"A strong first half and a genuinely compelling premise - Queen of Divorce loses its footing in the back stretch but delivers enough in the early episodes to earn the watch."
Queen of Divorce starts as the legal revenge drama it promises to be – and then slowly becomes something messier.
The setup is a good one. A lawyer is framed by her chaebol husband and his mother, loses her son in the process, goes to prison, and emerges with the specific motivation of someone who has been taught exactly how the powerful use the legal system and has decided to use it back. She starts a firm that helps women in unjust divorce situations. Her former boyfriend – the one she left to marry into money – ends up as her partner. Queen of Divorce aired on JTBC from January to March 2024 across 12 episodes, and for the first half it delivers on that premise with enough energy and intelligence that the drama’s later stumbles are genuinely frustrating. What starts well does not finish as well as it should.
The Synopsis
Kim Sa Ra was a lawyer who chose wealth over love when she married chaebol son Noh Yul Seong – a decision she paid for when his mother, Cha Hee Won, decided Sa Ra was inconvenient and had her framed and imprisoned on false charges. Stripped of her marriage, her son, and her career, Sa Ra builds something new: a practice called Solutions that helps women navigate divorces they are losing unfairly, often against opponents with more money and better connections. Partnered with Dong Ki Joon, a former prosecutor turned lawyer who happens to be the man she once walked away from, she takes on clients while simultaneously working to dismantle the empire that destroyed her. The cases run parallel to the personal history, and the drama is at its best when both tracks are working together.
The Cast
Lee Ji Ah (Kim Sa Ra): Lee Ji Ah plays Sa Ra as someone carrying a lot of controlled anger and more than a little guilt – both over what she lost and over the choices that put her in a position to lose it. The character is not written to be entirely sympathetic, which is a more interesting choice than most K-dramas make, and Lee Ji Ah commits to the edges. The performance works better in the dramatic scenes than the action-adjacent ones, and the drama’s tendency to put Sa Ra in danger and have her need rescuing in the back half does the character no favors.
Kang Ki Young (Dong Ki Joon): The drama is arguably worth watching for Kang Ki Young finally getting a lead role, and he does not waste it. Ki Joon is sharper than Sa Ra in the courtroom, more decisive, and his patience with a woman who keeps him at arm’s length for reasons both understandable and frustrating is one of the drama’s more human threads. Kang Ki Young brings warmth and dry humor to a character the drama sometimes writes as a secondary support rather than a co-lead, and his presence consistently elevates the scenes he is in.
What Works and What Doesn’t
The first half of the drama is engaging. The case-of-the-week structure keeps things moving, the villain team is properly hateable, and the dynamic between Sa Ra and Ki Joon builds with enough tension and history that the romance track earns interest. The supporting characters – particularly the wealthy divorcee CEO who runs the solutions side of the practice – add color and occasional comedy that keeps the tone from going entirely dark.
The back half is where things unravel. Sa Ra, established as someone strategically smart, starts making decisions that strain credibility – repeatedly putting herself in danger, missing obvious threats, needing rescue in ways that contradict the competent woman the opening episodes set up. The revenge arc loses momentum as the villains cycle through schemes without escalating consequences, and the legal cases grow more repetitive. The drama also struggles to close the romance on timing that feels earned rather than obligatory.
Final Thoughts
Queen of Divorce is the kind of drama that gives you six good episodes and then asks you to be patient for the remaining six. The premise is strong, Kang Ki Young finally getting a lead role is worth celebrating and he delivers, and the drama’s commitment to showing the specific ways women get maneuvered out of their rights in divorce proceedings gives it something to say beyond the revenge plot. If you can manage expectations for the back half and are watching primarily for the leads, it is worth the time. If you need the drama to maintain the energy of its first half all the way through, it will disappoint you.
More C-drama and K-drama reviews at xavyandmom.com/category/asian-tv-drama/.
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