Supporting

People around Lee Seung-cheon

• Choi Dae-chul as Lee Cheol
• Lee Seung-cheon’s father.
• Han Chae-ah as Jin Seon-hye
• Lee Seung-cheon’s mother.
• Seungyoo as Lee Seung-ah
• Lee Seung-cheon’s older sister.

People around Hwang Tae-yong

• Choi Won-young as Hwang Hyeon-do
• Hwang Tae-yong’s father and a rich businessman
• Son Yeo-eun as Seo Young-shin
• Hwang Tae-yong’s stepmother.
• Jang Ryul as Seo Jun-tae
• Seo Young-shin’s younger brother and the leader of Amicus(a secret social club of gold spoons.)

People around Na Joo-hee

• Son Jong-hak as Na Sang-guk
• Na Joo-hee’s father and UBS TV president. A business owner who values profit and loss and above all,a person who loved his daughter the most.

Others

• Kim Kang-min as Park Jang-goon
• Son of an Army Chief of Staff with 200 billion won and has bad taste in bullying Lee Seung-cheon.
• Son Woo-hyun as Jang Mun-ki
• Hwang Tae-yong’s bodyguard and driver.
• Kim Eun-soo as Lee Dong-kyung
• A close friend of Lee Seung-cheon.
• Jo Deok-hoe as Park Jae-don
• A lively and active person.
• Kim Seo-ha as Seong-won
• Seo Jun-tae’s friend. The second generation of a conglomerate, and a member of Amicus.
• Song Yoo-hyun as Kim Na-young
• UBS TV President’s House Custodian.
• Jung Soo-kyo as Byun PD
• Main PD of Document Notebook.
• Lee Dong-hee as Alex Boo
• Noh Sung-eun
• Lee In-hye as Writer Wang
• Song Ok-sook as Grandma Gem spoon

Special appearance

• Na In-woo as Han Sung-hoon
• A gardener in Hwang Tae-yong’s house.
• Kim Jae-chul as Hwang Hyeon-do (real)
• Hwang Tae-yong’s biological father.

Synopsis

The story begins with Lee Seung-cheon (Yook Sung-jae) saying that the notion that all humans are equal is not true. He ranks the students in his class according to the number of golden spoons they have. He asserts that Hwang Tae-yong (Lee Jong-won) is the wealthiest of them all. The class is divided into two groups: ‘Golden Spoons’, or those born wealthy, and ‘Dirt Spoons’, or those born impoverished.

The former enjoy showing off their money over their less fortunate peers, who are powerless to respond out of fear of upsetting society’s higher classes and losing their place at a prominent school. Meanwhile, Seung-cheon is a part-time delivery worker. Being a ‘Dirt Spoon’ himself, Seung-cheon is painfully aware of his social standing. He is compelled to keep his head down and finish his classmates’ homework for cash after losing a friend and his family to suicide as a result of rising debt.

However one day, a very strange thing happens that is eventually going to change Seung-cheon’s life entirely. For a pitiful price, a mystery street vendor offers him the chance of a lifetime by selling him a real golden spoon that will allow him to trade lives with a Golden Spoon (a wealthy born).

He has three opportunities to undo the change: the first one comes after a month, the second one comes after a year, and the third one comes after ten years. Seung-cheon initially rejects this as a hoax, but after a series of circumstances forcing him into a corner, he throws caution to the breeze and swaps lives with Tae-yong, the largest Golden Spoon of all the students. This wealth, however, comes with its new challenges.

Seung-cheon happens to meet with many realizations on the journey. Seung-cheon not only has to cope with Tae-yong’s harsh, calculative father Hwang Hyeon-do (Choi Won-young), but he also has to deal with the paranoia of the real Tae-yong, who realises he now lives in Seung-cheon’s stead. With only three chances to reverse his life, Seong-cheon should decide which of his two possible futures is worth keeping.

Theme

Money does not ensure happiness. Power and privilege do not always bring us peace of mind. Chances are, in this brief life, we will covet the mirage and ignore the worth of what we have right now. The subject of ‘valuing time and valuing what we have’ recurs throughout the drama.

‘The Golden Spoon’, a story about a seesaw between desperation and calculating actions – and the consequences of both – presents the story in an unusual yet insightful way. Seung-cheon used his newfound power with expressions that suggested he’d always been a member of the elite. Underneath this exterior is an inner turmoil: despite gaining what he wants, Seung-cheon is nonetheless attached to, and even misses, his old life.

Seung-cheon’s choices of becoming one among the rich and privileged, don’t come out of the blue, but are the result of the acute knowledge and pressure of his social status. While things do change for him overnight, it becomes increasingly obvious that trading in his poverty for wealth might also have cost him his freedom. Watching his old life from a distance makes Seung-cheon aware of the hardships his father Lee Cheol endured to raise his kids and provide for his family.

Throughout the time period of swapped identities, Seung-cheon’s efforts are to provide a better life for his real family. Also, he comes to the realization that despite being the largest Golden Spoon in school, Tae-yong never lived the life of his desire. Tae-yong’s privileges don’t offer him any compassion or empathy from the people he loves. Strangled in the air of expectations, Tae-yong is always longing to come out of his caged luxury.

As the story goes on, we see that more characters are actually living under different guises. Every transformation is motivated by a gut-wrenching drive to achieve more. There is exhilaration at first, but as time passes, addressing reality makes the new role difficult. Every end of the spectrum is filled with unhappiness.

Even after obtaining every privilege and luxury Seong-cheon desired, he rarely achieves any level of contentment as time passes. He is stuck in a bind of not belonging anywhere. Despite gaining more power and money and playing big games to achieve Hyeon-do’s selfish ends, in the climax, he ends up in paralysis where he’s left in a state of no good than dying. His fortunes do not come to his aid. The golden spoon brought the characters money, but it also brought them endless grief, because no one with the spoon was ever happy.

Awards

• MBC Drama Awards 2022
  Top Excellence Award, Actor in a Miniseries(Yook Sung-jae)
  Best Character Award(Choi Won-young)
  Best New Actor(Lee Jong-won)
  Best New Actress(Yeonwoo)

Interesting facts about ‘The Golden Spoon’

1. ‘The Golden Spoon’ is based on a webtoon of the same name with more than 100 episodes which was published in 2016 by HD3.
2. ‘The Golden Spoon’ has an average nationwide viewership of 5.8% according to Nielsen Platform.
3. It was reported that on September 12 2022, actress Jung Chae-yeon was affected by a collarbone injury and received emergency treatment during the shooting.

FAQs

1. Who is the director of the K- Drama ‘The Golden Spoon’?
   Song Hyun-wook.
2. How many episodes are there in the K-Drama ‘The Golden Spoon’?
   16 episodes.
3. Who are the writers of the K-Drama ‘The Golden Spoon’?
   Kim Eun-hee and Yoon Eun-kyung.
4. What is the Instagram ID of Yook Sung-jae?
   btob6sungjae is his Instagram ID.
5. What is the Instagram ID of Lee Jong-won?
   leejongwonbr is his Instagram ID.
6. What is the Instagram ID of Jung Chae-yeon?
   j_chaeyeoni is the Instagram ID of Jung Chae-yeon
7. What is the Instagram ID of Yeonwoo?
   chloelxxlxx is the Instagram ID of Yeonwoo.