K-drama Queen of Masks: Kim Sun-a leads tacky but enjoyable high-society soap that follows four wome

This article contains mild spoilers.

As the Bible’s Proverbs says: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

The true sign of friendship and brotherhood (or sisterhood) is standing beside someone through the bad times as well as the good. And in Korean drama series Queen of Masks, streaming on Viu, just how close the quartet of friends at its core remain when the good times slip away provides the crux of this high-pitched story of high- society back-stabbing.

The group comprises lawyer Do Jae-yi (Kim Sun-a, The Empire), fashion designer Go Yoo-na (Oh Yoon-ah, Once Again), arts foundation chairwoman Ju Yu-jeong (Shin Eun-jung, Navillera) and hotelier Yoon Hae-mi (Yoo-sun, Eve).

These formidable women met as young adults as they supported one another during their college years and on their way into adult society. We are introduced to them for the first time years later, in 2013, during a hen night ahead of Yu-jeong’s coming nuptials.

All four stride in wearing fabulous white gowns, but they also wear carnival masks. Their faces obscured, our first look at them is thus incomplete.

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That’s not all they are hiding, from us or from each other, as we immediately discover during a foreshortened night of revelry and debauchment that ends abruptly with a murder and the unravelling of this four-sided friendship.

Before any blood is shed, the secrets start spilling out in the bathroom. Hae-mi is revealed to be an addict after dragging a male escort into a stall in the hope of scoring drugs off him, and Jae-yi confronts Yoo-na, who has been carrying on an affair with Yu-jeong’s fiancé, Gi Do-sik (Cho Tae-kwan).

The three return to their table and Jae-yi is about to reveal Yoo-na’s secret to Yu-jeong, when the latter blurts out that she’s pregnant. Before the night is out, Do-sik is found dead in a hotel room upstairs, the same one in which Yoo-na was supposed to meet him.

All four women wind up as suspects in his death, but Yoo-na is the one who takes the rap for the murder, following which the story jumps forward nine years to the present.

Yoo-na is now out of the picture, a bad memory the other three have worked hard to bury. They have been so driven to erase it that they’ve buried themselves in their careers and soared to incredible heights.

Yu-jeong runs a major foundation and is once again engaged to be married, this time to Song Je-hyeok (Lee Jung-jin), who heads an orphanage supported by her foundation.

Hae-mi, now the vice-president of the Mariana Hotel Group, has given up drugs, in part thanks to her younger husband, Cha Re-o (Shin Ji-hoon), a former male bar host.

Jae-yi is a hugely successful lawyer and has been cautiously drawing closer to sweet restaurateur Choi Gang-hoo (Oh Ji-ho), but a secret mission has been holding her back, for she is the titular “queen of masks”.

In her spare time she has been attempting to track down a man wearing a unique mask. Over the years she has amassed a collection of masks hidden away on a wall in her walk-in closet, but the right one eludes her still.

The man who wore that mask sexually assaulted her during that hen night nine years ago – it was not Do-sik. The statute of limitations on the crime is on the brink of running out, forcing Jae-yi to accelerate her search.

Jae-yi has also been working in the shadows for Jung Goo-tae (Jeon Ji-ki), the mayor of Tongju, helping him to rise up to the National Assembly. Her prize if she succeeds? The mayorship of Tongju and a massive parcel of land, which she plans to share with Yu-jeong and Hae-mi.

All goes according to plan for a moment, but another murder and the reappearance of Yoo-na before them throws everything up in the air.

Queen of Masks deliberately adopts a soap opera tone and its mix of catfights, wide-eyed stares and tacky fashion complements a see-sawing narrative stacked with abrupt and shocking reveals.

The themes of sexual assault and female solidarity (or lack thereof) add a topical touch to a glossy production that largely seeks to entertain and keep things moving along.

It does take a moment before the show settles into its groove, as the brashness of the opening and the off-putting nature of several of the characters briefly risks driving the audience away.

Yet, as the first episode ends with Go Yoo-na returning as “Emily Go”, striding up to a rainy funeral in a black outfit accessorised with red bumps and a red umbrella, the show appears to have found its stride.

Episode two feels more comfortable as Jae-yi and the gang embroil themselves in typical but brisk battles on both political and personal fronts. Only time will tell who Jae-yi’s true friends are, if there are any to be found in her dog-eat-dog world.

Queen of Masks is streaming on Viu.

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