STUDIO X+U and Naver's joint short-drama project "Makjang Villainess" released all episodes (46 in total) on Chijijik and Naver TV, drawing a hot response of about 10,000 concurrent viewers as it also presented a "commentary live" featuring the four lead actors amid a "cliché rampage".
On the 30th, "Makjang Villainess" presented the entire series on Naver's streaming platform Chijijik and Naver TV, and the four lead actors Kang Min-a, Song Byung-geun, Jung Ye-na and Moon Byung-seol watched through episode 16 live while interacting with viewers. The event was hosted by broadcaster Kim Euijung (Dangun).
The story begins when the protagonist Yoon Mi-so (played by Kang Min-a), a struggling drama assistant writer and the daughter of a tonkatsu restaurant owner, has the script she wrote, "Cheer up, Dawn," stolen by makjang drama writer Nam Heun-yeon. Mi-so was outraged but could not resist Nam Heun-yeon, and she fell asleep wearing a watch left by senior writer Ri-ri, who had quit. But when she wakes up, she finds herself inside "Cheer up, Dawn" as the morally rotten "makjang villainess" and the only daughter of a chaebol family slated for an arranged marriage, forced into a situation where she must carry out mysterious instructions displayed on the watch.
Because it follows the script from Mi-so's drama, the situations in "Makjang Villainess" are nothing but a "cliché stew." Yet interpreted through Mi-so's real-world perspective, it delivers a striking and delightful twist. The gentle, fragile, poor icon female lead Han Sae-byeok (played by Jung Ye-na) alone fails to realize the identity of the chaebol male lead Song Yoon-jae (played by Moon Byung-seol) and calls him "unemployed man." Also, the villainess's loyal secretary Cha Seung-do (played by Song Byung-geun) not only obtains footage of Yoon-jae's shower scene for Mi-so but even offers his body in the middle of the night(?) to handle everything she wants.
Before she became possessed by the drama, Mi-so knew she had truly been a "morally rotten" person, and early on she was so un-villainess-like that even the insults she hurled at Han Sae-byeok to see the "ending" came out as "You...dummy," but ultimately she gradually embraces the role of the "makjang villainess" to survive and escape the drama.
During the live event, Song Byung-geun—nicknamed "Little Jeon Jae-joon" for his previous appearance in "The Glory"—teased a heated shirtless scene, and a shocking kiss scene with Kang Min-a also previewed, grabbing attention. Song Byung-geun said, "The day we filmed the shirtless scene was almost the drama's last shoot, so I couldn't eat much. My muscle pumping didn't work well, so personally I was a bit disappointed," sharing behind-the-scenes details. Kang Min-a recalled with laughter, "It was hot during that shoot; the indoor lights made it hotter and hotter, and just before his exposure, Byung-geun kept doing push-ups, making it even hotter. I said, 'Byung-geun, please stop.'"
Jung Ye-na, who plays the female lead Han Sae-byeok—a role far from the pure and fragile type known as a "Teto woman"—revealed her fandom for Kang Min-a, who delivered an impressive performance in the film Park Hwa-young, saying, "I remembered her as a pretty...no, bad 'first-team' unnie," and "I wanted to be like that unnie." Moon Byung-seol, the "model chaebol male lead," said, "To achieve realistic acting, I looked up the performances of chaebol men in makjang dramas a lot," and added, "Because our drama is in short format, each episode is at most two to three minutes, and incidents keep happening throughout that time, making you curious about the next episode," confirming a "dopamine explosion."
The four lead actors described the short drama "Makjang Villainess" with affectionate four-character phrases such as "time thief," "dopamine bang," and "super fun," guaranteeing it is an "inescapable" drama once you start. The live-action short-drama adaptation of the popular Naver Webtoon "Makjang Villainess" can be viewed in full on Naver's streaming platform Chijijik and Naver TV.
[OSEN]