K-Drama Rewind, The Heirs: Park Shin-hye got caught between two toxic men in a drama that aged like milk

Ah, The Heirs. The spiritual sequel to Boys over Flowers, but with better hairstyles.

It’s pleasant to imagine an alternate ending to The Heirs: Park Shin-hye will still run from the house that Lee Min-ho’s Kim Tan bought for her—she will escape to the remote seaside town as per canon, and then….just never return to Kim Tan, or Kim Woo-bin’s dubious Young-do. She realises she’s done with abusive men and their emotionally bankrupt families, and finds peace on her own.

That’s what Eun-sang deserves, after being pushed, yanked and let’s not forget, being pushed into a swimming pool to prove a point, between two angry and annoyed men who just couldn’t sort out their issues like adults. At its core, that’s really what The Heirs boils down to. For all the packaging of a sweeping romance between a wealthy heir and a working-class girl, it plays more like a power struggle wrapped in school uniforms and parental ultimatums.

And yet, The Heirs is widely considered a must-watch, especially for fans who came off the Boys Over Flowers high. But while Boys Over Flowers had its fair share of chaotic charm and full-blown makjang theatrics, The Heirs feels more like a glossy letdown. The plot is simple, bordering on lazy: Kim Tan is studying abroad when he meets Eun-sang in a classic meet-cute setup. Sparks fly, until his cold, acerbic fiancée Rachel (played by the always compelling Kim Ji-won) arrives to ruin the mood.

Eun-sang heads back to Korea. So does Kim Tan. And surprise, she ends up with a scholarship to his elite high school. Even more unbelievable, her mother is now working as a housekeeper in Kim Tan’s lavish but emotionally toxic home. Of course, she is. 

And after several episodes of somehow missing each other, a love story begins, where Kim Tan marches her around, trying to keep her away from the sights of Young-do, who used to be his childhood friend. The reason behind the friends’ fallout, Young-do’s grief over his missing mother—is genuinely touching. But any emotional depth quickly gets buried beneath the theatrics of their constant sparring over Eun-sang. Young-do taunts Kim Tan by befriending her, while Eun-sang mostly exists to look frightened, deliver the occasional nervous monologue, and then retreat into the background as the boys battle it out.

But to be sure, Young-do isn’t the only obstacle here, Kim Tan’s father would never allow him to be with Eun-sang. So…cue noble separations, tearful partings, self-sacrifices, and endless boardroom battles—because why not throw in a dynastic war, too, just in case the story wasn’t bloated enough?

But that’s The Heirs. The plot twists itself into pretzels and the few plot lines that actually deserve thought, such as the mother being hidden inside, owing to the father’s whims, doesn’t quite get the respect such a story needs. Instead, we’re surrounded by a parade of raging, bratty, emotionally stunted men, while the women tiptoe around them, waiting for permission to exist.