This is a drama about Woo Young Woo (Park Eun Bin), a lady with Autism Spectrum Disorder. She worked as an attorney in a law firm run by her father’s university junior and got the job through this private connection. And yes, she was extraordinary, despite being autistic, she proved herself to be capable and won cases time and again in the law firm. She had difficulty communicating with others, but had an extraordinary memory. She remembered laws in great details and her exceptional memory was put to great use when she had to plough through numerous documents while defending her cases.

I would not say that I understand autism, so I would talk about Woo Young Woo simply based on my feelings watching her.

She was really adorable. Her hairstyle, the way she walked, the way she spoke, the things she spoke about, her obsession with whales and kimbap, even her poor ability to understand human emotions well, etc., were all adorable.

I give kudos to the actress Park Eun Bin, I have never seen her dramas before, neither did I know who she was before this, but she convinced me totally with her exceptional acting.

Due to Woo Young Woo’s poor ability to understand human emotions well, there were comical times, such as when she was trying to find out her love interest, Lee Jun Ho (Kang Tae Oh)’s feelings for her and during the times when they went on dates. For example, her male friend told her that if it were him, he would treat the other party especially nice like pulling out the chair for her, carrying things for her, opening the car door for her or allowing the other party to walk the inside of a pavement when they walked together beside a road, all these were said from her friend’s point of view as a male, but she took the advice seriously and did exactly all that LOL It was simply hilarious seeing her doing them on top of Jun Ho’s awkward and bemused reactions, like oh, errrrrr, you are opening the car door for me??? Or why are you pulling the chair out for me out of a sudden?? LOL

I especially liked Woo Young Woo’s superior. He was a pleasant yet jovial character and also enjoyed seeing the camaraderie between Woo Young Woo and her best friend, Dong Geurami. As for Woo Young Woo’s love interest, Lee Jun Ho, he existed simply as a supportive love interest for Woo Young Woo, it seemed that the scriptwriter did not want to develop or give him a complicated character.

Cases in the drama were interesting enough, but not to the extent that I wanted more of them. I think many reflected the social issues faced by the Korean society, such as gender issues in Korean companies and Korean children as young as seven years old practically had no life except studying, etc. They finished a case in one/two episodes and some people did not like this style, but I liked it because I watched this while it was being aired and it was aired only twice a week. So episodic for me meant that there was no need to recall what happened the week before when I watched a new week’s episodes.

All in all, I enjoyed this drama simply because of Woo Young Woo. The story was weak and there was almost no character development in the other characters and even if they had, they existed for the growth of Woo Young Woo, but I enjoyed watching her very much and did not mind the drama to revolve around her, given that the drama is titled ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’. Nevertheless, I did find that 16 episodes was enough, I did not crave to see her longer than that, I guess that you cannot go too long with a weak storyline and focus on one character and her growth, so it was good that there would be a two-year hiatus to season two, which I would still watch.


Lastly, this is unrelated to Woo Young Woo, but just to comment on my favourite case, or rather favourite defendant in the drama. It is the defendant in episode 9, the so-called commander-in-chief of the ‘Children’s Liberation Army’. I admire his courage to do against what the Korean society thinks should be the norm, I do not think what he did or think was wrong, the only wrong was perhaps he should have seek the parents’ consent before bringing the children out, but then again, even if he had seek their consent, would academic results-conscious Korean parents allow their precious children to skip after-school extra classes to go to the mountains to play freely for a day?