Graceful Friends

Graceful Friends
Promotional poster
Hangul
우아한 친구들
Genre
Created byJTBC
Written by
  • Park Hyo-yeon
  • Kim Gyeong-seon
Directed bySong Hyun-wook
Starring
Music byUm Ki-yeop
Country of originSouth Korea
Original languageKorean
No. of episodes17
Production
Executive producerHam Young-hoon
Producers
  • Park Woo-ram
  • Kim Sang-ho
  • Moon Hyung-seop
  • Lee Jeong-yeon
  • Kang Yu-ri
  • Na Yong-hoon
Running time70 minutes
Production companies
Original release
NetworkJTBC
ReleaseJuly 10 (2020-07-10) –
September 5, 2020 (2020-09-05)

Graceful Friends (Korean: 우아한 친구들; RR: Uahan Chingudeul) is a South Korean television series starring Yoo Jun-sang, Song Yoon-ah, Bae Soo-bin, Han Eun-jung, Kim Sung-oh, Kim Hye-eun, Jung Suk-yong, Lee In-hye, Kim Won-hae and Kim Ji-young. It aired on JTBC from July 10 to September 5, 2020.[1] It's available for streaming on Netflix and Disney+ in selected countries.[2][3]

Synopsis

[edit]

The peaceful life of a group of friends who have known each other for 20 years is suddenly broken when a murder takes place.

Ahn Goong-chul (Yoo Jun-sang) has a seemingly perfect life with his beautiful wife and son. He works diligently for a food franchise company and is a loving husband and father to his family. Goong-chul's wife, Nam Jung-hae (Song Yoon-ah) is a psychiatrist who works in a family hospital. She is intelligent and beautiful but hides a dark past from her husband. Jung-hae gets entangled in a blackmailing scheme.

Jung Jae-hoon (Bae Soo-bin) is a divorced urologist with a wealthy family background. He lives alone and seems to have a mysterious side. He has a past connection to Nam Jung-hae, of which Ahn Goong-chul is ignorant.

Jo Hyung-woo (Kim Sung-oh) is an adult film director who is often mockingly called the "Bong Joon-ho" of the adult film industry. His dream is to become a mainstream big budget film director but he has never had any luck in achieving his goal. He is married to Kang Kyung-ja (Kim Hye-eun) who is a former adult film actress and now runs a luxury bar. He is very dependent on his wife's income. Kang Kyung-ja has a pro-golfer son named Kang Ji-wook.

Park Choon-bok (Jung Suk-yong) is an insurance company worker and part-time worker at a foreign car dealership. His wife Yoo Eun-sil (Lee In-hye) is a housewife and they have a daughter named Park Pu-reum. He looks comparatively older than his friends and wife, and people often mistakenly think he is his daughter's grandfather. He struggles financially but his wife is very supportive.

Cheon Man-shik (Kim Won-hae) is a City Hall Tax Collection Division official with a wife and a teenage daughter. He is quiet and polite and suffers from depression. He and Ahn Goong-chul were roommates in college and consider each other best friends. He has been hiding a secret from his family and friends which is revealed only after his death.

Baek Hae-sook (Han Eun-jung) used to be friends with the five and they all used to have a crush on her in college. For some reason, she had to drop out of college and wasn't in touch with any of them until Man-shik's funeral. She buys a restaurant near the housing society where the five friends live, and seems to have a mysterious agenda.

Cast

[edit]

Main

[edit]

Supporting

[edit]
A professional golf instructor who cons people to extract money for his gambling addiction.
An adult film actress who is blackmailed by Joo Kang-san to help him scam people.
  • Yeon Je-hyung as Kang Ji-wook
Kang Kyung-ja's son and Jo Hyung-woo's stepson, he is a pro golfer. Like his stepfather, he also was Kang-san's blackmail victim.
Man-shik and Myung-sook's teenage daughter who studies in Canada.
  • Park Ha-joon as Ahn Yoo-bin
Goong-chul and Jung-hae's son.
  • Shim Hye-yeon as Park Pu-reum
Choon-bok and Eun-sil's daughter, she has an innocent crush on Ahn Yoo-bin.
  • Kim Seung-wook as Jo Tae-wook
Detective working on the murder case who also were in charge of Professor Park's murder case.
  • Kim Hee-ryung as Goo Young-sun
An Alzheimer patient whom Man-sik took care of. She is the wife of Professor Park Do-hoon.
  • Sa Kang as Do Do-hae
She is the caregiver of Goo Young-sun and liked Cheon Man-shik.
Jung Jae-hoon's ex-wife. She moved to America after their divorce and returned with a changed appearance.

Others

[edit]
  • Lee Joo-suk as Professor Han Eung-shik
  • Jang Hee-soo as Oh Soon-jung, chairwoman of the hospital Nam Jung-hae works in.
  • Kim Ga-hwa as Geum Ha-na, Jung Jae-hoon's colleague.
  • Um Chae-young as Moon Ga-yeon, Ahn Yoo-bin's friend.
  • Kim Dong-ho as Seo Joo-won, Joo Kang-san's friend.
  • Kim Tae-young as Professor Park Do-hoon
  • Sung Byung-sook as Ahn Goong-chul's mother.
  • Kwon Hyuk as Ahn Goong-cheol
  • Jeon Eun-mi
  • Yoo Gun
  • Kang Nam-gil
  • Lee Geung-young
  • Kim Jun-hyun as himself, Goong-chul's friend and brand ambassador of the chicken franchise where he works.

Production

[edit]

On January 18, 2020, it was reported that JTBC picked up the series which had already wrapped up filming.[4]

Viewership

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Graceful Friends : South Korea viewers per episode (thousands)
SeasonEpisode numberAverage
1234567891011121314151617
1702596876812844930826926859100573789477110059899421037868
Source: Audience measurement performed nationwide by Nielsen Korea.[5]
Average TV viewership ratings
Ep. Original broadcast date Title Average audience share
(Nielsen Korea)[6]
Nationwide Seoul
1 July 10, 2020 Confession 3.197% 4.061%
2 July 11, 2020 That Woman 2.685% 3.299%
3 July 17, 2020 Inappropriate Relationship 4.126% 5.176%
4 July 18, 2020 A Secret More Horrifying Than Death 3.732% 4.316%
5 July 24, 2020 Confessions 4.553% 5.417%
6 July 25, 2020 Lie 4.429% 5.192%
7 July 31, 2020 First Love 4.320% 4.904%
8 August 1, 2020 The Beginning of a Crack 4.333% 4.872%
9 August 7, 2020 Pandora's Box 4.441% 4.959%
10 August 8, 2020 After The Play Is Over 4.711% 5.549%
11 August 14, 2020 Perfect Strangers 4.005% 5.060%
12 August 15, 2020 Truth Behind the Incident 1 4.454% 5.328%
13 August 21, 2020 Things You Cannot Undo 3.953% 5.358%
14 August 22, 2020 The Man Who Knelt 4.737% 5.578%
15 August 29, 2020 A Dramatic Twist 4.865% 5.834%
16 September 4, 2020 In The Mood For Love - Most Brilliant Times 4.785% 5.898%
17 September 5, 2020 The Truth Behind The Case 2 5.081% 6.388%
Average 4.259% 5.129%
  • In the table above, the blue numbers represent the lowest ratings and the red numbers represent the highest ratings.
  • This drama aired on a cable channel/pay TV which normally has a relatively smaller audience compared to free-to-air TV/public broadcasters (KBS, SBS, MBC and EBS).

International broadcast

[edit]

The series is available on iQIYI with multi-languages subtitles in South East Asia and Taiwan.

The series is also being aired on K-Plus beginning February 27, 2021.

It is available to stream on Netflix and Disney+ in selected markets.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Jang, Woo-young (May 26, 2020). "Yu Jun-sang and Song Yoon-ah's "Elegant Friends", a Successor to "The World of the Married"". HanCinema. Archived from the original on June 22, 2022. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  2. ^ "Watch Graceful Friends | Full episodes | Disney+". www.disneyplus.com. Archived from the original on 2022-02-24. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
  3. ^ "Watch Graceful Friends | Netflix". www.netflix.com. Archived from the original on 2022-02-24. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
  4. ^ Park, So-young (January 18, 2020). "[단독] '우아한 친구들', JTBC 6월 금토극 편성..제2의 'SKY캐슬' 예고". Osen (in Korean). Naver. Archived from the original on April 7, 2023. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  5. ^ "Nielsen Korea" (in Korean). Archived from the original on July 11, 2020. Retrieved July 10, 2020.
  6. ^ "Nielsen Korea" (in Korean). Archived from the original on July 11, 2020. Retrieved July 10, 2020.
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