South Korea · Drama · 2009
Partner
Synopsis
Partner follows Kang Eun-ho, a newcomer lawyer starting out at the prestigious firm Winning Legal Affairs, where she has to find her footing among colleagues who measure success mostly by billable cases and corporate clients. Working alongside veteran lawyer Lee Tae-jo, Eun-ho takes on a run of legal cases that keep testing where her own values sit between the firm's ambitions and the clients who have nowhere else to turn.
As Eun-ho and Tae-jo work more closely together, the series uses their partnership and the cases that pass through the firm to ask what actually makes someone a partner, whether in a law office or in a relationship, contrasting lawyers chasing profit and prestige with those trying to serve people the system tends to overlook. Kim Hyun-joo stars as Kang Eun-ho and Lee Dong-wook as Lee Tae-jo in the 16-episode series, which aired on KBS from June to August 2009.
Partner cast
Interesting facts
Partner went into production as a late replacement: KBS pulled the fashion-themed drama originally scheduled for the slot after a plagiarism dispute with SBS's Style, leaving the cast and crew roughly a month to prepare before the June 24, 2009 premiere.
The courtroom scenes were filmed using outside-broadcast relay vehicles, a method Korean outlets described as a first for a Korean television drama, intended to give the trial sequences a more realistic feel.
Ratings rose over the run, from about 6% for the first episode to 12.7% for the finale, though the show finished second in its Wednesday-Thursday timeslot behind SBS's Swallow the Sun. It was also KBS's first fully in-house drama production in two years.
At the June 19, 2009 press conference, Choi Chul-ho — usually cast in comic roles — said he planned to play his lawyer character straight, and Kim Hyun-joo said she and Lee Dong-wook grew comfortable working together quickly once filming began.
Episodes
| Ep | Title | Air date | Status | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Episode 1 | 2009-06-24 | Aired | |
| 2 | Episode 2 | 2009-06-25 | Aired | |
| 3 | Episode 3 | 2009-07-01 | Aired | |
| 4 | Episode 4 | 2009-07-02 | Aired | |
| 5 | Episode 5 | 2009-07-08 | Aired | |
| 6 | Episode 6 | 2009-07-09 | Aired | |
| 7 | Episode 7 | 2009-07-15 | Aired | |
| 8 | Episode 8 | 2009-07-16 | Aired | |
| 9 | Episode 9 | 2009-07-22 | Aired | |
| 10 | Episode 10 | 2009-07-23 | Aired | |
| 11 | Episode 11 | 2009-07-29 | Aired | |
| 12 | Episode 12 | 2009-07-30 | Aired | |
| 13 | Episode 13 | 2009-08-05 | Aired | |
| 14 | Episode 14 | 2009-08-06 | Aired | |
| 15 | Episode 15 | 2009-08-12 | Aired | |
| 16 | Episode 16 | 2009-08-13 | Aired |
Awards
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Recipient | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | KBS Drama Awards | Best Supporting Actor | Choi Chul-ho | Won |
| 2009 | KBS Drama Awards | Excellence Award, Actor in a Miniseries | Lee Dong-wook | Nominated |
| 2009 | KBS Drama Awards | Excellence Award, Actress in a Miniseries | Kim Hyun-joo | Nominated |
| 2009 | KBS Drama Awards | Netizen Award | Lee Dong-wook & Kim Hyun-joo | Nominated |
| 2009 | KBS Drama Awards | Best Couple Award | Lee Dong-wook & Kim Hyun-joo | Nominated |
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