The Truth Might Be Dangerous In K-Thriller ‘Lies Hidden In My Garden’

Kim Tae-hee aand Lim Ji-yeon star in the k-thriller Lies Hidden in My Garden, portraying women whose lives are worlds apart but who share the feeling that they cannot trust those closest to them. Each approaches life with a sense of foreboding and an inability to honor her own feelings.

Moon Joo-ran, played by Kim, doesn’t answer the doorbell of her spartan modern home and keeps the curtains drawn. The ice box interior of her home is always dark as if to seamlessly blend in with the disturbing dreams she has where she’s stalked by a person wearing a mask. When her husband, Park Jae-ho, played by Kim Sung-oh, visits their son’s school, the teacher asks if there’s anything wrong at home. Their son Seung-jae, played by Cha Sung-je, has been sleeping through tests and talking about suicide. There’s nothing wrong, he says. His wife has been sick he tells the teacher. Joo-ran’s detached state suggest she has lost touch with reality. Or at the very least she’s learned not to trust her instincts.

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When Seung-je asks if they can move back to Seoul, his father tells him to consider what happened there. Whatever happened in Seoul has something to do with people wearing masks and what Joo-ran smells when she goes into the garden. Joo-ran’s husband and son don’t seem to smell anything. There’s nothing wrong with her seemingly ideal life.

Jae-ho, a doctor, is somehow involved with Yoon Beom, a pharmaceutical company representative. Yoon Beom and his pregnant wife, Sang Eun, played by Lim, live a life no one could describe as ideal. He beats her and makes her life hell. It happens so often that building security threatens to call the police. She’s collecting evidence to extract herself from their marriage, but she’s so battered she can barely hope. There is no one to turn to, no way to escape her miserable life. Then one day Sang-eun gets a phone call saying her husband is dead.

While the storyline is anything but linear, alternating between the women’s lives, Joo-ran’s dreams and what seems like reality, Lies Hidden in My Garden is a well paced thriller, making viewers curious about what’s just around the corner. Or perhaps buried in the garden. When Joo-ran decides to trust her senses and begins to investigate, things only get more complicated.

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The eight-episode drama is based on a novel by Kim Jin Young, published in 2018. It currently airs on viki.com.

This is Kim Tae-hee’s first project in three years. She previously starred in the TV dramas Hye Bye Mama, Yong Pal and Jang Ok Jung. Lim Ji-yeon recently appeared in the hit TV drama The Glory, in which she played a completely different role, a heartless bully terrorizing a classmate. She can also be seen in the drama Money Heist Korea and the film Spiritwalker. Kim Sung-oh was last seen in the film Kill Boksoon and the dramas Money Heist Korea, Island Part 2 and Unlock My Boss.