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| Gratuitous cat pic for 2023 |
Viciously striking out at the thing that has hurt you is a human response but in two K-dramas I watched this month, revenge plays out differently for teenage boys and grown men.
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Weak Hero Class 1
School bullying is a frequent topic of K-dramas but in Weak Hero Class 1 the bullied fight back. For a time, a trio of outcast high school students find an alliance and maybe even a bit of joy in their friendship. But then jealousy and hurt feelings lead to a fracture in which the bullied become bullies themselves.
Based on the web comic, Weak Hero, Si Eun (Park Ji-hoon) keeps his head down at school and focuses on nothing but his studies. His parents are divorced and no one pays much attention to him. His life is school and cram school. But a rich kid bully, Jeon Young-Bin (Kim Su-gyeom) starts to pick on him. But with a disturbing steely gaze Si Eun won't back down and Young-bin has to find sneakier ways to torment him. So Young-bin forces the new student, Oh Bum-seok (Hong Kyung) to stick a tab of fentynal on Si Eun during a test. An Soo-ho (Choi Hyun-wook) steps in to help out Si Eun. Slowly, they become friends along with Bum-seok.
Weak Hero Class 1 is a compulsive but difficult and violent watch. What makes it so is that these young boys cannot express their feelings any other way but through their fists. They don't know how to ask for help. They don't know how to lean on others. Even their bonds of friendship are tentative and fragile. Each boy faces pressures in his personal life which would be enough to carry on its own. The bullying and threats of external violence just create a tinder box. School is a microcosm of the larger world they see around them. And its just these tender boys being shaped and toxified by this society. Violence begets violence.
But through these stellar performances we see how little moments of connection and comfort are huge for them. One smile. A feeling of safety. A sense of camaraderie. We get these glimpses of the children in these raging bodies. Little elements of the production--a pink sleeping pillow, a closet full of toys--remind us of their youth and inexperience.
It's almost unbearable to see how toxic masculinity is seeded, watered, and grows. The violence becomes a snowball that grows bigger and bigger until it cannot be avoided. All we can do is watch and weep.
While this may sound bleak, the performances here are so subtle, heart-breaking, and beautiful that it's a must see. Choi Hyun-wook is like a young Park Seo-joon. He projects that affability juxtaposed with unpredictability. His Soo-ho is self-confidence, brawn, and sweetness. He collects these stray boys and one girl. He works three jobs and yet he finds time to take care of others. You could never question his loyalty--and yet that's what happens which is so shattering to everyone. Park Ji-hoon too has this intensity that breaks every once in a while into a moment of happiness or deeper sadness.
Ultimately, this is about a form of intimate violence. Maybe the most devastating line in the whole show is “We were close.” They opened themselves up to each other for a short time and that vulnerability becomes the path for revenge. Although the concept of revenge sounds too calculated intellectual. This is about wanting to inflict a kind of hurt not thinking of any consequences until its too late.
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Reborn Rich
In this drama, Song Joong-ki plays Yoon Hyun-woo a long-time dedicated employee for the Soonyang family. He will go to any lengths and be humiliated as much as necessary to keep the family happy. He agrees to go collect a secret slush fund that he discovered abroad. But when he does so he ends up being shot by another Soonyang employee.
Suddenly, he finds himself reborn as Jin Do-jun, the youngest grandson of the Soonyang family back in the 1980s. He knows all the inner-workings of the organization and the personalities of all the family members from either working with them or from reading Jin Yang-chu's autobiography (Lee Sung-min), the founder of Soonyang. He finds himself as Yang-chu's grandson with an opportunity to right the wrongs of the past. Do-jun's father is the product of an affair and married an actress so was always on the outs in the family anyway. Do-jun impresses his grandfather and begins to amass his own fortune in an attempt to takedown Soonyang. But along the way he comes to match wits with Yang-chu and even develops an affection for him.
The show has this odd re-birth premise and for a number of episodes it gets repetitive--Do-jun knows the future so he can stay one step ahead of the family and keep showing them up. Satisfying though that may be it gets a little dull that he is leading this secret mission behind the scenes to cause problems. But eventually his cat-and-mouse game is out in the open. The grandfather knows its his grandson who is his opponent. They become closer and the battles between the siblings for succession are more personal.
Because of the timeline of the show, it reflects back on the economic and historic crises of the 80s, 90s and aughts on Korea. Even if Do-jun is protected being a chaebol, his real family is precariously situated and series does not shy away from how these big companies find ways to protect themselves when individuals have no such recourse.
The show has this odd re-birth premise and for a number of episodes it gets repetitive--Do-jun knows the future so he can stay one step ahead of the family and keep showing them up. Satisfying though that may be it gets a little dull that he is leading this secret mission behind the scenes to cause problems. But eventually his cat-and-mouse game is out in the open. The grandfather knows its his grandson who is his opponent. They become closer and the battles between the siblings for succession are more personal.
Because of the timeline of the show, it reflects back on the economic and historic crises of the 80s, 90s and aughts on Korea. Even if Do-jun is protected being a chaebol, his real family is precariously situated and series does not shy away from how these big companies find ways to protect themselves when individuals have no such recourse.
Once the show becomes about these two men recognizing something in each other (seeing themselves in the other like a ghost of Christmas future) and even clinging to each other "family" their bond grows and thus Do-jun's plan to take down the conglomerate becomes more complicated. He has affection for this man but the next generation is just poisonous.
There is a romance subplot that is a little surprising--just for who he chooses to pursue. And it becomes another complication of his revenge plot.
Do-jun has tasted defeats from both sides--as Hyun-woo and Do-jun. He would have done anything as Hyun-woo to escape the poverty he was experiencing and stepping into Do-jun's shoes he starts to understand himself better.
It is a bit awkward to have a 37-year-old play a teenager to twenty-something even if he is youthful looking. But I think if you can get over some of that and the general premise, there is an unusual revenge story being told here.
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Alchemy of Souls Part 2
As cliffhangers go, Alchemy of Souls did not disappoint as Part 1 ended.
SPOILERS if you haven't seen it.
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We left off with Jang Uk (Lee Jae-wook) dying at the hands of his beloved Mu Deoki/Naksu (who was under the spell of Jin Mu). Mu Deoki had "run wild" as a soul shifter so she would die. Jang Uk then was literally reborn with the power of the ice stone lodged in his body.
But what of Mu Deoki for Part 2? Because the body of Mu Deoki played by actor Jung So-min had "died" they had the actor who had played Naksu (before she soul-shifted) originally in Part 1, Go Yoon-jung, play this reincarnated Naksu in Part 2.
I missed Jung So-min who just had so much character and personality. The new Naksu had no memory of her past or who she was. She was told she was the daughter of the House of Jin, Jin Bu-yeon. Since the blind Jin Bu-yeon had been missing since childhood no on questioned this. But Lady Jin had her locked up and she did not have full use of her powers. She ends up encountering Jang Uk and he hopes with her powers she can help him die. So he agrees to help her escape her mother.
Jang Uk is a lot more interesting in series 2. I found his quest to get his power back kind of dully ego-driven and not all that compelling in Part 1. Man desperate for power blah blah.
In Part 2, he is miserable being alive, he is stricken with grief for his loss of Mu Deoki, he is the most powerful man in their world, and he is haunted by spirits all the time. Suddenly, these dramatic stakes give Lee Jae-wook a lot more fun places to go.
He is just this walking phantom of sadness. Oddly, in rebirth, with no memory of who she is, Naksu/Ju-byeon is ebullient and bright-eyed. She looks to him with such hope and is this open-hearted person in a way that Mu Deoki/Naksu was certainly not. And the set-up between them works well. Needing things from each other that only the other can give--meanwhile unknowingly being the separate couple we know them to be. Swoon, tragedy.
That said, my heart has always belonged to Yul (Hwang Min-hyun)and I was happy to see him rejoin the fold in Part 2 even if he also experiences a lot of quiet Yul-like suffering. Justice for Yul 5-eva.
Part 2 delivers on hot kisses, dramatic music, and twists.
But I'm still disappointed in the ending. They leaned more on the supernatural than the emotional. This series has always had a lot of magical nonsense that I tacitly accepted because I loved the characters so much. But I was not in any way into the magic. I think they may have overestimated anyone's cares about this world-building (or my investment in it...fire bird what now). There are also some really stupid choices smart characters make that feel like plot machinations.
But I had to know how it ended. If you got hooked on Part 1, then you have to give in to Part 2. That is the law.
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