So far, Jo Hyun Jae has very few scenes in this drama, but what little there is, is always gold. In this episode, JHJ is even more brilliant compared to previous episodes. His drunken scene is my favorite so far in this drama.
Link to Episode 7
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Note: Click on the video to watch JHJ scenes on Facebook
Scene 1: Han Do Jun invites Chief Lee and TH for dinner at his mansion.
HDJ: Welcome.
Lee: Chairman, I am truly honored.
HDJ: Don’t be ridiculous. I just want to share a meal with you guys. Come and have a sit. (They toast.)
HDJ (to Lee): Good job.
Lee: Thank you, Sir.
HDJ (to TH): So, are you feeling better?
TH: Yes, thanks to you, Sir.
HDJ: Thanks to me? I didn’t take care of you, that was my wife.
TH: Isn’t that the same thing, Sir?
HDJ: Maybe it’s because you’ve been hanging out with gangsters. I like your attitude. Good job.
TH: Thank you, Sir.
CY: Gangsters? Oh my, I would’ve never guessed. He must be a scary person.
HDJ: That’s right. This guy is a very scary person. Especially when it concerns his little sister. Send your sister to the States quickly.
TH: Excuse me?
HDJ: She needs treatment. You said there is no time.
TH: Thank you, Chairman.
HDJ: Don’t do that. Even if it wasn’t me, I hear Pres. Go was going to send her.
TH: No, I wouldn’t dare.
HDJ: Good, you made the right decision. That old man (referring to Pres. Go) is not what he appears to be. Right, honey? (Editor: I think this is an indication that Do Jun is aware that CY and her Dad are in cahoots with Pres. Go. Most probably Pres. Go has already ratted out the names of those who worked against Do Jun.)
CY: Oh my, really? Pres. Go? I see.
HDJ: Is the Director doing fine?
Lee: Yes, he has gotten much better.
HDJ: This guy (referring to TH) got right back up even after a gunshot. The Director only got a little cut. Why is he still lying in bed?
Lee: He is a bit old now.
HDJ: Then tell him to retire and go on vacation. You can be the Director.
Lee: Excuse me? No, I wouldn’t dare…
HDJ: Don’t be so modest. You were thinking of being Director, anyway.
Lee: The thing is, maybe later on, but the Director is still quite competent.
HDJ: Okay, okay. I will keep my mouth shut. (Do Jun puts steak on the plates of the guests.) Let’s eat. Honey, do you remember? We first met at a barbecue party. In New York.
CY: Oh my, really?
HDJ: You probably don’t remember. Yeo Jin wanted to go, so I went with her. Ah, Sung Hoon was there too. You were so popular among the foreign students. I was just an escort or delivery boy to Yeo Jin. You weren’t even remotely interested in me, don’t you agree?
CY: I was a bit popular.
HDJ: I wished father would have sent me overseas to study. It didn’t cost that much, but he was so against it. Well, I guess my fate was to live beneath Yeo Jin. “Don’t even think about getting involved with those wealthy kids.” That’s probably what it was. Honestly, I am the eldest child. But to the Hanshin Group, I am just an illegitimate bastard. That is why you never gave me a chance.
Sec: Chairman, I think it would be best if you stopped drinking…
HDJ: I feel so bad for Yeo Jin. She went through a lot. Well, it turned out for the best. She is finally next to Sung Hoon now. Come to think of it, both of those rascals died by my hands.
Sec: Chairman, I think you have drunk to excess.
HDJ: I drank too much? Hey, I am fine. You are supposed to drink on a day like this. Don’t you think so? And who cares if I drink too much? The people here are… you guys are accomplices. And honestly, it’s not like I killed the person myself. Or administered an odd drug. Don’t you agree? (TH and Lee agree.) So, go ahead. Kill all of them if they step out of line. That’s all I have to do. It was a joke. Why do you look so scared? Chief Lee.
Lee: Yes, Sir?
HDJ: Don’t worry too much. Yeo Jin’s funeral will soon be taken care of. She is going to be cremated. Then it will be all clean.
Lee: Yes. Thank you, Sir. (TH thinks that there is no more time.)
HDJ: She is going to be cremated and then I will send her off to the church where Sung Hoon is resting. They wanted to get married there. I will bury her next to Sung Hoon. As her big brother, it is the least I can do for her. (Lee agrees.) If Sung Hoon had kept his promise, he wouldn’t have died like that.
Sec: Chairman, please go in now. You’re drunk. (To Lee and TH) You should all go home now.
HDJ: Hey, I am not drunk.
Scene 2: Pres. Go and Secretary talk to Do Jun in his home office
HDJ: Oh my, Pres. Go. You are here. Please have a seat.
Sec (to Go): Did you clone my cell phone?
Go: I thought you were in a tough spot so I took care of it for you.
Sec: You cloning my cell phone is the same as cloning Chairman Han’s cell phone. Have you thought of that?
HDJ: Enough. I told him to do it.
Sec: Chairman Han, Nurse Hwang has been loyal to us. You didn’t need to take such extreme…
Go: When construction of a pyramid is complete won’t all the workers who know the pyramid’s secrets be buried?
HDJ: A pyramid? That’s right. This is a pyramid. True. We should bury them all.
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Other things worth noting in this episode:
– YJ begins to doubt her actions. YJ to TH: I know that you risked your life to get me off the 12th floor. I know I shouldn’t feel like this. But I can’t stop hating you. I won’t be able to go back to my old life. It wouldn’t have mattered who I joined forces with. Power doesn’t equal justice. I am a dead person now. And the power will be restructured. As long as Han Do Jun and Pres. Go are together there is no place for me. I am now their common enemy. Even if I came back from the dead I’d be just a powerful pawn. The media would be manipulated and the authorities would transfer me back into Han Do Jun’s care. There would be lots of on-the-job accidents and many hospital employees would get hurt. You’d probably get hurt the most. And I… I’d either be imprisoned again or die.
– TH asks if he should just have handed YJ to Pres. Go. (Editor: So, YJ wasn’t aware that TH would side with Do Jun. TH did this because if he had sided with Pres. Go, then CY could have died?) YJ replies that probably TH should have done that. TH says that Do Jun and Pres. Go are crocodiles. YJ replies that she is a crocodile also. A crocodile is supposed to live among other crocodiles, but because of TH she has been pushed out of the water.
– Lee’s conscience begins to bother him, he imagines that YJ is still alive, calls him a murderer, and warns him that he will also die in Han Do Jun’s hand someday.
– TH asks CY why she doesn’t love her husband when he is rich and handsome. TH says that Do Jun seems to suffer from lack of affection.
– Choi Sung Hoon, YJ’s love, is a cool guy. Tall, handsome, smart. Oldest son of the Daejung Group. He would have been perfect for YJ if he wasn’t the son of the Daejung Group.
– Flashback of Yeo Jin and Daddy Han. YJ believes that Daddy Han took Sung Hoon away from her, so she tries to commit suicide to take away the person Daddy Han cares about the most. She survives the attempt. Daddy Han instructs Director Park and Chief Lee to put her to sleep until his death from pancreatic cancer (he died 6 months later.) Daddy Han believes YJ will try to kill herself again when she regains consciousness out of hate for her father. YJ never regains consciousness and CY blames Do Jun for all that.
– TH takes YJ out of Hanshin Hospital and takes her to the church where Sung Hoon is buried.
– Nurse Hwang is killed off. She was in a phone booth talking to Do Jun’s Secretary when a truck struck the phonebooth with her in it. As she lay dying on the pavement we are shown a picture of herself with a smiling Yeo Jin. (Editor: So Nurse Hwang has known Yeo Jin during happier times. Maybe she was Yeo Jin’s nanny?)
– From the other end of the phone line, Do Jun’s Secretary hears the sound of the truck that struck Nurse Hwang. Pres. Go arrives and goes cryptic on Do Jun’s Secretary when he said that “there are people who listen by communicating. And there are some who don’t.”
– Do Jun’s Secretary concludes that Pres. Go has cloned his cell phone. Pres. Go does not deny doing so. Do Jun tells Secretary that he allowed Pres. Go to clone his phone. Secretary complains about the death of Nurse Hwang, saying that Hwang had been loyal to them. Pres. Go says that it is the practice that workers are killed off after the pyramid has been built to protect its secrets. The pyramid is a metaphor for empire-building.
– Do Jun’s Secretary is starting to resent Pres. Go.
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THOUGHTS
I like this episode because we learn a bit more about Do Jun. I can now understand why he has come to resent Yeo Jin so much to the point that he harmed her. I don’t condone his behaviour, but at least now I can understand him.
Consider this, Do Jun is the eldest child of his father, a son at that. In most Asian cultures, the son is more treasured than the daughter, and if that son is the eldest child, then he’ll be even more treasured. But due to the fact that Do Jun doesn’t have Hanshin blood running in his veins, he has to play second fiddle to his younger sister. As far as the Hanshin Group is concerned, he is an outsider, the illegitimate son of the Hanshin Group.
In everything he does, Do Jun can never be allowed to get ahead of Yeo Jin. Decisions with regard to every important aspect of his life are reached based on the thought that he should never ever get ahead of Yeo Jin. Do Jun can never be allowed any advantage or any weapon which he can use to compete with or topple Yeo Jin as head of Hanshin Group. That is the reality of Do Jun’s life as the outsider in the Hanshin Group. It is like dangling an apple in front of Do Jun, the apple is just within his arm’s reach, but everything is being done so he cannot extend his arms and get the apple.
Do Jun was not allowed to study abroad because the elite families in Korea send their kids abroad to study. Do Jun cannot be allowed to associate with the rich kids because the Hanshin Group feared that he might form an alliance there that would be advantageous to him, but disadvantageous to Yeo Jin.
Remember, you just don’t marry a person, you marry that person’s whole family. If Do Jun had been able to marry into a family that occupies a higher status than Yeo Jin, then Do Jun would have become a threat to Yeo Jin.
Why do you think Do Jun was allowed to marry Chae Young? Even though Do Jun is considered the illegitimate son of Hanshin, he is still a member of the Hanshin Group. So his associations will still reflect on the reputation of Hanshin. However, he cannot marry someone who is so far beneath their status because that would cause embarrassment to Hanshin. Therefore, he has to marry someone who belongs to a family that will not be a threat to Yeo Jin and, at the same time, not be an embarrassment to Hanshin. Chae Young seems to fit the bill perfectly. Chae Young’s Dad is a Director of the Hanshin Group. His standing in the power structure is not high enough to present a threat to Yeo Jin, but not too low that being associated with him would be an embarrassment to the Hanshin Group.
Yes, it is true that Do Jun could have struck out on his own, he could have started his own company. But even then, I think Hanshin would have continued to keep a lookout for him. His every move will be scrutinized. If it seemed that Do Jun is doing something that could threaten Yeo Jin’s position, then he would be stopped/blocked by the Hanshin Group.
In the party flashback in a previous episode, Yeo Jin expressed exasperation that Do Jun would marry Chae Young because that is what their father wanted. Do Jun retorted by asking her if he had any power. For an ambitious man, such sense of powerlessness can be like a festering wound, a canker eating at his soul. And if the powerlessness stems from actions by his own family (his father, in particular), I can understand the resentment that grew insidiously inside Do Jun towards his own family. I do not know how old Do Jun was when Yeo Jin was born, but he must have been still a young boy back then. Just imagine growing up with that feeling of powerlessness as your constant companion, at the same time you are surrounded with so much power but you know that you will never be allowed to wield it, ever. I think only an angel would not want to lash out at someone at some point. Although, not many people would go as far as Do Jun did.
In previous episodes the only thing I felt towards Do Jun is fear. But for the first time, due to his revelations during the drunken scene in this episode, I started to pity him. I do not know if Do Jun can still be redeemed, I wish there is still a way to heal Do Jun’s soul, but at the way things are going, he seems headed for destruction.
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Simply JO HYUN JAE 