So, is Queen of Tears worth watching? If you love a big, emotional K-drama and don’t mind melodrama turned up to eleven, yes, and it’s one of the biggest of its year for a reason. If tearjerker tropes and long runtimes make you twitch, the answer needs a caveat or two. Spoiler-light. The reception summary is aggregated; the runtime numbers are ours, taken from Netflix.
📌 Key Takeaways
- It was a phenomenon: the finale drew about 24.9% nationwide in Korea, the highest-rated episode in tvN history, and it stayed on Netflix’s global non-English chart for weeks.
- Scores are high: a 100% Season 1 critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.2/10 on IMDb.
- The praise and the complaints point the same way: it’s gloriously, unapologetically melodramatic. That’s the whole appeal, or the whole problem, depending on you.
This article is for: anyone deciding whether to start this 16-episode hit and wondering if the hype matches the experience.
The Queen of Tears hub gathers this and our three other guides in one place.
The Verdict Up Front
Stream Decoded verdict: 4 out of 5. Huge chemistry and huge melodrama. If you love a big emotional K-drama, this is one of the biggest.
Queen of Tears is a marriage-in-crisis romance: Hong Hae-in, a department-store heiress, and Baek Hyun-woo, her husband, are drifting apart when a terminal diagnosis upends everything. Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won play the couple, and their chemistry is the engine of the whole thing.
The consensus is that it’s a genuinely moving, gorgeously produced romance wrapped around a lot of classic K-drama excess. So is Queen of Tears worth watching for you? If you want to feel something and you’re at peace with melodrama, absolutely. If you want restraint, look elsewhere.
What Carries It
The two leads. This is the least disputed point. Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won sell every register of a failing-then-rekindling marriage, from cold silence to real tenderness, and most viewers say the couple is the reason they stayed through the bumpier stretches.
The emotional payoff. When it aims for your heart, it connects. The central premise, a couple falling back in love against a ticking clock, is built to devastate, and by most accounts it delivers.
The scale. Record Korean ratings and a long run on Netflix’s global chart aren’t an accident. It’s lavishly produced and it plays big, and that spectacle is part of the draw.
What Wears Thin
It’s long, and it feels long. Sixteen episodes is a real commitment, and the middle stretch sags before the finale pulls it back together.
The melodrama is a lot. Terminal illness, memory loss, near-fatal accidents, the show reaches for every heightened device in the playbook. Fans of the genre love this. Skeptics find it manipulative.
Two shows in one. The grounded marriage story shares screen time with a heightened corporate-revenge subplot and a villain arc, and the tonal whiplash is real. When you want the couple, you sometimes get the makjang instead.
Sixteen Episodes, Timed
Queen of Tears is 16 episodes, and they are long. Netflix lists the first ten at 77 to 91 minutes, averaging 86, which is 14 hours 19 minutes for those ten alone.
The first ten, as Netflix lists them.
| # | Runtime |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1h 17m |
| 2 | 1h 29m |
| 3 | 1h 23m |
| 4 | 1h 31m |
| 5 | 1h 28m |
| 6 | 1h 26m |
| 7 | 1h 24m |
| 8 | 1h 27m |
| 9 | 1h 27m |
| 10 | 1h 27m |
Netflix’s public page shows ten at a time, so the last six are not in that figure. At the same average they would add close to nine hours, putting the full sixteen somewhere near 23. That part is an estimate, not a measurement.
Twenty-plus hours is the real answer to “it’s long, and it feels long.” An 86-minute average is near the top of anything we have measured — longer per episode than Crash Landing on You, longer than Reply 1988.
Who It’s For
Whether Queen of Tears is worth watching mostly comes down to your tolerance for melodrama.
Watch it if you love emotional, character-driven K-romance and you don’t mind, or actively enjoy, big dramatic swings. If you loved shows like Crash Landing on You, this is squarely in your lane, and the lead chemistry alone may be worth it.
Think twice if you dislike tearjerker tropes or you want a tight, realistic story. The illness-and-revenge machinery and the 16-episode length will test you, and the villain subplot may feel like a detour from the marriage you came for.
Where It Ends Up
Is Queen of Tears worth watching? For melodrama lovers, yes, comfortably, and the two leads make it more than the sum of its tropes. It’s a record-setting, big-hearted, occasionally overstuffed romance that knows exactly what it is. Go in wanting the tears and the sweep, and it delivers. Want subtlety, and you’ll feel every one of its excesses. Planning to start it? The guides below cover where to watch and who’s who.
On the numbers alone it sits mid-table — 15th of the 24 Netflix K-dramas we rank by IMDb rating — which says more about the strength of the field than about this show.
Sources
- Rotten Tomatoes — Queen of Tears
- IMDb — Queen of Tears
- IMDb — Queen of Tears user ratings
- The Korea Herald — Queen of Tears
- The Straits Times — Queen of Tears finale record ratings
- Hindustan Times — Queen of Tears on Netflix’s global Top 10
- TIME — Queen of Tears analysis
More guides on StreamDecoded: