'The Art of Sarah' Full Recap (Episodes 1-8): What Happens To The Real Sarah Kim?

The Art of Sarah, or Reidi Dua, is a new Korean mystery thriller series released on Netflix that begins with an interesting premise but loses steam eventually. The eight-part series is centered around Detective Park Mu-gyeong’s investigation of what seems to be the murder of Sarah Kim, the regional head of Boudoir, which makes the most sought-after luxury bags in Korea at the moment. While Netflix’s K-drama nicely explores modern society’s ugly fascination towards owning ludicrously expensive and inaccessible products that are seen as statements about one’s lifestyle, the series gets a bit too dragged out and caught up in its own web of lies, making it a decent watch by the end.

Spoiler Alert

What is the K-drama about?

The Art of Sarah begins in the upscale district of Seoul, particularly in front of a Samwol Departmental Store, which houses multiple showrooms of top foreign fashion brands, including that of the recent sensation in the country, Boudoir. Following the grand launch of a new product line, Boudoir is about to release its new series of fashionable bags, and so enthusiastic buyers have been lining up in front of the store for days, living in tents just so that they can own the product of their dreams before anyone else. One such woman in the queue is frustrated by the wait, and her efforts to take a break are also wasted as her lighter falls into the underground sewer. As she tries to take a better look at it, perhaps to see if she can get the lighter back, the woman shockingly discovers the dead body of a woman lying inside the sewer and immediately calls the police. Over the next few hours, the body is recovered, and an attempt to identify the woman is started, which is not very easy considering that nobody has been reported missing.

There are only two standout features to identify the body in the initial hours, the first being a tattoo on the ankle of the victim, since her face has been completely disfigured by the perpetrator. The other is an expensive handbag that had been left at the crime scene, which is quite odd and immediately rules out the possibility of the incident having been a robbery gone wrong. As the owner of the bag, Jeong Yeo-jin, is brought in for questioning, she reveals that she had recently gifted the bag to her best friend and then also confirms that the victim is Sarah Kim. Although the police detective, Park Mu-gyeong, and his assistant, Hyeon Jae-hyeon, are satisfied at this progress, the revelation of the victim’s identity only raises more questions than answers. Sarah Kim had been the regional head of Boudoir in Korea, and she was considered a member of the elite and influential fashion industry in the country. However, as the police launch a thorough investigation, the real identity of the victim becomes unclear, with evidence pointing to the fact that Sarah Kim had created a life based on lies and deceit, having duped numerous individuals along the way, including her best friend, Yeo-jin. What follows is a twisty-turvy tale of mystery, as the supposed ‘victim’ walks into the police station with a set of confessions. 

What Is Sarah Kim’s Real Identity?

According to the official details, Sarah Kim is a Korean-American national who had studied at Oxford University in England, and it was during her stay in the country that she became associated with Boudoir. She then returned to her homeland and started working as the regional head of the reputed company, essentially bringing the luxurious European products to the Korean super-rich customers. However, a quick investigation by the police reveals that there is absolutely no proof of any Sarah Kim having studied at Oxford, or even in the UK, and there is no proof of the woman’s existence in documents more than 5 years old. in documents more than 5 years old. This is because Sarah is indeed a cheat and a liar who has built her life through deception, taking advantage of whoever could help her climb up the social class. She had changed identities so many times over the course of her life that it is impossible to answer who she really is, and the series itself gives up on it, keeping the matter satisfyingly vague, since it does not matter what Sarah’s real identity is.

Sarah possibly began her life as Du-a, an escort who worked at an adult club, and here she met and befriended the owner of a shady loaning business, Hong Seong-shin. Since the man was lonely in life and was also suffering from serious kidney ailments, he was taken by surprise at Du-a’s interest in helping him out, especially since his friends and family had refused to donate him a kidney. As a result, Seong-shin married Du-a, after giving her a fake new identity as Kim Eun-jao. Although it was apparent to both that there was no love between them and the marriage was only built out of their respective needs for money and company, they appeared in public like any ordinary new couple. Eventually, Eun-jao did leave her husband and disappear one fine day, taking away an extremely valuable tree from his house, but she had also readily gone through surgery to help the man out.

Eun-jao then became Mok Ga-hui and pursued her dream of making it big in life by working in the fashion industry. Ga-hui eventually got a job at a luxury fashion showroom in Samwol Departmental Store, where she had to work very hard and often under unfair circumstances, while her criminal intent and her fascination with being rich always existed in her. On one occasion, she had left the store unattended for a quick break at the restroom, and a burglar had broken in and stolen precious goods at this very time, as a result of which Ga-hui was ordered to pay a whopping 50 million won. Since she obviously did not have so much money, she had to be in debt to the shop, creating an even worse situation for her. Around this time, Ga-hui bought a few bags for cheap at the employees’ sale at the department store and decided to take a chance at selling them on the internet, claiming them to be original branded bags.

This was when she realized that it was not very difficult to fool customers, who were ready to pay significant amounts of money even for perfect-looking knock-offs. She started exploiting the sale and made 50 million won in no time, but she also got mixed up with loan sharks during this time, seemingly in her attempt to live a fancy and luxurious life. Some time later, the department store put a cap on the number of items anyone could buy during their sale, and this totally ruined Ga-hui’s shady business model. She soon felt that the only way for her to get out of the sticky situation would be to assume another new identity, but this time she had to fake her death first in order to prove to the world that Ga-hui had died. She did so by jumping from a dam, and although she technically attempted suicide, Ga-hui managed to stop herself from drowning in the last minute and emerged as Sarah Kim. While she had had to use extreme confidence and self-conviction during each of her previous roles, she now doubled down on owning the Korean fashion industry by faking her wealth and social influence.

Is Boudoir really a fake brand?

Despite running a business of selling cheap bags at extravagant prices, Sarah repeatedly raises the question of what is real and what is fake, especially in the context of her luxury brand, Boudoir. In fact, the difficulty in distinguishing between real luxury products and their cheap knock-offs only highlights how the value of such products only depends on how people perceive them, which is a central theme of The Art of Sarah. As the very title suggests, Sarah’s resourceful idea of selling cheap products at very high prices can also be looked at as an art—of fooling rich people, yes, but also an appreciable act of exploiting high society’s greed for social currency. 

Technically speaking, Boudoir cannot really be called a fake brand, for they do not sell knock-offs or counterfeit products like Sarah once used to in the past. Sarah has the ‘luxury’ bags made by cheap laborers at the Dongdaemon district while claiming that everything in the manufacturing and stitching process is done in Europe. She uses the best quality material that can be acquired in her budget and then even sends the bags over to England for final assembling, only so that she can legally use the words “imported from London.” The brand is fake in the sense that it is neither as expensive nor as elusive as people perceive it to be, but it is arguable whether Sarah can be held accountable. Rather, it goes on to shine light on how people can be easily influenced with fake word-of-mouth, and as long as something is made to appear expensive and elusive, there will be many who would buy it just to prove their superiority. 

Who is Kim Mi-jeong?

Towards the end of The Art of Sarah, when the police investigation actually finds some solid leads, a new character named Kim Mi-jeong is introduced, who is a crucial part of the plot. While executing her plan of starting the Boudoir business, Sarah desperately needed someone skilled enough to design bags that would appear very premium and luxurious, despite being very cheap. On her visit to a sweatshop in the Dongdaemon district, she came across a supremely talented young woman named Kim Mi-jeong, who could design and stitch exquisite bags. Thus, she instantly signed her up for the team, although Sarah never told Mi-jeong or the others just how much money she was about to make through the business. Within a short time, Sarah grew close to Mi-jeong, and since the latter was an unregistered citizen, she gave the young woman her own credit cards to use. 

This move ultimately went against Sarah, as Mi-jeong eventually learned about the vast business that Boudoir now was and felt like she had been cheated by her employer. Although the bags being appreciated and bought for millions of won had been designed and made by Kim Mi-jeong, there was simply no mention of her name. To the rich, she did not exist at all, and this made Mi-jeong grow vengeful, as she developed the same desire to live an affluent and luxurious life. Therefore, she started to dress fancily and pretend to be Sarah, buying luxurious clothes and beauty products using her credit cards, and started doing harm to Sarah Kim’s public reputation, intentionally or otherwise. She even got the exact same tattoo as Sarah on her ankle so that nobody could differentiate between the two women. Thus, during the launch party of Boudoir’s latest line of bags, Kim Mi-jeong appeared dressed exactly like Sarah and threatened to expose her secrets to the world, which ultimately led to the crime at the center of the plot. 

What is Detective Mu-gyeong’s theory about the murder?

In the end, the real question bothering Detective Park Mu-gyeong is what is the identity of the murdered victim, which is connected to the identity of the murderer as well. It is clear by now that Sarah Kim and Kim Mi-jeong looked identical, especially as the latter started dressing and grooming like her former boss, with the two even having identical tattoos on their ankles. The matter becomes even more difficult for the police as Sarah Kim herself comes in to the police station and tells a convoluted story, at the end of which she claims to be Mi-jeong, stating that she had killed the real Sarah Kim, who is indeed the victim found in the sewer. But Mu-gyeong does not believe this story, as he feels that Sarah is simply trying to protect the reputation of her business by lying about her identity. According to him, the two women must have had a confrontation on the night of the Boudoir launch party, and Mi-jeong attacked Sarah with a knife she was carrying, used to cut leather. But the woman was overpowered by Sarah, who decided to end the life of her doppelganger with a heavy candle stand. Believing that she had killed Mi-jeong, Sarah put the body inside a suitcase and decided to dispose of it in the sewers near Samwol Departmental Store. Having once worked at the place, Sarah knew the layout of the department store very well, and at the time, she had been negotiating a new deal with its owner, Choi Chae-u. After murdering Mi-jeong, she immediately agreed to the deal offered by Chae-u and asked to move into the new store on that very night. She had the suitcase transported to the departmental store, along with the rest of her items, and she then dumped the body in the sewer. Although Mi-jeong was still alive at the time, she eventually froze to death after unsuccessfully trying to claw her way out of the place. Therefore, Mu-gyeong claims, the woman sitting in front of him is Sarah Kim, who had killed the young woman who once worked for her.

How does the suspect defend herself?

But the only way to prove the detective’s theory at present is to find medical documents of Sarah at the local hospital, which would prove that she is the one who had undergone surgeries to help her estranged husband, Seong-shin. However, when Jae-hyeon reaches the hospital, he finds that the documents are missing, and there is no option but to listen to Sarah’s claim. She states that she is actually Kim Mi-jeong, who had murdered her ex-employer out of rage and hate for how she had exploited her and the other workers at the sweatshop, who were paid meager salaries for their efforts. Crucially, Sarah had confessed about the true nature of the Boudoir brand during the police investigation, and Mu-gyeong had already arranged for the brand to be exposed by the media. 

But if Sarah is actually Mi-jeong, as she now claims to be, then the statements made by her under the identity of Sarah Kim would be null and void, meaning that there would be no basis for the reports against Boudoir. Mu-gyeong definitely does not want to let the brand get away with their false claims, and so he tries his best to prove Sarah to be the murderer, but the time to present evidence passes, and the woman either has to be released by the police or be arrested as Kim Mi-jeong.

What is the real identity of the imprisoned woman?

In the end, Mi-jeong is arrested for the murder of Sarah Kim and sent to prison for 10 years. The reports against Boudoir are considered baseless, and the brand is taken over by Nox, the company owning the biggest share in the business after Sarah’s death. The company continues to exist as a highly successful and sought-after brand, which is exactly what Sarah had always wanted. Despite her intentions having been to be rich and famous, and despite her having cheated and duped numerous people along the way, Sarah had been extremely dedicated to making her business flourish, and she chose to protect its reputation till the very end. 

At the end of The Art of Sarah, when Mi-jeong is transferred to prison and is putting on the prisoner’s outfit, surgery marks are clearly visible on her torso, which confirms that she is indeed Sarah Kim. Sarah had carefully gotten rid of the hospital documents, which would have been the only way to prove her real identity, and she ultimately took the fall just to protect her company. The ending can be interpreted as Sarah loving her image as a business owner and her company, created out of sheer lies, much more than her own self, whoever she believes herself to be. Thus, she chooses to maintain this image of her luxurious brand even in the end, accepting prison time instead.

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