If you’ve watched We Are All Trying Here (모자무싸) and wondered why writer Park Hae-young’s name carries so much weight — this is why. My Mister (나의 아저씨, 2018) is the drama that cemented her reputation as one of Korea’s finest screenwriters. Starring Lee Sun-kyun and IU (Lee Ji-eun), My Mister is not a love story in the traditional sense. It’s a story about two broken people who learn to carry the weight of life by walking the same road — sometimes in silence, sometimes a few steps apart.
Seven years after its premiere and two years after Lee Sun-kyun’s tragic passing in December 2023, My Mister remains the highest user-rated K-drama on AsianWiki (95/100), a Baeksang Best Drama winner, and the single title most frequently cited in “best K-drama of all time” discussions on Reddit, MyDramaList, and Quora. This guide covers everything you need to know — cast, plot, OST, filming locations, fashion, awards, legacy, and where to watch.
At a Glance
Title: My Mister (나의 아저씨) | Also known as: My Ahjussi
Network: tvN
Episodes: 16 (70–90 min each)
Air Date: March 21 – May 17, 2018 | Wed & Thu 21:30 KST
Director: Kim Won-suk, Kim Sang-woo
Writer: Park Hae-young (My Liberation Notes, We Are All Trying Here)
Genre: Melodrama, Slice of Life, Workplace
Where to Watch: Netflix (selected regions), Viki
Rating: AsianWiki 95/100 | IMDb 8.6 | MyDramaList 9.2
Main Cast
Lee Sun-kyun as Park Dong-hoon — A structural engineer in his 40s at Saman E&C. Sandwiched between an unfaithful wife, a scheming executive, and two financially struggling brothers, Dong-hoon is a man who has forgotten how to smile. He carries everyone else’s weight and refuses to let anyone carry his. Lee Sun-kyun’s performance here — the slumped shoulders, the careful pauses, the eyes that say everything his mouth won’t — is widely regarded as the finest male lead performance in K-drama history.
IU (Lee Ji-eun) as Lee Ji-an — A 21-year-old temp worker drowning in debt, caring for her deaf and immobile grandmother, and being physically harassed by a loan shark. Ji-an is feral, calculating, and desperate — until she starts listening to Dong-hoon’s life through a wiretapped phone and realizes he might be the first genuinely good person she’s ever encountered. IU stripped away every trace of her pop-star glamour for this role, delivering a raw, almost feral performance that silenced every skeptic.
Park Ho-san as Park Sang-hoon — The eldest brother, unemployed and separated from his wife. His bravado hides deep shame.
Song Sae-byeok as Park Gi-hoon — The youngest brother, a failed aspiring film director who still chases his dream.
Lee Ji-ah as Kang Yoon-hee — Dong-hoon’s wife, secretly having an affair with his workplace rival.
Jang Ki-yong as Lee Gwang-il — The loan shark tormenting Ji-an, whose violent exterior masks a complicated childhood history with her.
Oh Na-ra as Jung Jung-hee — The neighborhood bar owner who feeds and mothers the brothers, crying herself to sleep every night from loneliness after her husband left to become a monk.
Kim Young-min as Do Joon-young — The corporate villain, VP of Saman E&C, who uses Yoon-hee’s affair to destroy Dong-hoon professionally.
Full Plot Summary (Spoiler-Free)
Park Dong-hoon is a mid-level engineer at a construction company. He’s competent, well-respected by his team, and quietly miserable. His wife Yoon-hee is having an affair with his direct superior, Do Joon-young, who is plotting to push Dong-hoon out of the company. His two brothers live with their aging mother in a working-class neighborhood: Sang-hoon can’t hold a job, Gi-hoon can’t get his film career off the ground. Dong-hoon supports them all financially and emotionally while keeping his own pain locked behind a stoic face.
Lee Ji-an is hired as a temp at the same company. She’s 21, burdened with massive debt inherited from her dead parents, and physically threatened daily by Gwang-il, a loan shark from her past. When she spots Dong-hoon receiving a suspicious package of gift certificates worth 50 million won, she steals them — and her life collides with his.
Joon-young discovers Ji-an’s criminal resourcefulness and hires her to spy on Dong-hoon. She plants a bug on his phone. What she hears — day after day, night after night — is a man enduring pain silently, defending her when no one asks him to, and treating people with a kindness she has never experienced. Against every survival instinct, Ji-an begins to care about this “ahjussi” whose life is falling apart just like hers.
The drama unfolds as a slow, devastating tug-of-war: Ji-an must choose between the money that could free her from Gwang-il and the man whose life she’s been hired to destroy. Dong-hoon must decide whether he can trust the temp worker who seems to know far too much about him. Their relationship is not romantic in the conventional sense — there is no kiss, no confession, no love triangle. It’s something rarer and harder to name: two people who see each other fully and decide to stand on the same side.
Why My Mister Still Matters in 2026
The reason My Mister endures isn’t plot. It’s texture. Park Hae-young writes people who don’t say what they mean, who carry grief in the way they walk home, who love by buying someone a meal instead of saying “I love you.” If you’ve watched her later works — My Liberation Notes (2022) and now We Are All Trying Here (2026) — you’ll recognize her fingerprints: the three-sibling family structure, the working-class neighborhood as a character in itself, the dialogue that reveals more in pauses than in words.
Then there’s Lee Sun-kyun. His death in December 2023, amid a drug investigation that many felt was unjust, cast a long shadow over his legacy. The Academy honored him in its 2024 In Memoriam segment. In Korea, the second anniversary of his passing in December 2025 was marked with tributes across social media, with fans consistently pointing back to My Mister as the role that defined him. The AsianWiki comments section for this drama reads like a memorial wall — hundreds of messages from viewers who discovered the show after his death and were devastated by the loss of what they saw on screen.
For K-Drama Recap Hub readers following We Are All Trying Here: this is the origin point. Park Hae-joon, who plays Hwang Jin-man (the poet-brother) in 모자무싸, played the monk-husband in My Mister. Park Hae-young’s thematic DNA — people fighting their own sense of worthlessness, community as salvation, brothers who love each other badly but fiercely — runs directly from My Mister through My Liberation Notes to We Are All Trying Here.
OST (Original Soundtrack)
The My Mister OST is one of the most Spotify-playlisted K-drama soundtracks, with 33 tracks on the official album. The standout songs are “Grown Ups” (어른) by Sondia — a piano-driven ballad that plays during Ji-an’s most vulnerable moments and has become synonymous with the drama itself — and “Dear Moon” by JeHwi, which accompanies the late-night walking scenes. Other notable tracks include “The Man” by Lee Heemoon, “Rainbow (Band Version)” by Vincent Blue, and “My Self In My Heart (Piano Version)” by Kwak Jin-eon. The instrumental pieces are equally important; the series frequently lets scenes breathe with only ambient piano, creating a soundscape that mirrors the characters’ restrained emotions. The full OST is available on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube.
Filming Locations
My Mister was primarily filmed in Seoul and Incheon, and many of the locations have become pilgrimage sites for fans. The most iconic is the Baekbin Railroad Crossing (백빈건널목) near Yongsan Station — listed on Google Maps as “My Mister Railway.” This working railroad crossing, just a 5–6 minute walk from HDC IPark Mall in Yongsan, was used for the drama’s most emotional walking scenes between Dong-hoon and Ji-an, and visitors still photograph it daily.
The neighborhood bar where the three brothers drink — Jung-hee’s bar — was filmed at a location in Incheon (43-35 area), not Seoul, though editing makes it appear within walking distance of the railroad. The building still stands, and the whale and cat paintings from the drama remain on its exterior. The Yeonggwang Loans office (Gwang-il’s loan shark headquarters) was filmed at the Yeonan Apartments in Incheon, a foreboding, almost prison-like residential complex. Hugye Station, the fictional subway station, was created by renovating Exit 4 of Sinjeong Intersection Station. The Saman E&C office building is actually the Korea Yakult Building near Sinsa Station Exit 4, with the company signage added via CGI. Other filming locations include the Seosomun Apartments in Seodaemun-gu (the tilted apartment complex scene), the Jeongsu Buddhist Temple road in Incheon (the Buddhist lantern walking scene), and the Kojubang restaurant where Dong-hoon takes Ji-an for meals. A complete fan-location guide is available at Creatrip.
IU’s Ji-an: Fashion as Character
If you’re coming from Perfect Crown, where IU wears Balmain blazers and Jimmy Choo heels as chaebol heiress Seong Hui-ju, Ji-an will shock you. Ji-an’s wardrobe is the anti-fashion statement: oversized dark hoodies, worn-out sneakers, faded black turtlenecks, and a single pair of earbuds as her only accessory. The costume design — credited to the drama’s styling team — was deliberately deglamourized. IU reportedly lost weight for the role, and the baggy, colorless layers emphasized Ji-an’s desire to be invisible. L’Officiel Malaysia’s fashion retrospective of IU’s roles notes that in My Mister, “power isn’t found in extravagant outfits or bold colors, but in the quiet weight of a dark turtleneck, an oversized hoodie, or a simple coat.” The contrast with Hotel del Luna (120+ costume changes) and Perfect Crown (luxury brands every episode) makes Ji-an’s stripped-down look even more striking in retrospect. Pinterest’s “IU My Mister” board has over 2,000 active searches, with fans recreating the dark minimalist aesthetic.
Awards & Recognition
My Mister swept the 55th Baeksang Arts Awards (2019), the most prestigious television awards in Korea. It won Best Drama and Best Screenplay (Park Hae-young). It was additionally nominated for Best Director (Kim Won-suk), Best Actor (Lee Sun-kyun), Best Actress (IU), Best Supporting Actor (Park Ho-san), and Best Supporting Actress (Oh Na-ra) — a near-clean sweep of major categories. Lee Sun-kyun’s nomination was notable because the Baeksang typically favors more dramatic, louder performances; Dong-hoon’s restrained, internalized portrayal was a departure that the jury recognized. IU’s nomination silenced years of debate about whether idols could act at a serious dramatic level.
The Writer’s Universe: My Mister → My Liberation Notes → We Are All Trying Here
Park Hae-young has built a thematic trilogy that rewards loyal viewers. My Mister (2018) is about finding worth through connection with someone who sees your pain. My Liberation Notes (2022) is about finding worth through honest self-examination. We Are All Trying Here (2026) is about finding worth when everyone around you seems to have already found theirs. The structural parallels are intentional: the three-sibling core (Dong-hoon’s brothers / the Yeom siblings / the Group of Eight filmmakers), the working-class setting as emotional geography, and the slow-burn rhythm that trusts the audience to sit with silence. If you’re watching 모자무싸 right now, this Complete Guide gives you the full context of where Park Hae-young’s storytelling began.
Where to Watch
My Mister is available on Netflix in most regions outside Korea and on Viki with English subtitles. In Korea, the drama is available through tvN’s VOD service and various IPTV platforms. The complete 16-episode run totals approximately 20 hours. If you’re short on time, episodes 1, 8, 15, and 16 are the most frequently recommended “essential four” by the Reddit community, though we strongly recommend watching all 16 — the power of My Mister is cumulative.
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