Review of Tempted / 위대한 유혹자

Right before I left for Malaysia on a three week trip, in the gap between me finishing up my third semester of graduate school and heading to the other side of the world, I was on a massive Korean drama kick.

I had just gotten a Viki subscription around this time, and I truly was enjoying myself. That Viki subscription was one of the better decisions I’ve made in the past year, and I’ll happily admit that.

That said, there was a day when I spent thinking a lot about what I wanted to watch. I ended up landing on the drama Tempted solely because I had seen it before, and I was under the impression that it might have some darker aesthetics.

I love a good television show that leans into darker themes and characters, and that was kind of what I got some the show’s original synopsis, promotional pictures, and even the Korean name. And oh man, this was some of the biggest clickbait I’ve seen in a drama so far.

Let’s get into the review, shall we?

A group of rich friend plays a game, but one ends up falling in love with the girl they’re trying to trick.

The core conflict of Tempted is caused by this: three very rich friends find themselves gathering in their huge, fancy (and probably expensive) lair after school, and they’re quite bored with their lives.

Having been friends since their childhood days, they all know each other too well. Choi Su-ji is the lone female of the group, while Kwon Si-hyeon and Lee Se-ju come from similar privileged backgrounds—except that Si-hyeon is a bit isolated from his family, and even has his own place separate from them.

At the start of the series, Su-ji finds herself in a horrible situation: her steady boyfriend has just broken up with her, and then he absolutely humiliates her mother and her because of the fact he views them as social climbers, and they want to use him to do that.

Su-ji’s mother then plots with Si-hyeon’s father to have Su-ji and Si-hyeon married, so they come together to announce an engagement between the two. It gets even more complicated because Se-ju has romantic feelings for Su-ji, except now his two best friends are engaged to each other.

They gather in their lair, and Su-ji comes up with a plan. She’s obsessed with the college student Eun Tae-hui, who doesn’t come from a privileged background like them. She wants Si-hyeon to seduce Tae-hui because she knows that Tae-hui is the first love of her ex-boyfriend, so this is a bit of a revenge plot.

Once this is all over, the two of them are going to get married before their parents can decide for them.

This is also a test of loyalty, as she wants Si-hyeon to prove himself as someone who will do anything for her. They continue plotting in their lair, and decide Si-hyeon is off to break her heart. He starts planning to be wherever she turns up, and acts awkwardly on the bus and throughout the campus, despite her giving him weird looks each time.

Eun-hui is the model student, as she doesn’t come from much. She also doesn’t really believe in romance and love, not only because she doesn’t have time for such trivial things, but also because she watched how her parents were so unhappy. But as Si-hyeon keeps showing up in her life, she starts acknowledging his presence.

Especially after he helps her out and even gets her an apartment across from him. He starts falling for her too, and this leads to disastrous consequences as the people in their lives find out. But, worst of all, if Eun Tae-hui finds out that Si-hyeon originally befriended her as a sick joke, it’ll destroy everything.

Overall Thoughts

As I mentioned before, I thought this was going to be a show that grappled with more darker themes. Although the plot that Si-hyeon is befriending Eun-hui as a twisted joke is a bit messed up, the show really goes down the fluffier route, especially towards the second half of the drama.

I mean, there are some more heavier themes in terms of depression and class, but I think I wanted this show to go deeper more directly with the main plot line. I struggled to get through this show, if we’re going to be honest.

I watched like the first twelve episodes easily, but after that it also started getting really repetitive and too fluffy. A senseI started feeling at this point was that the stakes were too low throughout the show, which made it harder to watch.

Like if there were more stakes and tension, it might’ve flowed a bit easier than it did. All in all, I don’t regret watching this, but I also did not care for it at all.

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