3 Powerful Female Lawyers vs. Corruption: Why ‘Honor: Their Court’ is a Must-Watch Drama in 2026

[iNews24 Reporter Byung-gi Seo]

ENA’s recently concluded Monday–Tuesday crime-mystery, Honor: Their Court, chronicled a meaningful struggle by its three female leads — Lee Na-young, Jung Eun-chae and Lee Chung-ah.

Honor is adapted from a Swedish drama of the same name. It follows three women who have been friends for 20 years and practice law as they work to expose scandals tied to their pasts.

The trio investigate and expose a secret prostitution app called Connect‑in — a cartel of powerful figures from the legal world, politics and the media bound by corrupt desires. Their persistence and courage prompted reflection, and the series lingered as a meditation on dignity and honor for people who survive with scars.

Among the three, Lee Na-young plays Yoon Ra-young, a celebrity lawyer known for her eloquence, striking looks and sharp courtroom instincts. But once she closes the front door and is alone, an unforgettable trauma from her past resurfaces, and she must endure intensely difficult moments.

Lee builds a steely, fearsome resolve on top of that wound and relentlessly pursues the truth. She fully immersed herself in Yoon Ra-young and delivered a nuanced, powerful performance. She also conveyed the tangled confusion and anguish tied to being Han Min-seo’s (Jeon So-young) mother, deepening the drama’s emotional pull. Her craft and experience are evident in how convincingly she inhabits such a complex role.

Lee said, “The script drew me in — I wanted to be part of it. I’d never done a genre piece with long news‑desk monologues. I thought I could just memorize lines because there wouldn’t be many emotional scenes, but the whole thing was emotional from start to finish. In many ways I had to play it with restraint.”

Yoon Ra-young’s defining trait is empathy for people in pain. She approaches them as another human rather than as a righteous Joan of Arc. She’s candid and brave on live TV, yet at home she struggles — unable even to get into bed, she confines herself to the living room. That contradiction is both her reality and her appeal.

She even lashes out at Jo Yoo-jung (Park Se-hyun), a victim of an underage sexual assault case. When Yoo-jung says she wants to die, Ra-young erupts in anger — an outburst that, in truth, reflects Ra-young’s own inner turmoil. When confronting someone who has been harmed, she still insists they must keep living, and she can deliver that blunt, necessary counsel.

Lee said, “It may sound like a cliché, but wounds are better left to heal in their own time than be covered up. People recover in their own ways. I watched and waited for that. Maybe that’s why it felt so sad.”

Honor is also a drama about female solidarity. The three women feel distinct and natural, and their chemistry never reads as forced.

“They’ve been friends for 20 years, but their tendencies and colors are all different. On set we worked through small details — should they cross their arms? How much physical contact? Should we rehearse like theater? Does the outfit fit? — and those conversations helped a lot. They made the story more immersive and gave me a sense that people who felt like family were watching over me,” she said.

Lee explained, “The three characters had different styling. I wanted to introduce some color early on so the show would have an overall tone; styling was challenging. Honor isn’t a drama dominated by courtroom scenes — it wasn’t overly confined.”

The show’s final narration sums it up: “Still, in the end we survived — not because the wounds healed, but because we had to endure.” As a story about people who live with scars, it never focused only on the bright side.

About her husband, actor Won Bin’s reaction, Lee said, “He read the beginning of the script and said it would be tough. He probed me as if he already knew the ending. I didn’t tell him everything. We watched a few episodes together, and I watched the rest on my own.”

Lee said she is drawn to wounded characters — the kinds you find in films like Rosetta or Cherry Fragrance. “When I read a script, I follow the emotion rather than the intellect. Later, when I look back at my filmography, the threads will probably connect. For now, I’m taking it one step at a time,” she said. She previously played a Korean teacher who takes a one-day trip following her heart in Park Ha-kyung’s Travelogue and Kang Dan-yi, a contract employee at a publishing house who experienced a career break, in Romance Supplement.

“I don’t aim to become any particular kind of actor, and I apologize when gaps occur between projects. Like Beautiful Days, I made the short film Unknown (BABY DOE). I have inclinations I like, but even my vibe and tastes change bit by bit. I don’t set limits. If it’s a good project, I want to do it. It’s my only hobby,” she said.