Resurrection

Cast

Eom Tae Woong as Suh Ha Eun / Yoo Kang Hyeok / Yoo Shin Hyeok
Han Ji Min as Suh Eun Ha
Kang Shin Il as Suh Jae So ( Eun Ha's father)
So Yi Hyun as Lee Gang Ju (Crime Reporter, also the intended betrothed to Yoo Shin Hyeok)
Kim Gap Soo as Lee Tae Jun (The corrupt Senator, father of Lee Gang Ju)
Goo Joo Won as Jung Jin Woo (Deputy Chairman of J&C Corp)
Ki Joo Bong as Jung Sang Kook (Chairman of J&C Corp)
Yoo Hye Jung as Yoon Mi Jung (President Jung's wife, stepmother to Jung Jin Woo)
Lee Jung Kil as Kang In Cheol (President of Buling Corp, stepfather to Kang Hyeok and Shin Hyeok)
Sun Woo Eun Sook as Kim Yi Hwa (President Kang's wife and mother to Kang Hyeok and Shin Yeok)
Kim Kyu Chul as Choi Dong Chan (the villain)
Go Myung Hwan as Kim Su Cheol (Police Officer and good friend of Ha Eun)
Lee Dae Yeon as Kyung Ki Do (Senior Police Officer, boss of Ha Eun)

Synopsis

The plot gets a little convoluted but I will try to keep it as simple as possible.

Yoo Kang Hyeok and Yoo Shin Hyeok are the twin sons of a police officer, Yoo Gun Ha, and his wife, Kim Yi Hwa. Whilst on his way to investigating a case, Yoo Gun Ha found that the older of his twin sons, Kang Hyeok, was in the back seat. They met at an accident which killed Gun Ha but Kang Hyeok managed to get out of the car. Injured, bleeding and not remembering anything prior to the accident, Kang Hyeok was adopted (with great reluctance, initially) by gambler Suh Jae So, who has a daughter of his own, of about the same age. Kang Hyeok could not remember anything, not even his own name and hence was given the name of Suh Ha Eun, the reverse of Jae So's daughter's name, Suh Eun Ha. The two became very close and have always known that they love each other beyond the platonic.

Despite their less than comfortable circumstances, Suh Ha Eun grows up to be a happy, cheerful and optimistic person, buoyed by Eun Ha's constant love and support.

Fast forward 20 years and Suh Ha Eun is now a police officer. The end of the world as Ha Eun knows it began with the apparent suicide of an underworld figure, Im Dae Sik. Ha Eun and his superior officer in the Serious Crime Unit, Kyung Ki Do, do not believe that it was a suicide and because Im Dae Sik is a name the latter remember from a 20-year old case involving his own senior, an officer whom he had a lot of affection and respect for, Yoo Gun Ha. At that particular juncture he does not know that Ha Eun is actually one of the twin sons of Gun Ha and neither did Ha Eun know that his immediate superior is a junior of his late father.

In the meantime, a well-connected underworld figure, Choi Dong Chan (played with gleeful villainy by Kim Kyu Chul) got wind of the investigation and he put pressure on the police chief to terminate the investigation and close the file as another suicide case. Choi Dong Chan (CDC) is worried because Im Dae Sik is connected to him and he does not want to be implicated if the investigation goes any deeper. However, the two persisted. CDC succeeded in framing Ha Eun on trumped-up drug and corruption charges. Because the ‘proof' seems iron-clad and knowing that the Chief of Police is in the pockets of CDC, Ha Eun decided to go on the run, and prove his innocence on his own. In the meantime, Ki Do managed to put the pieces together and realized that Im Dae Sik is indeed tied up to the 20-year old case and that Hae Eun is actually the elder twin son of his senior. On his way to meet Ha Eun to impart the news, he was knifed by CDC's man and was seriously injured. Before he slumped into a coma, he told Hae Eun that his real name is Yoo Kang Hyeok.

Suh Hae Eun by now is aware of his history and managed to trace that Yoo Shin Hyeok is his younger brother. He found out that his mother has remarried and has a daughter. Shin Hyeok is now the vice President of Buling Corporation, working with their step father, President Lee Jung Kil. Through a series of manoeuvres, they arranged to meet in the town of Kangling, at a spot only they and Officer Kim Su Cheol know. Officer Kim was forced to betray Hae Eun's location when CDC and his cohorts threatened to kill his mother and family should he disagree. This betrayal resulted in the death of Shin Yeok, whom they thought was Hae Eun/Kang Hyeok, not knowing that the two have made contact and were meeting up. The death of Shin Hyeok after such a brief reunion was extremely devastating to Hae Eun and in the aftermath of the tragedy, decided on a plot of revenge which necessitated him assuming the identity of his dead twin brother and returning to the family and the company as Yoo Shin Hyeok. He tried to find out as much as possible about the life of Shin Hyeok by breaking in into his computer, and reading into his database of the people surrounding him and also his diary.

Okay, at this point you have to suspend disbelief a little that Hae Eun can actually fool so many people, including his own mother, by passing himself as Shin Yeok. He has never met Shin Yeok before this, and does not even know what the man was like. Shin Hyeok was apparently cold, dispassionate and not a very popular person. Hae Eun is almost the exact opposite. The major bulk of the story focuses on how and what Hae Eun does in executing his revenge on those he believed were responsible for the death of his father and brother.

Hae Eun identified Senator Lee Tae Joon and also president of J&C Corp, President Jung, as the sponsors and protectors of CDC. Senator Lee is actually the father of Lee Gang Ju, a crime reporter to be betrothed to Shin Hyeok. She was against the betrothal but Shin Hyeok had liked her. Lee Gang Ju is a pretty, bright and persistent reporter who coincidentally got involved in investigating the death of Im Dae Sik.

Senator Lee and President Jung are friends but their friendship is based more on convenience and sponsorship, on the marriage of politics and business, rather than on genuine liking for each other. President Jung is garrulous and short-tempered whereas Senator Lee is calm, cool-headed but no less unscrupulous.

One of the first things Hae Eun did as Shin Hyeok was terminate the betrothal, much to the disappointments of both parents.

President Jung's son, Jung Jin Woo, is the Vice President of his company. J&C and Buling are business rivals of sorts even though it is acknowledged that J&C is the bigger and more powerful of the two. Jung Jin Woo and Yoo Shin Hyeok have always regarded themselves as adversaries.

Eun Ha had, in the meantime, secured a job with Buling Corp and was shocked to meet Shin Hyeok, the spitting image of the man she loved and was mourning deeply for, Ha Eun. She had enormous difficulty in reconciling her dead love with this man whose image and mannerisms constantly reminded her of him. Ha Eun was not able to hide himself very well either whenever he faces Eun Ha, and almost gave himself away several times. Over the course of time, he inadvertently left many clues here and there that left question marks on the people he loves including Eun Ha, his mother, his good friend Officer Kim, his personal secretary and eventually his step father.

Through his newfound power and position, Ha Eun sets his planned vendetta in motion. He recruited a multi-skilled and multi-talented and popcorn munching private eye Chang Hong Myeong to do most of the investigative work as well as setting up sting operations to unhinge both the Senator and President Jung. Both of them managed to locate Senator Lee's illegitimate son, Park Ki Soo, who makes a living as a con man. In the sting, Park Ki Soo pretends to be a Korean-American (named Steven Lee), an investor in an off-shore oil exploration off the coast of China, luring the Senator to feed on President Jung's greed to invest into the operation. Using the funds, both Ha Eun and Chang HM engineered the takeover of the Star Hotel which President Jung has earmarked to CDC, into the hands of his wife, to whom he had earlier promised control. The whole idea was to drive cracks in the alliance of the two men and also to use their own funds to to destroy themselves.

In all these, people who are closest to Ha Eun became gradually wise of his true identity, even Lee Tae Joon who is now developing feelings for him. In putting the pieces together, Ha Eun and his assistant have always suspected there is a third character in the whole grand plot that led to the demise of his father and brother but was not able to identify the person. It was extremely devastating to Hae Eun when he finally discovered that the person is very close to home.

Review

The love quadrangle is still there but it is not the anchor of the story. That is quite refreshing for a Korean drama. The anchor is revenge and I am not sure the title “Resurrection” is the most appropriate. Maybe something is lost in translation. Yes, Ha Eun/Kang Hyeok did resurrect himself as his twin brother but the central purpose is to exact revenge.

"Resurrection" is an interesting drama to watch. Unfortunately it has too many characters to remember and for a non-Korean, it is quiet a challenge. There are too many ‘bad guys' here and even Eun Ha's twin is not exactly your run-of-the-mill good guy. It is quite good that a Korean drama is trying to infuse thriller elements in the story, instead of the usual menu of unrequited love and terminal diseases. The problem with thriller dramas that have the solution at the beginning of the story rather than discovering it at the end (there must be an appropriate industry term for this), is that you have to have the necessary stamina and you must be able to sustain interest to watch it right to the end. And that's where the love element is important. Most people want to see the ending, good or bad. Does the hero get the girl? Does the bad guy get his comeuppance?

What is the popular wisdom about revenge? Some say revenge is best served cold. In this drama, the most compelling scenes are those showing Hae Eun/Kang Hyeok's enormous internal pain in executing his revenge. What he is doing runs contrary to his basic good nature and would have probably suited his twin brother's propensities better. He was in great distress and suffering a deep ambivalence about what he is doing especially when reminded often by Chang Hong Myeong that what he is doing is going to cost him great pain and great loss and that in the end he is no better than his targets. But in the end the need to avenge his loved ones prevails over his scruples and he went through with his plans. A couple of suicides later and him almost losing his own life seems to drive home the message that “It is folly to punish your neighbour by fire when you live next door.”

In "Resurrection", the plot got rather convoluted and it got tedious after a while until the time when Kang Hyeok/Shin Hyeok's wife-loving, perfect-husband stepfather started to reveal his true colours. This only happened in episode 16, in a 20-episode drama. That's when it became interesting again, enough to see you through right to the end.

Eom Tae Woong

This is the first time I am watching Eom Tae Woong. His acting in this drama was apparently well-received, especially in Japan. Acting two roles in the same drama cannot be easy and it takes enormous dexterity and skill to carry it off successfully. I am not convinced Eom Tae Woong did a fantastic job. As the cheerful Ha Eun, his expression sometimes turns silly, especially with that spastic smile that actually made him look ridiculous. As Shin Hyeok he was slightly better but not much. His expression of pain often looks contrived rather than natural, but it did try to convey the relentless distress that he was going through.

Han Ji Min

I saw Han Ji Min in "Jewel in the Palace", playing second fiddle to Lee Young Ae. She was quite good there. In this drama, as Suh Eun Ha, she was perpetually sad, with very few joyous moments to savour and share. With those big, lachrymose eyes, she radiates a natural innocent beauty that the character demands. I must say Korean actresses are great at playing sad roles; their eyes are continuos pools of tears, ready to shed either in dramatic drops or in an avalanche, depending on the moments. Han Ji Min's eyes in this drama were seldom dry and if they weren't, they were perpetually sad.

Kim Kyu Chul

If I were asked to give an award for this drama I would give it to Kim Kyu Chul who acted as the ultimate gangster Choi Dong Chan. He was superb, the personification of a wannabe gangster chief but will never make the grade because of his own ineptness and greed. His naked corruptness, his fiery bluster because his plans are thwarted, and his innate cruelty were very well-portrayed by Kim Kyu Chul. As much as you cringe at his evilness, I also found some of his portrayal funny and it provides comic relief to the otherwise dark and sombre tone of the drama.

Lee Jung Kil

The first time I saw Lee Jung Kil was as the infamously unscrupulous father of Ming Chul played by Lee Byung Hyung in “Beautiful Days”. He played that character so well that when I first saw him in the early episodes of this drama, I was very skeptical and questioning of his apparently benign character. In "Resurrection", his character as President Kang, is portrayed as kindly, considerate and loving especially towards his wife whom he obviously adored. As the episodes progress, I was not disappointed. His evil true self was revealed and provided one of the more climatic episodes of the drama. Oddly enough, the character he played is similar to that of “Beautiful Days” in that he killed the husband of the woman he loves in order to get her. Whereas Senator Lee and President Jung were motivated by greed and power, President Kang was motivated by an undying love, albeit twisted.

Not a bad drama. Quite entertaining: some thriller elements, no terminal diseases, a couple of suicides and an underplayed love quadrangle. True to the theme of Korean dramas, the ending is not bad but sad nevertheless.