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Pierce Conran

This article contains spoilers.
3.5/5 stars
Lead cast: Kim Tae-ri, Shin Ye-eun, Ra Mi-ran, Jung Eun-chae, Kim Yoon-hye
Latest Nielsen rating: 16.46 per cent
Talent is a big part of what draws us to the shining stars who entertain us on the stage or screen, but equally important is the story of how they got where they are. Typically, the more hardship they have had to endure, the more we appreciate their efforts to entertain us.
Yoon Jeong-nyeon, the scrappy titular character of Jeongnyeon: A Star Is Born, played by Kim Tae-ri (Twenty-Five Twenty-One), struggled long before she got near a stage, and even after proving herself was faced with some of her greatest hardships.


She lost her father in front of her eyes during the Korean war in the early 1950s, then worked as a fishmonger in a small coastal town with her mother and sister and was often shaken down by local thugs.
Jeong-nyeon had the voice – which she inherited from her mother, although she did not learn of this until much later – and crucially, also the spunk. She delighted in entertaining people with her voice and wasn’t afraid of getting into trouble with her mother, who forbade her from singing, or the aforementioned thugs.
This extroversion gave her the chance to show her gift to star stage performer Moon Ok-gyeong (Jung Eun-chae), who took her under her wing and prepared her to audition for the Maeran Theatre Company, run by the formidable Kang So-bok (Ra Mi-ran, The Good Bad Mother).
Despite her rough appearance, Jeong-nyeon’s voice was enough to get her in the troupe, and it wasn’t long before she impressed her teachers and struck fear into the hearts of her rivals.

Jeong-nyeon’s next challenge was fighting herself. She has a tendency to be stubborn and to lose herself in the moment. She gets carried away, feeding off the energy of the crowd, and this occasionally leads her to depart from the tight scripts of the performances she is meant to be a part of.
Another big obstacle for Jeong-nyeon was the jealousy of other members in her troupe, particularly the stuck-up star Seo Hye-rang (Kim Yoon-hye), who, unlike Ok-gyeong, does not want to be challenged by a new generation of performers, let alone be replaced by them.
Hye-rang’s schemes almost get Jeong-nyeon expelled on several occasions. Worst of all is when Jeong-nyeon is convinced to go up into the mountains to practise, where she is led to believe she will find her true voice, only to lose her voice completely because of overexertion.
Jeong-nyeon returns home, defeated, but after finally having a heart-to-heart with her mother, Seo Yong-rye (Moon So-ri), she learns how to “fill the gaps” in her voice. She returns with an unconventional singing style, no longer technically perfect but filled with an even deeper well of emotion than before.

The show ends with the triumphant leading debuts of Jeong-nyeon and her former trainee rival Heo Young-se (Shin Ye-eun, The Glory). The road forward, however, is fraught with uncertainty.
Ok-gyeong has left for the film industry and Maeran is deep in debt, and this may be the only performance of the show. What’s more, the very future of their art form, the Korean traditional opera style known as gukgeuk, is in doubt.
The show takes place in the 1960s, which was the first golden era of Korean cinema. Starting with Ok-gyeong, many members of the troupe begin to migrate to the bright lights of film sets.
Jeong-nyeon may now be recognised as a master of the Korean pansori singing style, but while her star has risen it has done so within a dying medium whose light is being extinguished.

While this may seem like a compelling point for the show to end on, what should be a cultural death rattle only appears as a faint ring in the background. The story broaches the topic without diving into its consequences.
This isn’t the only time that Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born introduces ideas without really exploring them. Early on, it appeared the story was headed to a grand stage, but it throttled its own potential by becoming more insular as time went on. The world beyond Maeran steadily slipped out of the picture.
Then again, the show’s true strength lay in Maeran’s performances on the stage, their rehearsals and their auditions.
Fuelled by spectacular stage performances by Kim, Shin and Jung, these productions, which were plentiful, transported us in the few moments that the rest of the show could not.
Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born is streaming on Disney+.


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Kim Tae-ri shines as a gifted singer who overcomes hardships in a story that has some good ideas but fails to follow through on them


Kim Tae-ri shines as a gifted singer who overcomes hardships in a story that has some good ideas but fails to follow through on them.


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Review | Disney+ K-drama Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born review – soaring performances save the show

Kim Tae-ri shines as a gifted singer who overcomes hardships in a story that has some good ideas but fails to follow through on them