Aema Review 2025 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
The woman is Jeong Hee-ran (Lee Hanee), one of South Korea’s top movie stars, who in her nine year film career has been willing to show and do just about anything. The man is her assistant, Park Yeong-bae (Jang Nam-su), who nervously gives her the script for her new film, Madame Aema. She sees the multiple scenes where she’s topless or naked, disgustedly throws the script aside, and lights a cigarette (it’s 1981, by the way, so smoking on planes is just fine).
Gu Jung-ho (Jin Seon-kyu), CEO of Shinsung Films, is holding a party and is waiting for Hee-ran to arrive. He tells the gathered industry crowd that in the ’80s, sex is going to sell movie tickets. Hee-ran arrives and, incensed over the script, shoves Jung-ho in the pool. Hee-ran calls a press conference for the next day and tells reporters that she will no longer do nudity on screen.
Jung-ho angrily decides to demote Hee-ran to a supporting role, which he can do according to her contract. He tells Kwak In-woo (Cho Hyun-chul), the young director of the film, that he wants to hold an open audition to find a new Aema. For his part, In-woo wants to rewrite the film to make it as artistic as it is erotic.
The auditions, which Hee-ran sits in on, don’t go well, until In-woo sees Shin Joo-ae (Hyo-rin Bang) smoking on the studio lot, having just missed the audition. She tap dances for him, and he sees something in her that deserves a callback. But when she goes for test photos, Hee-ran comes by and accuses her of sleeping with either the director or Jung-ho. Joo-ae leaves and decides it’s not worth it, even when an investigator for the studio finds her dancing at a nightclub. She changes her mind, under one condition: That the studio make her into a star like Hee-ran.
Aema strikes the right tone in its first episode. It’s a period piece about a star and a rookie actress taking chances to stand up for themselves as they make an erotic film that will be the talk of early ’80s Korea. Madame Aema is an actual film, released in 1982 and one of the biggest box office hits of the era.
Created by Lee Hae-young, Aema fictionalizes the making of this film, and it doesn’t take itself or its characters too seriously. There are plenty of funny moments in the first episode, but it also gives both Lee Hanee and Bang Hyo-rin the room to explore how their respective characters are able to make some changes to the industry and end up becoming big (or in Hee-ran’s case, bigger) stars as a result.
What’s fun about the situation that’s being set up in this first episode is that Hee-ran is taking her demotion to a supporting role somewhat in stride, especially once she meets Joo-ae and realizes she has some fight in her, as well. Hee-ran figures she can leverage her relationships to become the lead in a more artistic film that a top director is writing, and bring it in to Shinsung Films so she can complete her contract there.
She’s not exactly being a team player with the studio head, Jung-ho, and director, In-woo, but she certainly goes from wanting to stop the open audition to realizing that she’s got someone she can shape and mold in Joo-ae. It’s a story about women taking some power in a business and country where they had none in the early ’80s, and it’s told in a way that is very matter-of-fact and definitely funny.
