no control over their fate. In a new Korean drama, two women who have been touched by abuse in different ways take that control back, with unexpected results. AS YOU STOOD BY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? Opening Shot: Two women are riding in a car. One of them has abrasions and cuts on her face. The Gist: En-su (Jeon So-nee) works with VIP customers in an upscale department store. During a jewelry event for the store’s high rollers, she encounters So-baek (Lee Moo-saeng), who owns a mercantile market and was a guest of the corporation’s chairman. However, he leaves wearing a diamond-encrusted watch that he never paid for, so En-su goes to his market and doesn’t leave until he either produces the watch or pays. He eventually gives back the watch, saying he wanted to wait to see if his “gift” (i.e. bribe) was accepted, but she tells him the watch band is damaged and he needs to buy that from her. In other words, En-su is tenacious and tough as nails. She’s learned to be tenacious and resilient after a lifetime of shielding her younger brother from the physical abuse her father inflicted on her mother (Kim Mi-kyung). They’d hide in a wardrobe in their bedroom and she’d pretend they’re playing hide and seek. When she was in high school, her mother tried to jump out of the window of their apartment, not being able to take the abuse anymore, and that image still haunts En-su. After getting the watch back, En-su goes back to the store, and she’s called to a VIP changing room, and notices that the wife of a high-powered corporate chairman has bruises on her back. The woman says something ominous to her: “I thought you would be different.” When she goes back home to celebrate her mother’s birthday, not only does she confront her father over the abuse, but she also checks in on her friend Hui-su (Lee Yoo-mi), who backed out of a lunch date a few days prior, despite En-su realizing that Hui-su was calling from inside the department store. She also ran into Hui-su’s husband, Jin-pyo (Jang Seung-jo), at the store buying her a necklace as a gift. When she goes to Hui-su’s apartment, she sees that her friend is bruised and bleeding, an obvious victim of Jin-pyo’s abuse. After she hears that the abused customer that she encountered ended up killing herself, she knows it’s time to not stand by anymore. She checks on her mother, who is now living with her brother, and she checks on Hui-su. When Hui-su doesn’t answer, En-su finds her at her apartment in a dire state, which is when she comes up with a plan to end the abuse. What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Domestic violence is a large part of the plot of Big Little Lies, especially during the first season, so we’ll go with that.Our Take: Based on the novel Naomi and Kanako by Hideo Okuda and written by Kim Hyo-jeong, As You Stood By doesn’t make its story apparent through its first episode. The goal of that episode is to introduce us to En-su and find out just how tenacious she is and why she could no longer stand by and let people in her life get abused by their husbands. She’s the one that comes up with the extreme idea to kill Hui-su’s husband Jin-pyo, and that’s because she’s seen far too much abuse in her life and she knows that abusive husbands won’t stop until something extreme happens. The second episode examines Hui-su and the years of abuse she suffered at the hands of Jin-pyo. Like with the first episode, we’re going to get a long look at what led to the extreme decision she and En-su make. And we’re expecting the storytelling to be as fractured as it was in the first episode, where we jump back and forth in time — mostly by only a few days. An example of that in the first episode is how many times we see En-su push her way into Hui-su’s apartment before we see what she sees, which is her friend bruised and battered. It’s an unnecessary stylistic flourish that doesn’t accomplish what it sets out to do, which is build tension. We’re also not sure where En-su’s friendship with So-baek is going to go. We do know that he’s into some shady stuff, and we get the feeling that he’ll be helping En-su execute her plan against Jin-pyo. There’s also some weirdness with Jin-pyo where En-su sees him in a very different light than she’s used to, as if his previously outward appearance to her was a lie. So there is a lot more to dig into. But, given that the series is supposed to be a thriller, it starts off in a very emotional place. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because then it’s easier to connect with them as their story takes big twists and turns. Sex and Skin: None.Parting Shot: “We’ll kill your husband,” En-su tells Hui-su.Sleeper Star: Lee Moo-saeng plays So-baek as a guy who’s definitely shady but actually has a modicum of ethics. Most Pilot-y Line: When En-su stops at a police station and tells her dad to turn himself in, he replies “Stop with the attitude. I never hit you kids, not once.” As if that makes hitting their mother OK. Our Call: STREAM IT. As You Stood By is a slow build, but its a worthwhile story to stick with as two women take back the control they lost in the face of abuse. Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
