Lie After Lie ~ Can the Real Mother Be the Stepmother?

“Lie After Lie” (aka “Lie of Lies”) is a 2020 Viki Original Korean drama series, with 16 episodes, categorized as Family, Crime, and Mystery.

SUMMARY: In “Lie After Lie”, a woman is falsely accused of murdering her husband. Her child is taken from her under false pretenses. One she is released from prison, she finds that her child has been an adopted by a man who is divorced. She decides to try to win his heart so that she can marry him and be able to raise her own child, even if she has to lie. But will the truth stay buried underneath the lies?

♦ A Baby is Born in Prison

In “Lie After Lie”, Ji Eun Su is a poor unfortunate soul. Not only did she marry a brutish abusive man, but along with him came the mother-in-law from hell! When she found out she was pregnant, she ran away from home. Can you blame her? She feared for the life of her unborn child. She had barely survived domestic abuse and was willing to do antyhing to make sure her child would not suffer. Anything except MURDER. Ji Eun Su is not quite sure what happened. Her husband was in the process fo abusing her and the next thing she knew, the police were yelling her name trying to get her to wake up. When she woke up, there was blood on her clothes and hands and she was holding a knife. Her husband’s dead body was on the floor next to her. She was arrested for murdering her husband. It was a LIE!

Her husband was a chaebol and would have inherited his family’s business after his mother died. Only he ended up dying before his mother and she was angry about that! Her son was the sole heir. Who was she going to leave the family fortune to now? Ji Eun Su was pregnant at the time of her sentencing and gave birth to her child in prison. 

♦ Where is My Baby?

Her mother-in-law, Kim Ho-Ran, visited her in prison and offered to take the child and raise her. She convinced the mother that there was nothing she could offer her child except to spend her life marked as the child or a murderer. At least her grandmother could raise her to be the heiress of a great fortune. Reluctantly, she gave up her child. While she served her time in prison, the mother-in-law sent photos of the child as she grew. Once she was released from the prison she immediately went to find the child in the photographs. But it was a LIE!

The photos were of the daughter of her mother-in-law’s maid. Ji Eun Su realized she had been deceived. Her mother-in-law enjoyed telling her that her daughter was someplace where she could never be found. The mother-in-law believed the child was dead. Ji Eun Su hunted down a man who used to work for her mother-in-law and demanded that he tell her what happened to her child. He said that he told her mother-in-law, a LIE!

The mother-in-law’s employee told her that he killed the baby but he disobeyed and made arrangements for the child to be adopted. To ease Ji Eun Su’s suffering and his own guilty conscience, he told her where she could find her child. Her daughter, Kang Woo-Joo, had been adopted by a reporter named Kang Ji Min. She decided she would try to convince him to marry her so that she could raise her own child as the stepmother. She was willing to do whatever it took to be able to raise her child. Even if it meant she had to LIE!!

Main Characters:

• Ji Eun Su (played by Lee Yoo Ri, “Love to Hate You”)
• Kang Ji Min (played by Yeon Jung Hoon, “Man to Man”)
• Kang Woo-Joo (played by Go Na-Hee, “Strong Girl Bong-Soon”)
• Kim Ho-Ran (played by Lee Il-Hwa, “Eve”, “The King’s Affection”)

Where to Watch

Viewership and Rating:

• IMDb: 7.4 out of 10 stars
• My Drama List: 8.3 out of 10 stars
• Viki viewers rated this series 9.5 out of 10 stars

My personal rating is the same as the Viki viewers.

When it rains, it pours. For some people, it isn’t just pouring rain in their life, it’s a FLOOD!! That’s what happened to this poor woman who was wrongfully convicted of murdering her husband. Of course, since this series is a murder mystery, you want to know WHO DUN IT. Meanwhile, as this woman tries to pick up the pieces and put her life back together, you go on that journey with her. It is so obvious that she has done nothing to deserve the mountain of evil deeds heaped on top of her. Even the prison guard said, “She was a very nice person.” Not inmate. Not prisoner. She called her a person. It’s as if she knew the woman should have never been in jail in the first place. In “Lie After Lie”, I cheered for Ji Eun Su to overcome her adversities. 

LINKS OF INTEREST:

“Lie After Lie” Sets New Record For Highest Drama Ratings In Channel A History | Soompi

Lie After Lie (Korean drama) Finally Ends With a Little Surprise| Juniper’s Journal

The 11 Best Korean Dramas of 2020 | Cinema Escapist (“Lie After Lie” is Number 6 on this list.)

TRAILERS/TEASERS:

Viu Singapore. “A Murderer’s Search for Her Daughter? | LIE after LIE Trailer #1 | Now on Viu.” YouTube Video. YouTube, August 28, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mroFwWthp3w.‌