In her past three dramas, Park Eun-bin has gotten a kick out of playing unconventional geniuses: a neurodivergent lawyer with photographic memory in “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” an aspiring singer with arrested development in “Castaway Diva,” and a disgraced, psychopathic neurosurgeon in “Hyper Knife.”
This time, however, the South Korean star returns to television as the complete opposite. Simply put, a “trainwreck”—her hometown’s “official trainwreck,” to be exact.
In her new Netflix series “The Wonderfools,” Park is Eun Chae-ni, a woman born with a heart condition that forces her to give up so much of life and turns her into a reckless spirit who wreaks havoc in Haesong-si
In her new Netflix series “The Wonderfools,” Park is Eun Chae-ni, a woman born with a heart condition that forces her to give up so much of life and turns her into a reckless spirit who wreaks havoc in Haesong-si. One day, while planning her dream overseas trip behind her grandmother’s back, she gets caught up in a bizarre occurrence that grants her the power of teleportation.
All in the imagination
This is a more fantastical outing. But if there’s a common thread linking this role to her previous work, it’s that her recent characters have been outsiders who don’t quite fit into society. In that regard, Park sees a piece of herself in them. There were times in her life when she, too, felt like a misfit and struggled to fit the mold, and that’s something she still experiences even now as a successful actress.
“Personally, I still go through those moments. Oftentimes, I would go through something hard and think to myself, ‘Why is this happening only to me?’” Park tells Lifestyle Inquirer in a virtual junket.
“Personally, I still go through those moments. Oftentimes, I would go through something hard and think to myself, ‘Why is this happening only to me?’” Park tells Lifestyle Inquirer in a virtual junket
While Chae-ni wields a chaotic superpower that has her popping up in random locations, Park says she used to dream of being able to travel through time. “Back then, one superpower I would love to have is time travel, so I can go back to my past, fix something I regret, or maybe travel to the future and see how my life will unfold,” she says.
But of course, “that’s all in the imagination,” she adds, and all she can do is “do my best and work hard.”
Living with insecurities
The adventure comedy series reunites the South Korean star with director Yoo In-sik, who previously collaborated with her on “Attorney Woo.” He echoes Park’s sentiments, saying he also wished he could “fast-forward time because most things seem better in retrospect.”
“You almost always go through moments when you feel like you don’t fit the mold or you’re struggling with your life. It’s like a cycle. And in that cycle, there are moments of happiness—but those are also fleeting, so I think we all have to live with our insecurities and anxieties,” he says
“You almost always go through moments when you feel like you don’t fit the mold or you’re struggling with your life. It’s like a cycle. And in that cycle, there are moments of happiness—but those are also fleeting, so I think we all have to live with our insecurities and anxieties,” director Yoo In-sik says
Now that he’s older, perhaps the more realistic superpower he wants is simply “to believe in myself a little bit more.” Similarly, all Chae-ni can do amid the unlikely situation she finds herself in is do her best and believe in herself. Mercifully, she’s not in it alone.
A similar fate befalls Haesong-si’s two other notorious misfits: the unreliable father Son Gyeong-hun (Choi Dae-hoon) turns into a sticky human flypaper of sorts whenever he tells a lie, while the soft-hearted kitchen worker Kang Ro-bin (Im Seong-jae) gains superhuman strength whenever his feelings get hurt.
They soon run into Lee Un-jeong (Cha Eun-woo), a blunt, socially awkward city hall civil servant with telekinetic powers. Witnessing Un-jeong’s mastery of his powers, the trio starts pestering him and calling him “Master.”
Before long, the four oddballs stumble their way into saving the world together as mysterious villains begin to infiltrate Haesong-si.
The perfect fit
Yoo likens the story to a theme park ride with “unpredictable twists and emotional depth.” And after seeing Park pull off Atty. Woo—“not the easiest character to play”—the director is convinced there’s no one better than her to lead the show’s rambunctious shifts in genre, from drama to comedy to action.
Not only is Park “a great actress,” but she also exudes the same determination that Chae-ni and Atty. Woo have. And talent-wise, Park is the “perfect fit.”
Not only is Park “a great actress,” but she also exudes the same determination that Chae-ni and Atty. Woo have. And talent-wise, Park is the “perfect fit”
“If you look at it, her past two roles have this particular sense that no matter what anybody else may say, if they believe something is right, they will go for it without any other doubt. They have that boldness, courage, and an almost bulldozer quality to them. That’s exactly what Eun-bin has in real life,” says Yoo, whose kind words had Park giving a thumbs up.
The joys of acting
The series is set in 1999, the peak of the Y2K panic over the so-called millennium bug. Born in 1992, Park was just in primary school back then and didn’t really have a grasp of the worries people had over what the year 2000 would hold.
But such is the reward of being an actress—the dive into the unfamiliar, and in the end, realizing that the experiences one may think are individual are actually shared by many.
That’s what Park Eun-bin is most curious about as “The Wonderfools” streams all over the world. “I’m wondering what kind of memories each country has of 1999. I want to know what elements viewers find very Korean or relatable,” she says.
“One of the great joys of being an actor is portraying a character in a different time—you get to learn new things.”
