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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Rain, Kim Ha-neul
“Are you lonely?”
These are the opening words of Disney+’s globetrotting melodrama Red Swan, in which a trophy wife dreams of escape from a marriage that has turned into a nightmare.
Rain (Ghost Doctor) and Kim Ha-neul (18 Again) echo the romantic classic The Bodyguard in this tale of a mysterious man who becomes the guardian of a woman who hides her pain and emotions in her public-facing role as the director of a charity foundation owned by her husband’s family.


Kim is Oh Wan-soo, a former pro golfer who puts her clubs away after marrying the dashing corporate heir Kim Jong-kook (Jung Gyu-woon, Oh My Venus) of the Hwain Group.
For the following 12 years, her life and marriage have been controlled by her domineering mother-in-law Park Mi-ran (Seo Yi-sook, Knight Flower), the chairwoman of Hwain.
In the present day, Wan-soo travels the world as the director of Hwain’s Now Foundation, acting as a goodwill ambassador for a company that otherwise engages in some very shady practices.
In a departure from many prime-time Korean melodramas, Red Swan is quite global in its setting, at least in its opening episodes.

The series opens with Wan-soo giving a speech at the Unicef headquarters in New York and then swiftly moves on to the Philippines, where she travels next to host a fundraising gala.
Already in Manila is Seo Do-yoon (Rain), a man with a five o’clock shadow and a mysterious secret. As he stalks through the city’s casinos and back alleys, he attempts to track down someone who killed his friend.
During a shopping trip around the Makati neighbourhood, Wan-soo is targeted by an assassin. Her security detail dies but she manages to survive after being saved by Do-yoon, who happens to be in the neighbourhood.
Though the identity of the killer remains a secret, it appears as though it may be the person who murdered Do-yoon’s friend, prompting us to wonder in what ways Do-yoon and Wan-soo may already be connected.

After saving Wan-soo, Do-yoon ends up being hired as her new bodyguard – just like in the story of Blood Free, another Disney+ series from this year.
He soon gets a front-seat view to how terrible her life is. This includes seeing her walk in on her husband sleeping with the ambitious Jang Tae-ra (Ki Eun-se, The Good Bad Mother), who wants to take over Wan-soo’s role at the Now Foundation. However, Wan-soo is unfazed, having already long been aware of the affair.
This is when Do-yoon starts to learn how truly lonely Wan-soo’s life is. He also comes to understand that his role is to protect her not only from threats outside the family but also from within.
Red Swan does not give us a full picture of Wan-soo’s life as the series begins, as it also alludes to a son she had and who appears to have died. While this would surely add to her pain and suffering, it may also be connected to a larger mystery playing out behind the scenes.

The show hints at some possible romance between protector and protected with several close-quarters scenes, such as Do-yoon dabbing blood off of Wan-soo’s cheek as they take refuge in his Manila flat, or when he brings her back to her hotel room after she has had a few too many at a bar.
The Bodyguard is not the only Kevin Costner classic the show seems to allude to, as fans of the 1996 golf movie Tin Cup may perk up when seeing that Wan-soo’s favoured golf club is the 7-iron, which is also the preferred club of Costner’s protagonist.
Wan-soo trained with the club as a child, after her caddie mother stole a 7-iron and a driver after being fired from her job by a younger Mi-ran. She later used the club to clinch her hall-of-fame championship, despite it being the wrong club for the shot.
Red Swan may skirt some very familiar territory but it does so with aplomb, with its colourful mix of global locations (which also include charity work scenes set in Tanzania), dynamic set pieces and glossy melodrama.

Among those set pieces is the assassination and rescue scene in the Philippines, which features an elemental mix of water and fire as Do-yoon saves Wan-soo from a spray of bullets through a fountain as he guides her behind a row of exploding cars.
Meanwhile, providing the heightened melodrama is a gleeful turn by Seo as the manic chairwoman, who cackles like a banshee and throws threats around like bowling balls when she is not performing ridiculous chi-gathering rituals in her mansion’s opulent garden under a full moon.
With all these enjoyable elements at play, Red Swan is off to a solid start.
Red Swan is streaming on Disney+.


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Kim Ha-neul (left) and Rain in a still from Red Swan. Photo: Disney+

Kim Ha-neul (left) as former pro golfer Oh Wan-soo and and Rain as bodyguard Seo Do-yoon in a still from Red Swan. The new Disney+ Korean drama skirts familiar territory with aplomb, with its colourful mix of global locations, dynamic set pieces and glossy melodrama. Photo: Disney+

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Kim Ha-neul (left) as former pro golfer Oh Wan-soo and Jung Gyu-woon as corporate heir Kim Jong-kook in a still from Red Swan. Photo: Disney+

Kim Ha-neul as former pro golfer Oh Wan-soo in a still from Red Swan. Photo: Disney+

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K-pop singer Rain heads Disney+’s Red Swan as the bodyguard to Kim Ha-neul’s former world-class golfer in this colourful, dynamic melodrama


New Disney+ K-drama Red Swan, a Korean take on The Bodyguard starring Rain and Kim Ha-neul, is so far a colourful mix of global locations, dynamic set pieces and glossy melodrama.
