# W (2016) Review: A Hero Who Hunts His Author > W is a Korean fantasy thriller in which a surgeon is pulled into her father's webtoon and meets its hero, a clever metafictional romance with a slippery back half. Canonical: https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/w-two-worlds-review/ Published: 2026-07-25 Last updated: 2026-09-24 Author: Kaiser Khan — Founder & Editor Language: English Review basis: direct-viewing Spoilers: none Rating: 4/5 ## Verdict Yes. It is one of the most inventive K-drama concepts of the 2010s, best for viewers who enjoy high-concept thrillers and can forgive rules that bend late on. ## Is W worth watching? **Yes. W is a bold, genuinely inventive Korean thriller-romance, and its first half ranks among the most gripping stretches of K-drama of its decade.** The idea of a comic-book hero who realises he is a character, and turns on his creator, gives the show a charge that ordinary fantasy romances lack. The reservation is that the rules of its two worlds grow more slippery than the writing can manage, so the second half is more uneven than the first. ## What is W about? Oh Yeon-joo (Han Hyo-joo) is a surgical resident in the middle of a hospital shift when she is dragged, bodily, into the pages of W, the hit webtoon drawn by her father, Oh Seong-moo (Kim Eui-sung). She lands beside its bleeding hero, Kang Chul (Lee Jong-suk), a former Olympic shooting champion who was accused of murdering his own family and has spent years hunting the real killer. Kang Chul begins to suspect that his life has been authored rather than lived, and sets out to find the person holding the pen. Yeon-joo, meanwhile, finds herself pulled back and forth between the real world and a comic that keeps redrawing itself around her. Lee Tae-hwan plays Kang Chul's loyal friend. [W](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/w-two-worlds/) was written by Song Jae-jung and is a South Korean series in Korean that aired on MBC; it streams internationally on Viki. This review covers the complete show, a single season of 16 episodes with a finished story. ## A metafictional hook with real teeth Most stories about characters stepping into fiction play it for whimsy. W plays it for dread. The show asks what it would mean for a person to discover that every tragedy in his life was a plot device, invented to make readers care, and Kang Chul's fury at that discovery gives the drama a moral edge. The creator-versus-creation conflict raises questions about authorship, responsibility and free will that are unusually sharp for a primetime romance. The early episodes use the concept with terrific energy. Panels come to life, scenes rewrite themselves when a pen moves in another world, and Yeon-joo's jumps between realities are often staged as cliffhangers. Few dramas have ended episodes with such confident hooks. ## Two leads who sell the impossible Lee Jong-suk gives Kang Chul the right mix of comic-book cool and genuine grief. He plays a man who has been designed to be admirable, and lets the cracks show once the character realises what has been done to him. Han Hyo-joo is warm and quick as Yeon-joo, a practical doctor who reacts to the absurdity around her with a mixture of panic and dry humour that keeps the fantasy grounded. Their romance works because each has something the other lacks: she knows the truth about his world, and he refuses to accept the fate that truth implies. Kim Eui-sung, meanwhile, brings real unease to the role of the father whose creation has slipped beyond his control. ## Where the rules start to wobble The trouble comes in the second half. Once the show has established how the two worlds connect, it keeps changing the terms, and new rules often seem to appear because the plot needs them rather than because they follow from what came before. Some late episodes feel repetitive as the story circles the same confrontations, and the balance between thriller and romance tips back and forth. The core ideas remain strong, but the finish lacks the precision of the set-up. ## Who should watch W? It suits viewers who like high-concept stories, fantasy thrillers with a romance at the centre, and dramas that play with the act of storytelling itself. The commitment is 16 episodes. There is gun violence, murder and some bloody injury, so it sits closer to a thriller than a light romantic drama. Good follow-ups: - [While You Were Sleeping](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/while-you-were-sleeping-review/) for another Lee Jong-suk drama mixing a supernatural premise with crime and romance. - [Healer](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/healer-review/) for an action thriller with a strong romantic spine. - [Flower of Evil](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/flower-of-evil-review/) for a darker romance built around suspicion and past murders. ## The verdict W is a clever, ambitious K-drama whose metafictional premise produces some of the genre's most thrilling episodes, and its two leads make the impossible feel emotional. The rules get messy in the back half, but the originality of the concept and the strength of the opening make it well worth the ride. **Rating: 4/5** ## Related title - [W (2016)](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/w-two-worlds/) ## Editorial - [Editorial standards](https://celluloidscore.com/about/editorial-policy/) - [Report a correction](https://celluloidscore.com/about/corrections/)