“High Society”—A chaebol love story where ambition, friendship, and class collide in modern Seoul
Introduction
The first time I watched High Society, I felt a pinch in my chest at the way a smile can look perfect and still hide a lifetime of hunger. Have you ever wanted to be seen for who you are, not for the name on your business card or the family etched on your DNA? This drama walks you through that ache—down supermarket aisles, into boardrooms with glass walls, and across dinner tables where the cutlery is silver and the conversation cuts deeper. Premiering in 2015 on SBS with 16 episodes, it pairs Uee and Sung Joon with Park Hyung‑sik and Lim Ji‑yeon in a story about class, ambition, and the messiness of choosing your heart over your history. In the U.S., you can stream High Society on Viki, so it’s an easy click to dive in tonight. Watch it because the show doesn’t just ask what love costs—it asks what you’re willing to pay to finally belong.
Overview
Title: High Society (상류사회)
Year: 2015
Genre: Romance, Melodrama
Main Cast: Uee, Sung Joon, Park Hyung‑sik, Lim Ji‑yeon
Episodes: 16
Runtime: 60 minutes per episode
Streaming Platform: Viki
Overall Story
High Society begins with Jang Yoon‑ha, the youngest daughter of a sprawling conglomerate family who would rather stock shelves than inherit a throne made of headlines. She hides her chaebol identity and takes a part‑time job at a supermarket, where fluorescent lights and shift schedules feel more honest than her mother’s curated dinner parties. There, she befriends Lee Ji‑yi, a witty realist who jokes about marrying rich but is learning the cost of dreaming out loud. Choi Joon‑ki, a brilliant striver from a modest background, manages the store with an eye on the corporate ladder and a heart he insists is safely contained. Yoo Chang‑soo, a chaebol prince and Joon‑ki’s friend, floats through life on privilege he both enjoys and resents. The setup is a collision course: two women who want different versions of freedom, and two men deciding which mirrors to break to like the people looking back at them.
As Yoon‑ha and Joon‑ki circle each other, the show sketches modern Seoul with an exactness that stings. Subway platforms lead to rooftop bars; convenience store meals sit beside chef‑tasting menus; text messages ping through board meetings like second hand ticks. Yoon‑ha dreams of anonymity because the family brand—like a luxury logo—turns every interaction into a transaction. Joon‑ki, fluent in office politics and “soft power,” recognizes in Yoon‑ha both a person he likes and a ladder he could climb. Their first dates feel like job interviews disguised as romance, with little tests of empathy, pride, and discretion. Have you ever tried to decide if someone is here for you or for your proximity to the door marked “VIP”?
Meanwhile, a different, messier romance sparks between Chang‑soo and Ji‑yi. He is used to valet parking and private dining rooms; she is used to cramped buses and shared late‑night snacks, the currency of ordinary tenderness. Their chemistry is playful, yet every sweet moment is shadowed by the looming reality of a future mother‑in‑law who sees dating as a merger. The show is at its warmest when it lets them laugh, creating a pocket of oxygen both characters didn’t know they needed. But Ji‑yi can feel the gap the way you feel a draft in winter: a bone‑deep reminder that love alone doesn’t pay the price of admission to certain rooms. When she decides to meet that gap head‑on, it’s not because she’s dazzled by wealth; it’s because she senses the boy beneath the inheritance.
The drama expands its emotional terrain with a family tragedy that shakes every calculation. Yoon‑ha’s beloved brother, the heir apparent, is presumed dead after a yacht accident, and the succession map redraws itself overnight. Grief doesn’t make the chaebol world gentler; it makes it sharper, like broken glass you can’t help but touch. Yoon‑ha’s mother wields sorrow as a weapon, blaming her daughter for not fitting the mold and for daring to want a life outside. In a house where wealth management is discussed like weather, love becomes a seasonal luxury. The series is careful to show that money buys options—lawyers, PR teams, even silence—but it can’t buy intimacy without consent.
Joon‑ki’s ambition—never hidden from us—crosses the line that separates survival from strategy. He leaks Yoon‑ha’s identity and watches the media turn her into a brand, then a scandal, then a storm. The reveal feels like a corporate governance case study: what happens when personal relationships become acquisitions and disclosures. Yoon‑ha’s heartbreak isn’t loud; it’s precise, a recognition that being loved for your last name is just a polite form of loneliness. Still, the show refuses to reduce Joon‑ki to a villain. It lets us see the cramped apartment of his childhood, the parents who taught him the math of upward mobility, and the bone‑deep fear of falling back into obscurity.
Midway through, Yoon‑ha makes a decision that reframes the entire narrative: she enters her family’s company, not as a pawn but as a player. She chooses the cosmetics division, a place where branding meets identity and where her new public profile can be turned into leverage. Watching her sell product is watching her sell a version of herself—competent, bright, unbothered. But in private, she is a woman measuring what kind of love she will accept in the future. Have you ever stood at a crossroads, knowing either path will cost you something you can’t name? High Society respects that calculus and lets her hesitate without shaming the hesitation.
Chang‑soo and Ji‑yi’s love story deepens under pressure. He learns how to show up without entourage, to apologize without footnotes, and to hear “no” without negotiating it into “maybe.” Ji‑yi learns that vulnerability can coexist with boundary, that loving a rich man doesn’t require becoming an accessory. Their relationship becomes the drama’s heartbeat, proof that romance can be tender without being naïve. In a world of black cards and luxury real estate showings, their dates are modest but meaningful—coffee on cold mornings, bus rides with earbuds shared, and conversations that feel like a savings account for future storms. It’s here the show whispers an uncomfortable truth: sometimes the richest scene is the cheapest one.
When the presumed‑dead brother returns, the ground tilts again. The revelation detonates family secrets—insider trades, back‑door deals, and a sister whose ambition could power an investment banking roadshow. Yoon‑ha must choose between exposing what she knows and preserving the fragile peace that keeps dinner civil. Joon‑ki, newly honest with himself, steps back from corporate ascent to ask a different question: not “How high can I climb?” but “Who am I when the ladder is out of sight?” The boardroom battles that follow are crisp and satisfying, yet the show keeps anchoring us in human stakes: whose trust was betrayed, whose apology arrived on time, whose love survived the audit.
The final stretch gives both couples a reckoning. Yoon‑ha and Joon‑ki test whether forgiveness can coexist with memory; they learn that love isn’t erasing what happened but deciding what happens next. Chang‑soo confronts his mother with a quiet defiance that is more persuasive than rebellion for rebellion’s sake. Ji‑yi asks for a future designed by two people, not a family office. The show doesn’t promise a fairy‑tale; it offers something more adult—a negotiated hope. And when the credits roll, it leaves you with a question that might sound familiar: in a world built on status and leverage, what kind of life feels like wealth to you?
Beyond its romances, High Society is also a portrait of a country sprinting through modernity. It’s a place where twenty‑somethings weigh credit card rewards against rent, where brand names double as personality traits, and where family businesses operate like small nations. The series nods to the anxieties of inheritance, investor relations, and media optics without turning into a lecture. It understands that class isn’t just money; it’s language, posture, and the stories we tell ourselves to sleep at night. And it insists that love—messy, compromised, unreasonably hopeful—can be the most radical line item in any life plan.
Highlight Moments
Episode 1 The supermarket floor is Yoon‑ha’s sanctuary. She banters with Ji‑yi in a rhythm that feels like instant friendship, and Joon‑ki clocks her competence without knowing her surname is a headline. When Chang‑soo arrives to inspect operations, the air shifts—suddenly fluorescent lights feel like spotlights. Yoon‑ha’s tiny lie about her background becomes the seed of both freedom and fallout. The pilot ends with a quiet beat: four young people walking home in different directions, each thinking he or she understands the map.
Episode 3 A formal family dinner becomes an ambush when Yoon‑ha’s mother floats an arranged match with Chang‑soo. The room is all crystal and coded insults, and Yoon‑ha survives by being unimpressed. Joon‑ki, invited as staff, watches the choreography of power and recognizes both opportunity and danger. Ji‑yi, mortified to be seen by the elite, refuses to shrink. It’s the first time the drama shows how class can turn affection into negotiation, and it sets the tone for every relationship that follows.
Episode 5 News of the yacht accident shatters the house. The presumed death of Yoon‑ha’s brother detonates years of unspoken loyalties and makes the family’s empire feel like a sandcastle. Grief rearranges the pecking order; suddenly, every conversation is about succession dressed up as sympathy. Joon‑ki witnesses the chaos and recalibrates, and his choice to leak Yoon‑ha’s identity later grows from this moment like a thorn. The episode closes on Yoon‑ha’s silent bedroom, where framed photos look like verdicts.
Episode 8 Yoon‑ha visits Joon‑ki’s home and finds her childhood photo in his drawer, proof that she was a project before she was a partner. The discovery isn’t explosive—it’s surgical, cutting clean through the soft tissue of trust. She walks out without theatrics, which makes it hurt more. Joon‑ki’s mother, kind in a way poverty makes precise, complicates the picture by genuinely liking Yoon‑ha. The audience is left wondering if sincerity can grow in soil seeded with calculation.
Episode 12 Reclaiming herself, Yoon‑ha turns her unwanted celebrity into sales, pushing a new product line in the cosmetics division. She makes the pivot look easy, but the show lets us see the late‑night strategy sessions and the fear she swallows like coffee. She pitches with data and heart, blending brand narrative with lived experience. It’s a master class in agency, and the moment you realize she isn’t playing heiress—she’s playing leader. Even her detractors are forced to learn her name on their own terms.
Episode 15 The brother returns alive, and the boardroom gathers like a storm. Documents surface, exposing back‑channel trades and a sister’s near‑coup. Joon‑ki resigns rather than weaponize what he knows, a quiet act that speaks louder than a speech. Chang‑soo, crushed by family pressure, finally chooses Ji‑yi not with fireworks but with a steady, adult yes. The building may belong to the elders, but the future, this episode insists, will be negotiated by the kids.
Episode 16 Proposals, reconciliations, and a reset. Yoon‑ha listens to Joon‑ki without letting the past vanish, and they choose a path that feels earned rather than easy. Ji‑yi imagines a home defined by laughter, not gate codes, and Chang‑soo prepares to fight for it at Sunday dinner. The finale doesn’t shout; it breathes—showing that dignity can survive the tabloids and that love can be audaciously ordinary. You close the episode feeling like the richest thing in the world might be a life you picked yourself.
Memorable Lines
“Don’t love me for my name. Love me in spite of it.” – Jang Yoon‑ha, Episode 3 Said at a family dinner turned negotiation, it reframes romance as a risk she’s finally willing to take. The line is a thesis for the show’s heart: identity versus inheritance. It hints at the loneliness of being attractive for the wrong reasons and the courage required to ask for more. It also sets the boundary Joon‑ki will cross—and later try to rebuild.
“You call it ambition; I call it survival.” – Choi Joon‑ki, Episode 6 After a promotion meeting that feels like a test, Joon‑ki confesses the math he’s lived by since childhood. The line doesn’t excuse his choices; it contextualizes them. It’s the moment the audience sees a boy who learned to translate hunger into strategy. From here on, every tender gesture he makes carries the shadow of this confession.
“Dating isn’t a merger—stop reading me like a prospectus.” – Lee Ji‑yi, Episode 9 Ji‑yi snaps after a humiliating encounter with gatekeeping relatives. The humor of “prospectus” lands like a jab, but the wound underneath is real. She’s asking to be loved as a person, not a résumé filler. The line also foreshadows her insistence on a future built by two equals, not a committee.
“If money is protection, why does it make you feel so exposed?” – Yoo Chang‑soo, Episode 10 Chang‑soo throws this question at his own reflection as much as at Ji‑yi. He’s realizing that the perks of privilege come with surveillance—by family, by employees, by the media. The line threads through his growth from charming boy to accountable man. It’s also a subtle critique of a system where life insurance for reputation feels more urgent than care for actual people.
“I’m done being the daughter you invested in—I’ll be the woman I choose.” – Jang Yoon‑ha, Episode 15 Delivered before a decisive board vote, the line is both resignation and rebirth. She turns years of grooming into a declaration of independence, setting terms no one expects from the “youngest.” It reveals how her heartbreak became discipline rather than bitterness. And it signals to Joon‑ki and her family alike that love, like leadership, requires consent—not just pedigree.
Why It's Special
High Society opens like a fairytale told in reverse: an heiress who longs to be ordinary, a striver who mistakes love for leverage, and two friends who collide into something unexpectedly pure. From its first episode, the drama invites you into a glossy world of supermarkets lit like catwalks and boardrooms humming with quiet power, then asks a simple question—have you ever felt the pull to be loved for who you are, not what you represent? If you’re watching in the United States, you can stream High Society with English subtitles on Viki, where availability is currently supported by a subscription.
What makes High Society resonate is the way it pairs two romances that mirror and challenge each other. Yoon‑ha’s secret identity isn’t a mere gimmick; it’s the engine that powers hard conversations about class, choice, and the cost of pretending. In parallel, Chang‑soo and Ji‑yi’s relationship flips the chaebol‑meets‑Cinderella trope on its head, exposing how tenderness and pride tug at each other when money becomes the third person in every room.
Under director Choi Young‑hoon’s lens, Seoul becomes a character in its own right. Office windows glow like aquariums holding rare creatures, night streets feel both liberating and lonely, and intimate scenes are allowed to breathe—quiet frames that let you hear the sound of a heart changing its mind. Choi, who previously worked with writer Ha Myung‑hee on One Warm Word, keeps the tempo crisp while letting volatile emotions pool beneath the surface.
Ha Myung‑hee’s writing is unafraid of messy motives. Affection here can be transactional, ambition can be romantic, and apologies arrive late but ring true. If you’ve ever stayed up wondering whether you were chosen for love or for the doors you could open, you’ll feel seen by these characters—and by the dialogue that lets them make bad choices without making them bad people. Ha’s later works like Doctors and Record of Youth show the same empathy for young adults carving their lives inside unforgiving systems.
Tonally, the series blends melodrama with a modern workplace romance, giving you both the high swoon and the grounded Monday‑morning ache. It’s glossy yet emotionally legible: confessions sting, reconciliations feel earned, and even the silences carry subtext. Have you ever felt this way—standing at the edge of a choice that will disappoint someone you love no matter what you pick?
The show also plays fair with its characters’ growth. People learn—sometimes haltingly—to talk about money, privilege, and power without letting those topics swallow their joy. When someone finally chooses love over status, it doesn’t feel like a sermon; it feels like relief.
And perhaps best of all, High Society is a comfort watch with bite. You can indulge in the romantic set‑pieces—the rain‑drenched confessions, the jealous sidelong glances—while still coming away with something to argue about after the credits. It’s the kind of drama you finish and then immediately want to discuss over late‑night takeout with a friend.
Popularity & Reception
During its original 2015 run on SBS, High Society steadily climbed into the upper single digits in nationwide Nielsen ratings, regularly flirting with the 9–10 percent range—a strong showing for a Monday–Tuesday melodrama that was competing in a crowded slot. Those week‑to‑week gains reflected not just curiosity, but attachment.
The industry took notice. At the 2015 SBS Drama Awards, Park Hyung‑sik received an Excellence Award (Miniseries, Actor) and, alongside Lim Ji‑yeon, a New Star Award—clear signals that both performances cut through the noise of a star‑packed year. Even the couples were talked about enough to land Best Couple nominations.
Lim Ji‑yeon’s rise was particularly swift. She was named Best New Actress at the Korea Drama Awards, a win that confirmed what viewers sensed: her Ji‑yi glows with everyday bravery. That recognition was echoed across year‑end roundups and additional ceremonies.
Global fandom helped the drama travel far beyond Korea. On Viki, High Society has amassed tens of thousands of user ratings and plays with multilingual subtitles, making it an easy recommendation for first‑time K‑drama viewers and longtime fans who want a romance that also argues with itself about class.
Its cultural footprint extended overseas with a Turkish remake, Yüksek Sosyete, in 2016—proof that its central tension (love vs. lineage) translates across borders as naturally as a love song.
Cast & Fun Facts
Uee anchors the series as Jang Yoon‑ha, an heiress who hides in plain sight behind a supermarket apron. She plays Yoon‑ha’s contradictions—wary yet warm, spoiled yet self‑sufficient—with a sincerity that makes even the prickliest choices feel understandable. Watch how her gaze shifts from defensive to luminous as Yoon‑ha learns to tell the truth about what she wants.
Off‑screen, Uee brought a decade of idol and acting experience to the role (she debuted with After School before building a steady television career). Post‑broadcast interviews captured how deeply she connected with Yoon‑ha; she’s spoken about how hard it was to say goodbye to the character and how the drama nudged her image toward more complex, feminine roles.
Sung Joon makes Choi Joon‑ki dangerously compelling—a man who can read a room like a balance sheet, then surprise himself by falling in love. He turns ambition into a kind of vulnerability; you’re never entirely sure whether Joon‑ki is making a move or making a confession, and that ambiguity is the role’s electricity.
Before and around High Society, Sung Joon was known as a model‑turned‑actor with a circle of fellow model‑actors, a background that explains the effortless physicality he brings to stillness and stare‑downs alike. Press events at the time also spotlighted his disarming rapport with Uee, a chemistry that translates on screen.
Park Hyung‑sik is a revelation as Yoo Chang‑soo, the pampered heir who discovers that his heart has better taste than his résumé. He’s hilarious when flustered, touching when sincere, and quietly defiant when love asks him to push back against the life laid out for him. No wonder his turn here helped usher in a run of leading‑man roles.
Industry peers agreed: Park earned an Excellence Award at the SBS Drama Awards and a New Star Award the same night, a rare one‑two that confirmed what fans were already posting about—this was a breakout.
Lim Ji‑yeon gives the series its beating heart as Lee Ji‑yi, a young woman who jokes about marrying rich but won’t sell her soul for the price of a handbag. Her warmth makes even the show’s sharpest class commentary feel human; you laugh with her until you realize you’re rooting for her like family.
High Society marked Lim Ji‑yeon’s small‑screen debut, and it came with a cascade of rookie honors, including Best New Actress at the Korea Drama Awards and a New Star Award at SBS—an early chapter in a career that has since spanned acclaimed film and television work.
Behind the camera, director Choi Young‑hoon and writer Ha Myung‑hee—the team from One Warm Word—reunited to examine love under the microscope of money. Ha would go on to pen Doctors, Temperature of Love, and Record of Youth, but you can already see her signature here: characters who negotiate desire and dignity like grown‑ups.
Conclusion / Warm Reminders
If you’ve been craving a romance that sparkles on the surface and stings a little underneath, High Society is worth your time tonight. Let it sweep you into conversations about love and status that feel uncomfortably current, whether your world revolves around family expectations, financial planning, or the invisible hierarchies of work. When the credits roll, you may find yourself thinking about your own boundaries and the kind of future you want—glittering with luxury real estate or small and sunlit but entirely your own. Press play, breathe in, and let the drama ask its lovely, difficult questions.
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