| Alt Name: | Call Me Mother | ||
| Native Name: |
| ||
| Developer: | Studio Dragon | ||
| Director: | Kim Cheol-kyu | ||
| Music: | Jeong Se-rin (Movie Closer) | ||
| Country: | South Korea | ||
| Language: | Korean | ||
| Num Episodes: | 16 | ||
| Camera: | Single-camera | ||
| Runtime: | 60 minutes[1] | ||
| Company: | The Unicorn | ||
| Network: | tvN |
Mother[2] is a 2018 South Korean television series starring Lee Bo-young, Heo Yool, Lee Hye-young, Nam Ki-ae, and Ko Sung-hee. It is a remake of the 2010 Japanese TV series of the same title. It aired on tvN from January 24 to March 15, 2018, every Wednesday and Thursday at 21:30 (KST).[3] [4] [5] [6]
A temporary teacher (Kang Soo-jin) at an elementary school realizes that one of her students (Kim Hye-na) is being abused at home by her mother (Shin Ja-young) and live-in boyfriend (Lee Seol-ak). Though reported to the police, they do nothing about it. After discovering the child one night placed in a black plastic bin liner on the edge of the road outside the family home, the teacher makes the impulsive decision to take the child. The pair bond immediately: the girl soon regards the teacher as her own mother and chooses a new name for herself, Kim Yoon-bok. Kang Soo-jin hopes to be able to flee the country with Yoon-bok, but with the child not possessing a passport, the pair are caught in a limbo.
On the run and with nowhere to go, they are first befriended by Madame Ra, who runs a homeless shelter but who has connections with shady people who can forge the necessary passport. However, when the police raid the shelter, Soo-jin and Yoon-bok flee with Madame Ra, only to be tricked by her, losing the large sum of money given to obtain the passport. Soo-jin then takes Yoon-bok back to the orphanage where she herself grew up after being dumped there by her biological mother. The building is now abandoned, but still living there alone is the woman, Clara (now very old), who had run the orphanage. They spend a few memorable days with Clara, but when the authorities arrive to take Clara away to a home, they again have to leave.
With options running out, Soo-jin returns alone to the home of the wealthy actress who adopted her from the orphans' home over 25 years earlier to ask for money. Though estranged from her adopted family, the actress is delighted to have her daughter "back home". Soo-jin leaves Yoon-bok first in a hotel and then is able to rent a small apartment in the same neighbourhood from a woman who has her own barber's shop. The actress and her two other daughters are soon delightfully surprised to discover that Kang Soo-jin, the "black sheep of the family", has a child of her own - Soo-jin not revealing the fact that she has "abducted" the child.
The mother-and-child's problems continue, however. It turns out that the kind lady barber - who Yoon-bok starts to refer to as "Granny" - is in fact Soo-jin's biological mother, who unbeknown to anyone had deliberately moved there in order to follow her daughter's life under adoption. Kang Soo-jin is horrified to discover that the woman is her biological mother, and removes herself and the child from the premises. The police had initially suspected that the child had accidentally fallen into the sea, but then later acquire evidence that she is still alive. While keeping up the pretense of being mother and daughter, Kang Soo-jin still hopes to be able to flee the country with Kim Yoon-bok but now they are being pursued by the police tracking down the "kidnapper", as well as the child's mother's boyfriend determined to silence the child from reporting child abuse.
Yoon-bok's mother discovers her daughter living in the house of the wealthy actress's family and her boyfriend manages to "take back" the child, but for the purpose of demanding a ransom from the wealthy family. He holds the child captive in the abandoned orphanage. Kang Soo-jin manages to free her before the police arrive, whereupon the boyfriend commits suicide by setting the building on fire. Kang Soo-jin and Yoon-bok are eventually caught by the police just before getting on a boat that would have taken them to China.
Shin Ja-young, Yoon-bok's mother, is put on trial for child abuse and is found guilty based on the child's statements. Kang Soo-jin is also then put on trial for kidnapping the child, but the sympathetic court punishes her with 3 years probation but with no prison time, albeit with the condition that she should have no further contact with Yoon-bok.
Yoon-bok is placed in an orphanage where she is outwardly happy, but those looking after her recognize that she is depressed. She then manages to abscond back to Kang Soo-jin's family home, before having to return a few days later. An attempt to have her adopted by a sympathetic young couple fails. Yoon-bok tells the orphanage director that she would rather stay in the orphanage in the hope that her "mother", Kang Soo-jin, will eventually come to fetch her. Initially aghast at the idea of Yoon-bok being reunited with her "kidnapper", the orphanage director eventually realises that the bond between them was based on love not menace, and Yoon-bok eventually gets to go and live with Kang Soo-jin, who soon afterwards officially adopts her.
| + Average TV viewership ratings | |||||
| Original broadcast date | Average audience share | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nielsen Korea[10] | TNmS | ||||
| Nationwide | Nationwide | ||||
| 1 | January 24, 2018 | 2.952% | 3.211% | 3.8% | |
| 2 | January 25, 2018 | 3.494% | 3.629% | 4.1% | |
| 3 | January 31, 2018 | 2.542% | 3.0% | ||
| 4 | February 1, 2018 | 3.267% | 3.448% | 3.5% | |
| 5 | February 7, 2018 | 2.451% | 2.800% | 3.2% | |
| 6 | February 8, 2018 | 4.206% | 4.786% | 3.9% | |
| 7 | February 14, 2018 | 2.694% | 2.747% | 3.4% | |
| 8 | February 15, 2018 | 3.010% | |||
| 9 | February 21, 2018 | 2.668% | 3.056% | 3.1% | |
| 10 | February 22, 2018 | 4.495% | 4.894% | 4.9% | |
| 11 | February 28, 2018 | 3.138% | 3.476% | 4.3% | |
| 12 | March 1, 2018 | 3.927% | 4.391% | 3.9% | |
| 13 | March 7, 2018 | 3.487% | 3.503% | 3.7% | |
| 14 | March 8, 2018 | 4.584% | 4.810% | 4.6% | |
| 15 | March 14, 2018 | 4.100% | 4.332% | 4.5% | |
| 16 | March 15, 2018 | ||||
| Average | |||||
| Award | Category | Recipients | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Cannes International Series Festival | Best Series | Mother | [11] [12] | |
| 54th Baeksang Arts Awards | [13] [14] | |||
| Kim Cheol-kyu | ||||
| Jang Seo-kyung | ||||
| 13th Seoul International Drama Awards | Best Mini-series | Mother | [15] | |
| Best Actress | Lee Bo-young | |||
| 6th APAN Star Awards | Top Excellence Award, Actress in a Miniseries | [16] | ||
| Best Supporting Actress | Ko Sung-hee | |||
| 2nd The Seoul Awards | [17] |