The response to the Coupang Play original drama ‘Family Plan’, starring Bae Doo-na and Ryu Seung-beom, has been extraordinary from the beginning. The drama, which tells the story of a mother (Bae Doo-na) with a special ability to freely edit memories, joining forces with her family to punish villains, has been receiving explosive responses, garnering favorable reviews at the same time as its release.

○Wrote a new record from the start

According to Coupang Play, ‘Family Plan’, which released parts 1 and 2 on the 29th of last month, recorded the highest opening score in the Coupang Play series. Not only did it record the highest number of viewers in its first week, but it also recorded the highest completion rate (the percentage of people who watched each episode to the end), beating out all of the previous popular Coupang Play originals such as ‘One Day’, ‘Anna’, ‘Boys‘ Generation’, to achieve its own highest first-week viewership.

In addition to the numerical box office success, viewer reviews have also been positive. In particular, the drama is receiving favorable reviews for the fast-paced plot and the unique acting of the lead actors Bae Doo-na, Ryu Seung-beom, and Baek Yoon-sik, who play the father, mother, and grandfather, respectively.

The high viewer satisfaction with the drama is also reflected in its ratings. The Coupang Play rating, which was scored by over 40,000 viewers, recorded a high score of 4.3 out of 5. On Kinolights, an integrated theater and OTT (online video service) content ranking platform, it received a content score of 83.33 points (out of 100), far surpassing Netflix’s ‘Trunk’ (60.76 points) that was released on the same day.

○ Popularity of ‘Private Sanctions’ content

The success of ‘Family Plan’ is attracting even more attention as it appears to have followed in the footsteps of the popularity of dramas based on ‘Private Sanctions’. The reason for this is that most of the recent dramas with the theme of ‘private sanctions’ such as ‘The Glory’, ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘Vigilante’, ‘National Death Penalty Referendum’, ‘No Way Out: The Roulette’, ‘Judge from Hell’, ‘The Fiery Priest 2’ have been successful at the box office as well as well-received by viewers.

However, ‘Family Plan’ differentiates itself from previous works by setting up the drama to inflict ‘mental pain’ on the perpetrator rather than ‘physical violence’. In the drama, the mother, Yeong-su (Bae Doo-na), uses a special ability called ‘Brain Hacking’, which implants in the minds of perpetrators of crimes such as murder, assault, and sexual exploitation, memories that are more painful and horrifying than what the victims experienced.

‘Family Plan’s General Creator Kim Jung-min explained this setting, saying, “Even if extremely vicious criminals are punished by law, it does not mean that the victims and their bereaved families can forgive them. I thought that the most certain punishment would be to implant in the perpetrators the memories of the actions and pain they inflicted on the victims.


Reporter Lee Seung-mi smlee@donga.com