# Meant to Be (2023)

> A tragic family melodrama in which a father's greed sets him and his daughter against each other as sworn enemies.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/141366

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 120
- Episode runtime: 32 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama
- Created by: Yeo Jung-mi
- Network: MBC
- Cast: Kim Yu-seok, Jeon Hye-yeon, Seo Han-gyeol, Jung Woo-yeon, Jin Ju-hyung, Go Eun-mi, Jo Mi-ryung, Byun Woo-min
- TMDB rating: 7.0/10

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: mild
- Tone: tragic, melodramatic, emotional, sorrowful, intense

## What critics say

Audience reception is mixed, with a 7.0/10 rating from a small number of votes, and viewers engage mainly with its melodramatic family conflict.

## Synopsis

Meant to Be (2023) is a South Korean national-television family melodrama created by Yeo Jung-mi for MBC. Its story begins when the greed of Kang Chi-hwan (Kim Yu-seok) turns him and his daughter into sworn enemies, a rift that pulls in the people around them. Kang Se-na (Jung Woo-yeon), Ha Jin-woo (Seo Han-gyeol) and Lee Hae-in (Jeon Hye-yeon) are among the principal figures whose loyalties and romances tangle as the family's wounds deepen. The engine of the series is the slow poisoning of a bond by material ambition, with each episode layering betrayal, reconciliation hopes and fresh resentment over one another. The run is a single self-contained season of 120 episodes, told as a long serialized soap. Set in contemporary South Korea, it unfolds in ordinary homes, offices and streets rather than a distinct historical era. Its tone is sorrowful and emotionally heavy, with melodramatic reversals and a tragic undercurrent throughout. Viewers who enjoy Korean family revenge dramas and long-form telenovela-style storytelling, in the vein of The Clan of Hell and Hotel del Luna, will find familiar pleasures here.

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