I'd like to take a step back from dramaland for a moment and explore something that has dominated the thematic backdrop so far--the take down of the corrupt powers of the world by the feisty underdogs.
Which means we've been seeing a lot of chaebols. So many. More than even their standard role as romantic lead usually dictates, and in an unusually negative light as a consequence. Let's check 'em out, and what they tell us about current socio-political attitudes.
Mo Tae Goo
Voice
Tae Goo was bad for even a member of the rotten rich. Not satisfied with being corrupt and powerful like most kdrama villains, he was a bona fide psychopath serial killer. His father Gi Beom was the powerful head of Sungwun Express who had didn't hesitate to hide and feed his son's monstrous propensities for murder by securing him a never-ending stream of homeless victims to mercilessly brutalize and kill. Our heroes chased Tae Goo through a labyrinth of increasingly disturbing crime scenes while he became ever more unhinged. Even his father feared him--when your son starts bathing in blood, keeping corpses in his closet, and sending cops mementos of previous murders, it's reasonable to be a little concerned. And while it may have been witnessing his father engaging in murder as a child that pushed him over the edge, show made it clear he was always born with these tendencies.
Tae Goo was, honestly, the best part of this drama--one of the most disturbing villains to ever stalk lithely across our screens spattered with blood, with a cheshire cat smile, terrifying chuckle and painfully beautiful cheekbones. While part of me was fascinated by him, it was the fascination you feel for a snake as it moves in for the kill--cold, hypnotic, and lethal.
Evil-O-Meter: 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
Cha Seon Ho/Cha Min Ho
Defendant
Doubleheader! The identical twin sons of Chamyung Group were a problem for the heroes of this show, as one of the main conflicts was identifying which was which at any given time and had done what. Cha Seon Ho was the 'good' twin, the reliable steady elder brother who urged his troublesome younger sibling to turn himself in, and was murdered for his pains...though later in the show it becomes clear Seon Ho engaged in both an extramarital affair and questionable business practices (why did he have the cameras all shut off on his floor? Why did he need a secret room in his office 'to rest'?) . But Min Ho was the scary one, a man with a massive inferiority complex who got his kicks by murdering his one-night stands, and then killed his brother to assume his identity and escape a return to prison. Once he was safe, he made it his mission to take down his opposition, killing anyone who discovered his secret without compunction, and even leaving his (admittedly fairly evil himself) father to die.
Cha Min Ho was definitely on the dark side for a chaebol, with plenty of evil to his name. But show also went out of its way to point out the disdain and cruelty he continually received from his father, as well as the loss of the love of his life to his elder brother, made him what he was. It softened him, too, by making him eager to win back his brother's wife's love and by casting him as a good father to their little son. It's just hard to melt over him promising his little boy a day at a theme park when he's trying to murder the hero's little girl at the same time.
Evil-O-Meter: 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
Park Myung Suk
Chief Kim
Aw, really, in comparison to most of these others, Myung Suk was a sweet lil' puppy. But he still definitely had his problems. When show starts, he's the spoiled, demanding son of TQ Group, constantly abusing his expense account in his womanizing (much to the accounting department's misery), lashing out at his underlings, making terrible business decisions, and on one memorable occasion showing up to his grandfather's memorial drunk with a wasted supermodel in his car. He's the quintessential chaebol pain-in-the-ass, with a taste for loud suits and an arrogant attitude.
But he gets a redemption arc. Coming under the tutelage of the zany titular Chief Kim, he slowly acknowledges part of his problem is that he wants to learn but no one will teach him; that his father is corrupt and unkind; and that he needs to become a support for his frail but righteous mother. He starts from the bottom and learns the business, in the end choosing to support the underdogs in bringing down his embezzling father before he destroyed the family's company. While Myung Suk is saddened by his choices, and still yearns to heal his relationship with his father at the end, he also becomes a definite white hat.
Evil-O-Meter: ➖💀
King Yeonsangun
Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People
Not technically a chaebol, but being a king is kind of similar right? Yeonsangun started off as a sensitive young monarch with a love of music, a sad backstory, and an understandable frustration with the political gridlock of his court. But what he became was a sybaritic autocrat whose bloody purges and blindly selfish demands turned his politicians into terrified yes-men and his people into a revolutionary mob. In the end, shown the limits of his power, he fell into madness, unable to cope with the contradiction it presented to the ideology he had built his life around.
Yeonsangun was a complicated king, who at his lowest points evokes sympathy--there's a pitifulness to his inability to face reality and a real tragedy in the reflection that he had the potential to be so much more. But at his worst, he was a paranoid, (sometimes literally) blood-spattered man who had no mercy for anyone who crossed his cruel whims. As a character, he's fascinating. As a monarch, he's a nightmare.
Evil-O-Meter: 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
Ahn Min Hyuk
Strong Woman Do Bong Soon
Honestly, Min Min is so different from the others on this list, you might wonder why I'm including him at all. But there's a reason--Min Hyuk might be a whipped cream, hot fudge sundae with a cherry on top of adorable support and love, heroism and general good guy-ness, but he's still seriously reflective of a trend. Min Hyuk is almost unique for a chaebol in that he walked away from his toxic family headed by his gangster father. He just...left. He built his own company from scratch, and then consistently refused to be drawn back into their games for power. There was no redemption arc, no familial reunion. He turned down the inheritance of Oh Seung Group, and dismissed the whole issue of his birth family in favor of building a new one with his girlfriend. The last we saw of his father, the man was frothing at the mouth in rage as he was dragged out of his son's hospital room, unable to comprehend Min Hyuk's utter refusal to engage.
Wh-what? When has this ever happened in a drama? I can't call to mind. And I think it's notable that this is happening in an era of such emphasized distrust against the 1%. Heroes are no longer the heirs of fortunes. They're the ones who don't need those fortunes to make them heroes. Go Min Hyuk! More chaebols like this, please!
Evil-O-Meter: Are you kidding? 💖💖💖💖💖
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