Shining Inheritance



Shining Inheritance, also known as Brilliant Legacy, is a Korean Drama broadcast from April to July 2009, on the SBS network. The lead was played by K Pop Idol Singer Lee Seung Gi, The drama consisted of 28 episodes and maintained its top spot in viewer ratings for 10 consecutive weeks, with its last episode attaining a high viewer rating of 47.1%.

Go Eun Sung is a bright girl, returning from overseas, when her father apparently is killed in a gas explosion in Incheon. Her stepmother, Baek Sung Hee, conspires to keep all the life insurance by kicking her and her autistic brother Eun Won out of the house. Eun Won disappears while they are desperately looking for a permanent residence. Eun Sung helps an injured old lady, but finds out she is the president of a national soup company. The lady invites Eun Sung to live with her widowed daughter-in-law and two grandchildren while they search for her missing brother.

This series contains the following tropes:

 * Cinderella Circumstances: The entire plot of the series.
 * Faking the Dead: Go Pyung Joong
 * Hypercompetent Sidekick: Butler Pyo, who cooks, cleans, maintains the household and still finds time to search for Eun Woo.
 * Insurance Fraud: Baek Sung Hee, who swindled the Go children out of their rightful portion of the insurance money.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sun Woo Hwan, who gradually thaws as part of Character Development.
 * Never Mess with Granny: Jang Sook Ja, who basically kicks her daughter-in-law and grandchildren out into the real world, allowing only room, board, and $10 a day for them to live on.
 * The Piano Player: Eun Woo, who eventually is taken in by a bar owner, is a genius on the ivories, even though his autism makes it hard for others to understand him.
 * Service Sector Stereotypes: Hwan and his sister Jung, who are forced to work as waitstaff in order to stay in the family home.
 * Spoiled Brat: Sun Woo Jung, who spends most of her time on facials and handbag shopping, whining about her difficulties working.
 * Wicked Stepmother: Sung Hee. She kicks her stepchildren out, abandons one of them in the country, lies to her friends and colleagues, and causes her daughter to do the same, dangerously coming close to the Moral Event Horizon.