Is ‘Honor: Her Law’ the Best Legal Drama of 2026? Discover What Makes It Stand Out!

Daniel Kim 2026.03.15 Views

Translation result.

Honor: The Women’s Court — Lee Na-young / Photo=Eden Nine

[Sports Today reporter Jeong Ye-won] It’s not been 100 days or 1,000 days. Since she debuted in a commercial in 1998, more than 10,000 days have quietly passed. Audiences watched the girl with the enigmatic face grow into a leading actress, build a family and become a mother.

Nearly three decades have come and gone, yet Lee Na-young’s artistic reach keeps expanding. Fresh off a well-received turn in her first portrayal of a professional role in Honor: The Women’s Court, she has returned to the public eye after a spell away.

ENA’s Monday–Tuesday drama Honor: The Women’s Court (hereafter Honor) follows three women lawyers who confront a sweeping scandal head-on in a mystery-thriller that tracks their investigation. With taut plotting and committed performances, the series peaked at a 4.7% rating (Nielsen Korea) and concluded on the 10th. Lee Na-young drew praise for her portrayal of Yoon Ra-young, the public-facing representative for L&J, a law firm specializing in representing survivors of sexual assault.

Asked about Honor’s success, she said she was simply grateful. She recalled running into an acquaintance mid-shoot, who after seeing the show asked, “Were you going through something that intense?” That reaction made her proud. “People around me called so much I was surprised — I don’t usually get that many calls,” she laughed.

She admitted she had worried the series might feel heavy or that a female-led narrative could be a hard sell, but viewers reacted strongly. “If a psychological thriller telegraphs its twists, the momentum collapses and it becomes less engaging. Even with the channel’s limitations, the response was strong, so I feel relieved and thankful,” she said.

Honor: The Women’s Court — Lee Na-young / Photo=Eden Nine

On why she chose the role, Lee said she approached the script like a reader finishing a novel — she kept turning pages because she wanted to know what would happen next. “I thought, ‘This is good — I want to be in this story.’ Even when I reread it thinking about the work ahead, it stayed compelling,” she said. She noted she hadn’t played a professional character before and rarely delivered long monologues. “There weren’t many overt emotional explosions in the script, so I felt it suited me. Looking back, the emotional beats were there, but they weren’t the kind of scenes that are explicitly dramatic,” she added with a smile.

“There were moments when feelings rose up inside me during a scene, but I had to keep it understated,” she continued. “I needed to give other characters the courage to carry on; finding an expression that wasn’t one-dimensional was challenging. The director and I spent a lot of time on set discussing tone and how far to go with each performance.”

Lee said she gravitates toward characters who carry pain. “I empathize easily. With Yoon Ra-young, I focused less on a Joan of Arc–style righteousness and more on her human wounds. I was drawn to a character who bears scars, does what she must and has to change her own instincts. To me, Honor is a drama that allows the process of moving beyond injury to unfold.”

Although the plot centers on a sexual-crime cartel tied to the app ConnectIn, she felt the series was tackling a wider, systemic malfeasance. “It’s about confronting large-scale evils of many kinds, beyond gender. There’s a strong sense of solidarity with people who are hurt or treated unjustly. The show also carries the message that responding to evil with more evil isn’t the answer.”

She said she knew from the start that Han Min-seo (played by Jeon So-young) was Yoon Ra-young’s daughter. “Luckily, we were so busy shooting other scenes that even when I saw Min-seo, it didn’t overcomplicate my performance. That could have made things needlessly complex. The director and I agreed, ‘As long as Min-seo keeps it hidden, that’s enough.’ I believe Jeon So-young learned that later so she could act without knowing everything from the outset.”

Honor: The Women’s Court stills / Photo=KT StudioGini

Lee was generous in her praise for her co-stars. “So-young is an exceptional actor, and she’s such a warm person who rolls with my jokes,” she said. “She’s effectively juggling two projects now. On set we’d tease her every day: ‘Has the lead shown up yet?’”

She also reflected on working with leads Jung Eun-chae and Lee Cheong-ah. “We had to look like friends of 20 years, so building that chemistry was important. We even debated whether we should link arms,” she laughed. “I like being thrown straight into scenes, but most of our group scenes were in the panic room. I suggested rehearsing like a theater piece. The story draws you in so much that later, just looking at those two would make me tear up. The director told us, ‘This is one you have to watch.’ Watching it now, it feels like family watching over you.”

At the press conference, director Park Geon-ho described the three leads as quiet, calling them “introverts.” On their current relationship, Lee said they were texting as a group as recently as yesterday, keeping things playful. “Texting is different from meeting in person. We haven’t known each other even a full year, so suddenly linking arms feels a bit awkward. There was a two-week weather delay in filming, which made us a little shy again,” she admitted.

She also shared an anecdote about Seo Hyun-woo, who plays the trio’s antagonist, Park Je-yeol. “Seo Hyun-woo is actually very funny off-camera. There’s a late scene where I do CPR on the collapsed Park Je-yeol, and I worried that if I pressed too hard he wouldn’t be able to breathe. He said, ‘I’ll manage,’ but during the wide-shot takes he was breathing along with me,” she laughed.

“This was our third project together after the film Beautiful Days and the drama Park Ha-kyung’s Travelogue,” she added. “Each shoot was brief, but because we’ve known one another for so long, our on-set rapport was the strongest.”

Honor: The Women’s Court — Lee Na-young / Photo=Eden Nine

Reporters frequently ask Lee about the possibility of a comeback from her husband, actor Won-bin. He has not released a new project since the 2010 film The Man from Nowhere, 16 years ago, and his long absence contrasts with Lee’s steady rhythm of work every two to three years.

“He’s reading scripts,” she said. “He still thinks about acting and has ambitions. After we watch a great film together, we discuss it and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if someone did that?’ He’s still yearning. I tend to talk about it more than he does.”

She added that Won-bin read the early pages of the Honor script with her. “As an actor, he understands which parts might be challenging. He told me, ‘That’ll be tough for you.’ He didn’t watch the drama with me — I asked that we view it separately. It’s a bit like being embarrassed to hear each other’s voices; we even tried to check each other like, ‘Is this right?’ but we didn’t say anything.”

Now in her 29th year as an actor, Lee says she performs because she wants to — and that desire remains the guiding principle in her choices. “I don’t have a fixed idea of who I must be as an actor or what projects I must pursue. I don’t even have detailed plans for next year. I do feel apologetic when long gaps happen between projects.”

She noted she recently shot a short film titled Unidentified and reiterated that she selects projects primarily on the strength of the script. “I’m a bit simple that way. If a script I like turned up tomorrow, I’d jump at it.”

Still, she values the sense of fate or connection with a project. “If a project aligns with my tastes, I’m naturally more drawn to it. Tastes evolve over time, though. Ultimately, timing and connection matter. Watching films and dramas is my main hobby, so I haven’t put limits on myself. I tend to follow my instincts rather than overthink things, focusing on the next step as it comes.”