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Review: Hyena (하이에나) (2020)
This was a fun show. It's been a while since I've watched an exciting legal drama, because a lot of the time the ones I've watched tend to get stale in terms of the administrative legal stuff, or it focuses too much on the lawyers' personal lives.
Hyena had exciting courtroom battles and fun fieldwork sections, and the characters were generally very fun to watch. The story wasn't perfect, but the writing was interesting enough.
I would recommend this drama.
Spoilers.
Story
The initial premise of this show was pretty interesting. Jung Geumja and Yoon Heejae were lawyers on opposing sides of a civil court case. Jung Geumja went undercover to date him so that she could get evidence from him that would ultimately win her the case. So Heejae and Geumja started on a rough note. Of course, there was some rivalry in the beginning few episodes, but things changed when Geumja was welcomed to Song & Kim (the same firm as Heejae) as a partner. Thereafter, they worked together and got closer, even sticking together after they both got fired.
The cases themselves I found exciting, in terms of how the lawyers went about gathering evidence. It wasn't realistic, but hey, I don't watch this for a realistic portrayal of lawyers. The first half of the drama had a lot of exciting field work that hooked me in.
There were a few cases and clients that were prevalent throughout the drama. One was the Ha family and their corporate Issume. Another was just the general group of corporate bigwigs and political big shots that was involved with Song Piljung, one of the heads of Song & Kim. That group included Yoon Chungyeon, Heejae's father. Meanwhile, Geumja was also dealing with her own personal conflict to do with her dad.
In the second half of this drama, I did start to feel that there was maybe too much going on. It wasn't confusing, and it all made sense, but it just felt like the writers could've given each of the main issues enough attention if they had just planned them out better.
The ending for this drama was okay. It wasn't terrible, but there were some things that could've ended better. For example, it would've made a lot more sense to end with Piljung going to jail, but instead, the drama only got as far as getting him arrested. Perhaps it was due to lack of time, but I felt that if they'd condensed some of the earlier events, they could've had more time for a more epic takedown. Having watched the ending, now I wish the story would've spent less time with Issume and Kevin Jung and more on Piljung.
The drama's final scene was of Geumja watching the building, as she had at the beginning of the drama. She revealed to Heejae that that was the building she would be dropped off at when she was put up for adoption. While I understand the sentiment, it felt like a weird way to tie together the story, especially because the drama spent not that much time on Geumja's personal story and trauma.
My conclusion for this aspect of the drama was that the overall structure of the story had some issues with pacing, but the writing for the individual scenes and cases was very intriguing and interesting.
Production
The production quality of this show was very good, as expected. The setting and costumes (!!!) were very nice. Geumja had so many nice outfits. They were flashy and they suited her personality just fine.
I mentioned this in one of my episode writeups, but there were times when some aesthetic choices felt a bit too popish and young to be convincing, such as some of the fancy offices at Song & Kim, and Heejae's love of classical music. Basically, some of fancy decor felt like a young person's impression of what an old rich person would like. As for Heejae's love of classical music, it was expressed through one piece of music, more specifically, the opening line of that piece of music, which got rather repetitive. But I can understand that all of these are just to get a point across.
The acting was terrific from everyone. Everybody was very convincing.
Characters
Yoon Heejae
Heejae was the son of a family of judges, but he was the black sheep because he became a lawyer. He had an ego, but that was brought down quickly in the beginning of the drama after he'd been made a fool of by Geumja, and I think that's what set him apart from your typical cool CEO character archetype.
That being said, Heejae was a professional. Despite his bitter feelings towards Geumja, he worked with her like he would with any other lawyer. He would make jabs at her, but in the process of doing that, he did get close with her.
There was that whole jealousy subplot when Kevin Jung joined the picture that was a bit strange because Heejae wasn't really the type to be so obvious and unprofessional about his weaknesses, but I guess it was done for comedic effect.
The takedown of Piljung was personal for Heejae because Piljung was supposed to be a mentor figure to him. Apparently it was through Piljung that Heejae got his job at Song & Kim, and in the beginning, we saw Piljung protect him. However, as time passed, Heejae started to see his true colours, and how Piljung "helping" him and his father was really just for his own gain, putting them in their positions so that he could manipulate them into doing things.
I wished that we'd seen more of Heejae interacting with his family, but the most that we saw was Heejae trying to convince his dad to fess up to being a crooked judge. His dad ultimately did not, which disappointed Heejae immensely, because his father was the one to instill morals in him and now he turned his back on them to protect himself. It was implied that Heejae recovered from that betrayal off screen, and then Heejae jumped back in to fighting Piljung full time, which makes sense, but ehhh not really my favourite. Not because it was confusing, but just because I wanted to see Heejae's conflicts with his family more. The drama had set up so much, telling us that his grandfather, father, and older brother were all judges, and it was probably a big deal that he wasn't, but we didn't really get to see how it affected his relationships with his family.
By the end of the drama, Heejae had been fired from Song & Kim and he'd joined Choong, Geumja's firm. He seemed a lot more relaxed and loose, which is nice.
Jung Geumja
I mentioned this in one of my episode posts, but Geumja is the "I lived, bitch" meme personified. She is the human embodiment of brute force because she always gets things done, no matter how low she has to go.
Geumja underwent lots of trauma as a youngster. She was in and out of the foster home system, and she'd been adopted into a family with an abusive dad. The dad, Chunsu, had killed her mom, but got off easy for it, so Geumja, with the help of her childhood friend Juho, set Chunsu up so that he'd be locked up for a long time.
She originally ran her own law firm Choong, and after she grew in notoriety, Song Piljung recruited her to join Song & Kim, because she could take on the dirtier cases. At Song & Kim, Geumja originally faced resistance, from those loyal to Heejae, as well as the other partners who were bitter that she came from a nothing background. But she eventually grew to gain the support of a small group of lawyers at Song & Kim, who even joined her at Choong after she and Heejae got fired.
During the drama, Geumja's dad was released from prison, which was very stressful to Geumja. Despite how tough she was, her dad's presence was very triggering to her. He appeared to be a changed man, now very religious, but that was revealed to be bullshit because he wanted to blackmail Geumja and Juho for putting him in prison.
I felt that Geumja's story line with her dad ended in a way that wasn't very satisfying. Despite being the other main character, neither the Ha Chanho case nore the Song Piljung case were personal in nature to her. Song Piljung did try to kill her, but that wasn't until later. Instead, the Jung Chunsu was relegated to a minor subplot, and the way it was resolved was anticlimactic. Not that it's bad to have a story line that makes sense and is very straightforward, but I just wished the writers would've given the matter more complexity because Geumja is one of the show's main protagonists. But I guess it wasn't out of character for Geumja to not dwell too much on her father either.
It was revealed that the building Geumja kept staring at was the building she'd be dropped off at when she was abandoned, and she'd wanted to buy it so that she could turn it into a place that wasn't so sad anymore. This was another reason that I felt Geumja's personal story wasn't given enough attention. The drama wanted to bracked its story with this visual of Geumja looking at the building that made her who she was, but in terms of her backstory, we only knew of her abusive relationship with her dad, and not so much about her being in the orphanage and foster care system. Even that time line is kind of muddy.
Geumja as a character is solid and very interesting, but I think that the writers didn't give her the same treatment as they did Heejae despite both being main protagonists.
Ga Gihyeok
Gihyeok was Heejae's coworker at Song & Kim. He was kind of an information bank, which was why Gihyeok kept him around, but we later realize that Heejae did also consider him a friend.
Gihyeok was mostly just a supporting character to Heejae, until Gihyeok was encouraged to rat out Heejae and Geumja's relationship during the divorce case between Ha Chanho and his wife. Piljung appeals to Gihyeok's career ambitions, and Gihyeok basically betrayed Heejae. Gihyeok did regret it, but Heejae didn't think much of it because he knew that Piljung would have his way no matter whethr Gihyeok agreed to rat him out or not.
Gihyeok took over the Ha Chanho murder case part way through as Heejae and Geumja were dismissed from Song & Kim. However, Gihyeok just wasn't as savvy as Heejae and Geumja were at finding more evidence, and he didn't end up doing too well on that case, but Choong was going to swoop in and take Ha Chanho as their client for his appeal.
Gihyeok basically returned to being a bro by the end of the drama.
Li Jieun
Jieun was Geumja's assistant, a very smart and savvy young lady. It was revealed that her mother had abandoned her and her siblings, and she had attempted suicide but was saved by Geumja and offered a job by her. So Jieun basically saw Geumja as family.
Jieun was mostly an extension of Geumja for most of the drama. There were times when Jieun intervened on behalf of Geumja's personal life, particularly when it came to her romantic relationship with Heejae, and the return of her father.
Geumja also treated Jieun very well, often treating her to food when she'd done well or when she was working very hard. A very bubbly and cute character :3
Lee Chunguk
Changuk was a partner at Song & Kim, but he was different from most in that he wasn't the most career motivated, which made it easier for Geumja to win him over when she joined Song & Kim. Changuk kept to himself, and word on the street was that he made a lot of money in investments.
Anyway, he wasn't a partner for nothing, and he was quite smart and resourceful as well. He would often step in as an authority when Heejae or Geumja weren't available, and he was good at offering guidance or moral support to the younger ones.
After Heejae and Geumja left Song & Kim, apparently he'd been asking too many questions, and he was fired. He then subsequently joined Choong lol.
Boo Hyeona
Hyeona was an ambitious lawyer at Song & Kim. She and Geumja started on the wrong foot, seeing as how they had been on opposing sides of a case before, and to add to that Hyeona also kind of had a crush on Heejae.
However, through them being forced to work together, they slowly grew to respect one another, and become friends :3
Eventually, Hyeona "confessed" to Heejae, but it was kind of a tame kind of confession. Either she knew that Heejae was already in love with Geumja and she knew that she had no shot, or she always only saw him with platonic admiration. In any case, her romantic attraction to Heejae didn't really affect her ability to work with him. She was eventually nabbed over by Choong from Song & Kim to work on Yoon Chungyeon's case.
Na Ijun
Ijun was the first year associate that had been assigned to Geumja when she first joined Song & Kim. Apparently he'd only been working on meeting minutes up until he'd been assigned to work with her. I think assignment to her team was supposed to be a petty move by the others at Song & Kim who didn't approve of Geumja. Basically I think they purposely assigned her the least experienced employee in the office.
But Ijun was hardworking and earnest, and towards the end of the drama, we saw him taking initiative in doing his own field work! Go him!
Song Piljung
Piljung was the managing partner at Song & Kim. The firm had actually originally belonged to his wife's father, who had given him the reins. However, it's suspected that he probably never really loved his wife, and that he'd married her for control of the firm. According to his sister-in-law, he'd actually been divorced from his wife for 15 years, but continued to visit her for appearances. It was also revealed that he would often do shady things in his wife's name to avoid suspicion, despite the fact that she'd been in a coma for years.
Anyway, Piljung's thing was that he was power-hungry and would help to put people in positions that would make them vulnerable to his manipulation. He never did anything that would not help himself personally.
When Heejae's father was in deep shit, Piljung cut his losses and refused to help because he didn't want to implicate himself, which stung for Heejae. That's when Heejae made it his mission to protect his father, and also to bring down Piljung.
As I predicted, Piljung was not found guilty for corruption (because Heejae's father refused to own up to his own misdoings), but was instead brought down by his involvement in the murder of Seo Jeonghwa (i.e. the Ha Chanho murder case). Most powerful people who abuse their power are not taken down for their crimes, but instead for something else entirely that's easier to prove and less easy to cover up.
The story ended with Piljung being arrested, and Geumja showing him the evidence that they had on him. I wish the show would've ended with him being behind bars, but I guess this is acceptable if there were time constraints, as Piljung was still hit with that sense of uneasiness, knowing that he wasn't as infallible as he thought he was.
Kim Minjoo
Kim Minjoo was Song Piljung's sister-in-law, and I guess the Kim to Song & Kim, though her father was the original Kim. She was inactive in the firm until the events in this drama.
I'm kind of disappointed that she was barely used in this drama as a character. Come of think of it, she didn't really do anything to threaten Song Piljung, other than embarrass him in front of Kevin Jung, though that did not stop Kevin from doing business with him. As a counterweight to Song Piljung in Song & Kim, she really didn't do that much unfortunately.
Ma Seokgu
Ma Seokgu was a lawyer at Song & Kim who kind of hated Heejae and wanted him to fail. He would work with Kim Minjoo to bring down Piljung, Heejae, and Geumja, though to varying degrees of success.
Yoon Chungyeon
Chungyeon was Heejae's dad, a judge who had worked extensively with Song Piljung, and he was later tried for corruption. When he had initially been found out, he had attempted suicide, but was unsuccessful. Heejae had interpreted his dad's attempted suicide as him wanting to protect the operation that Song Piljung had built, which angered Heejae because, like, his dad was throwing his life away for someone who wouldn't even help him in his time of need.
Heejae had tried to motivate his dad into owning up to his crimes because (1) it was the right thing to do and (2) if he confessed, it would be easier to pin down Song Piljung by association. Unfortunately, Chungyeon pleaded not guilty to corruption charges. He said to Heejae that he'd done it because it was the best way of protecting himself.
Taking that into consideration, perhaps Chungyeon attempting suicide was not necessarily him protecting Song Piljung, but instead him protecting his own pride, since he wouldn't have to own up to his own crimes.
Again, Heejae was incredibly disappointed because his dad had instilled morals in him that he is now turning back on. But it's the whole "absolute power corrupts absolutely" or whatever. If Chungyeon wasn't an immoral man, he wouldn't have bought into Piljung's scheme to begin with, and it's hard for anyone but himself to take him out of it.
Chungyeon's case wasn't really brought up again, because Heejae then focused on bringing down Piljung via the murder case, so that entire corruption scandal came to an end in a rather unsatisfying way.
Shim Yumi
Yumi was a school friend of Heejae's, and Geumja used her to get close to Yumi. She was kind of a loudmouth, and unfortuantely it was through her that others at Song & Kim found out that Geumja and Heejae had been dating. But Heejae and Geumja never really thought poorly of her, they knew that she was just overdramatic.
Jung Chunsu
Chunsu was Geumja's (adoptive) dad. He'd killed Geumja's mom but was let off easy, so Geumja and Juho worked together to frame him for attempted murder of Geumja. He was supposed to go to jail for 30 years, but was let out recently, which shocked Geumja.
What was more unsettling was that Chunsu was now apparently a changed man, one who was religious, which apparently made him better than everyone around him. He somehow realized that Geumja and Juho had framed him, and he wanted to use that to blackmail them, but they didn't really know what evidence he had on them, if any.
Anyway, Geumja lost her cool with him because he would not let them go even after she threatened him with violence. She was going to settle the score with him one last time, but was attacked by one of Song Piljung's men who stabbed her and subsequently stabbed Chunsu to death. Chunsu died off screen, to which Geumja just kind of said good riddance to.
Like I said, I didn't think Geumja's past was explored enough. Though he relationship with her dad was straightforward enough, I felt that the writers took the easy way out by making her dad still an asshole so she wouldn't have to do any deep thinking about him. Not that it's bad, it was just the easy way out. If Chunsu was actually a changed man, that would've brought Geumja a lot of weird mixed feelings, which this drama probably isn't really prepared to tackle given that its writing is stronger in legal thrillers and not so much emotional conflicts.
Park Juho
Juho was Geumja's childhood friend. He was working as a police officer and would give Geumja private intel, but was later fired.
In the middle of the drama, he was confronted by Chunsu, and in a fit of fear, Juho sought legal advice from Heejae and basically told him Geumja's entire life story, which was definitely rash and didn't really match Juho's personality. He was way too private to be such a blabbermouth.
Anyway, later on, Juho joined Geumja and Choong as an investigator, since that was what he was good at.
Kwon Yongun
Yongun was a prosecutor. He didn't have a huge role, but he was a recurring character. From time to time, Heejae would approach him when working on cases, and in the end, Yongun worked with Heejae and Geumja to arrest Son Bongu and Song Piljung.
Ha Chanho
Chanho was the eldest son of the Ha family, and the CEO of Issume. He was a druggie and was obsessed with his mistress.
The first case covered his divorce with his wife, which ended in a loss for him. In the middle of the drama, there were some power struggles as his younger sister wanted to take control of Issume (and she was far more capable of doing it too). One of the last cases in the drama was regarding the murder of his mistress. Ha Chanho looked very obviously like the murderer, but it was later revealed that he was framed.
What wasn't great about Ha Chanho was that in the end, when it became more apparent that he was framed, it seemed like the show was showing him in a more sympathetic light, even though he had always been an abusive asshole! Just because he's not a murderer doesn't mean he didn't literally lock up his mistress and hurt her.
Kevin Jung
Kevin Jung was the CEO of AP Eon, which was a firm that wanted to acquire Issume. Kevin took a personal interest in Geumja the first time they met. While Geumja did work with Kevin the entire time, it really felt like she was neutral to him and that all the interest was from his side.
By the end of the drama, Kevin took little damage financially. I think the official acquisition of Issume was interrupted by Piljung getting arrested, so I'm not sure if that will go ahead, and if it doesn't, it doesn't really hurt Kevin's status quo.
Kevin was still interested in Geumja, and the last episode was when Geumja had to make it clear to him that she was only polite to him because of work and that she never liked him (since apparently he couldn't take any cues lol).
Themes
Geumja and Heejae came from two different worlds, so at the begining, when they were always butting heads, I felt like there were a lot of juxtapositions about how differently they lived. Heejae said that he lived in the past and the future, which is something that is usually true of rich powerful people. They are who they are because of their background, and people anticipate what they can become. On the other hand, people like Geumja must live in the present because her past weighs her down, and nobody will give her the time of day to invest in her future. As someone who's come from a tough past, she must think only of the now.
There was a loose theme of memories as well, with Geumja wanting to paint over her past painful memories. She wanted to stop remembering the painful memories of her abusive father because she hated being reduced back to that frightened young girl. And she wanted to buy that building that she was abandoned at because she didn't want it to be a sad place anymore. At one point, Yumi had said that she was trying to build new, good memories over her old ones by having dates with Gihyeok in places that she used to go with her ex-husband. It's essentially what Geumja was trying to do, but a little further in the future I suppose.
Overall
Sorry if my writing was all over the place. I'm not so good at writing about TV shows and my thoughts tend to jump around because there is so much to write about.
But anyway, even though this show wasn't perfect, there were a lot of good things going for it, particularly the investigative teamwork scenes and the thrilling courtroom scenes. The characters were well written enough but they weren't given an opportunity to shine to their full potential. At points, there were too many things happening at once and not enough attention were given to the right things in my opinion.
Hyena had exciting courtroom battles and fun fieldwork sections, and the characters were generally very fun to watch. The story wasn't perfect, but the writing was interesting enough.
I would recommend this drama.
Spoilers.
Story
The initial premise of this show was pretty interesting. Jung Geumja and Yoon Heejae were lawyers on opposing sides of a civil court case. Jung Geumja went undercover to date him so that she could get evidence from him that would ultimately win her the case. So Heejae and Geumja started on a rough note. Of course, there was some rivalry in the beginning few episodes, but things changed when Geumja was welcomed to Song & Kim (the same firm as Heejae) as a partner. Thereafter, they worked together and got closer, even sticking together after they both got fired.
The cases themselves I found exciting, in terms of how the lawyers went about gathering evidence. It wasn't realistic, but hey, I don't watch this for a realistic portrayal of lawyers. The first half of the drama had a lot of exciting field work that hooked me in.
There were a few cases and clients that were prevalent throughout the drama. One was the Ha family and their corporate Issume. Another was just the general group of corporate bigwigs and political big shots that was involved with Song Piljung, one of the heads of Song & Kim. That group included Yoon Chungyeon, Heejae's father. Meanwhile, Geumja was also dealing with her own personal conflict to do with her dad.
In the second half of this drama, I did start to feel that there was maybe too much going on. It wasn't confusing, and it all made sense, but it just felt like the writers could've given each of the main issues enough attention if they had just planned them out better.
The ending for this drama was okay. It wasn't terrible, but there were some things that could've ended better. For example, it would've made a lot more sense to end with Piljung going to jail, but instead, the drama only got as far as getting him arrested. Perhaps it was due to lack of time, but I felt that if they'd condensed some of the earlier events, they could've had more time for a more epic takedown. Having watched the ending, now I wish the story would've spent less time with Issume and Kevin Jung and more on Piljung.
The drama's final scene was of Geumja watching the building, as she had at the beginning of the drama. She revealed to Heejae that that was the building she would be dropped off at when she was put up for adoption. While I understand the sentiment, it felt like a weird way to tie together the story, especially because the drama spent not that much time on Geumja's personal story and trauma.
My conclusion for this aspect of the drama was that the overall structure of the story had some issues with pacing, but the writing for the individual scenes and cases was very intriguing and interesting.
Production
The production quality of this show was very good, as expected. The setting and costumes (!!!) were very nice. Geumja had so many nice outfits. They were flashy and they suited her personality just fine.
I mentioned this in one of my episode writeups, but there were times when some aesthetic choices felt a bit too popish and young to be convincing, such as some of the fancy offices at Song & Kim, and Heejae's love of classical music. Basically, some of fancy decor felt like a young person's impression of what an old rich person would like. As for Heejae's love of classical music, it was expressed through one piece of music, more specifically, the opening line of that piece of music, which got rather repetitive. But I can understand that all of these are just to get a point across.
The acting was terrific from everyone. Everybody was very convincing.
Characters
Yoon Heejae
Heejae was the son of a family of judges, but he was the black sheep because he became a lawyer. He had an ego, but that was brought down quickly in the beginning of the drama after he'd been made a fool of by Geumja, and I think that's what set him apart from your typical cool CEO character archetype.
That being said, Heejae was a professional. Despite his bitter feelings towards Geumja, he worked with her like he would with any other lawyer. He would make jabs at her, but in the process of doing that, he did get close with her.
There was that whole jealousy subplot when Kevin Jung joined the picture that was a bit strange because Heejae wasn't really the type to be so obvious and unprofessional about his weaknesses, but I guess it was done for comedic effect.
The takedown of Piljung was personal for Heejae because Piljung was supposed to be a mentor figure to him. Apparently it was through Piljung that Heejae got his job at Song & Kim, and in the beginning, we saw Piljung protect him. However, as time passed, Heejae started to see his true colours, and how Piljung "helping" him and his father was really just for his own gain, putting them in their positions so that he could manipulate them into doing things.
I wished that we'd seen more of Heejae interacting with his family, but the most that we saw was Heejae trying to convince his dad to fess up to being a crooked judge. His dad ultimately did not, which disappointed Heejae immensely, because his father was the one to instill morals in him and now he turned his back on them to protect himself. It was implied that Heejae recovered from that betrayal off screen, and then Heejae jumped back in to fighting Piljung full time, which makes sense, but ehhh not really my favourite. Not because it was confusing, but just because I wanted to see Heejae's conflicts with his family more. The drama had set up so much, telling us that his grandfather, father, and older brother were all judges, and it was probably a big deal that he wasn't, but we didn't really get to see how it affected his relationships with his family.
By the end of the drama, Heejae had been fired from Song & Kim and he'd joined Choong, Geumja's firm. He seemed a lot more relaxed and loose, which is nice.
Jung Geumja
I mentioned this in one of my episode posts, but Geumja is the "I lived, bitch" meme personified. She is the human embodiment of brute force because she always gets things done, no matter how low she has to go.
Geumja underwent lots of trauma as a youngster. She was in and out of the foster home system, and she'd been adopted into a family with an abusive dad. The dad, Chunsu, had killed her mom, but got off easy for it, so Geumja, with the help of her childhood friend Juho, set Chunsu up so that he'd be locked up for a long time.
She originally ran her own law firm Choong, and after she grew in notoriety, Song Piljung recruited her to join Song & Kim, because she could take on the dirtier cases. At Song & Kim, Geumja originally faced resistance, from those loyal to Heejae, as well as the other partners who were bitter that she came from a nothing background. But she eventually grew to gain the support of a small group of lawyers at Song & Kim, who even joined her at Choong after she and Heejae got fired.
During the drama, Geumja's dad was released from prison, which was very stressful to Geumja. Despite how tough she was, her dad's presence was very triggering to her. He appeared to be a changed man, now very religious, but that was revealed to be bullshit because he wanted to blackmail Geumja and Juho for putting him in prison.
I felt that Geumja's story line with her dad ended in a way that wasn't very satisfying. Despite being the other main character, neither the Ha Chanho case nore the Song Piljung case were personal in nature to her. Song Piljung did try to kill her, but that wasn't until later. Instead, the Jung Chunsu was relegated to a minor subplot, and the way it was resolved was anticlimactic. Not that it's bad to have a story line that makes sense and is very straightforward, but I just wished the writers would've given the matter more complexity because Geumja is one of the show's main protagonists. But I guess it wasn't out of character for Geumja to not dwell too much on her father either.
It was revealed that the building Geumja kept staring at was the building she'd be dropped off at when she was abandoned, and she'd wanted to buy it so that she could turn it into a place that wasn't so sad anymore. This was another reason that I felt Geumja's personal story wasn't given enough attention. The drama wanted to bracked its story with this visual of Geumja looking at the building that made her who she was, but in terms of her backstory, we only knew of her abusive relationship with her dad, and not so much about her being in the orphanage and foster care system. Even that time line is kind of muddy.
Geumja as a character is solid and very interesting, but I think that the writers didn't give her the same treatment as they did Heejae despite both being main protagonists.
Ga Gihyeok
Gihyeok was Heejae's coworker at Song & Kim. He was kind of an information bank, which was why Gihyeok kept him around, but we later realize that Heejae did also consider him a friend.
Gihyeok was mostly just a supporting character to Heejae, until Gihyeok was encouraged to rat out Heejae and Geumja's relationship during the divorce case between Ha Chanho and his wife. Piljung appeals to Gihyeok's career ambitions, and Gihyeok basically betrayed Heejae. Gihyeok did regret it, but Heejae didn't think much of it because he knew that Piljung would have his way no matter whethr Gihyeok agreed to rat him out or not.
Gihyeok took over the Ha Chanho murder case part way through as Heejae and Geumja were dismissed from Song & Kim. However, Gihyeok just wasn't as savvy as Heejae and Geumja were at finding more evidence, and he didn't end up doing too well on that case, but Choong was going to swoop in and take Ha Chanho as their client for his appeal.
Gihyeok basically returned to being a bro by the end of the drama.
Li Jieun
Jieun was Geumja's assistant, a very smart and savvy young lady. It was revealed that her mother had abandoned her and her siblings, and she had attempted suicide but was saved by Geumja and offered a job by her. So Jieun basically saw Geumja as family.
Jieun was mostly an extension of Geumja for most of the drama. There were times when Jieun intervened on behalf of Geumja's personal life, particularly when it came to her romantic relationship with Heejae, and the return of her father.
Geumja also treated Jieun very well, often treating her to food when she'd done well or when she was working very hard. A very bubbly and cute character :3
Lee Chunguk
Changuk was a partner at Song & Kim, but he was different from most in that he wasn't the most career motivated, which made it easier for Geumja to win him over when she joined Song & Kim. Changuk kept to himself, and word on the street was that he made a lot of money in investments.
Anyway, he wasn't a partner for nothing, and he was quite smart and resourceful as well. He would often step in as an authority when Heejae or Geumja weren't available, and he was good at offering guidance or moral support to the younger ones.
After Heejae and Geumja left Song & Kim, apparently he'd been asking too many questions, and he was fired. He then subsequently joined Choong lol.
Boo Hyeona
Hyeona was an ambitious lawyer at Song & Kim. She and Geumja started on the wrong foot, seeing as how they had been on opposing sides of a case before, and to add to that Hyeona also kind of had a crush on Heejae.
However, through them being forced to work together, they slowly grew to respect one another, and become friends :3
Eventually, Hyeona "confessed" to Heejae, but it was kind of a tame kind of confession. Either she knew that Heejae was already in love with Geumja and she knew that she had no shot, or she always only saw him with platonic admiration. In any case, her romantic attraction to Heejae didn't really affect her ability to work with him. She was eventually nabbed over by Choong from Song & Kim to work on Yoon Chungyeon's case.
Na Ijun
Ijun was the first year associate that had been assigned to Geumja when she first joined Song & Kim. Apparently he'd only been working on meeting minutes up until he'd been assigned to work with her. I think assignment to her team was supposed to be a petty move by the others at Song & Kim who didn't approve of Geumja. Basically I think they purposely assigned her the least experienced employee in the office.
But Ijun was hardworking and earnest, and towards the end of the drama, we saw him taking initiative in doing his own field work! Go him!
Song Piljung
Piljung was the managing partner at Song & Kim. The firm had actually originally belonged to his wife's father, who had given him the reins. However, it's suspected that he probably never really loved his wife, and that he'd married her for control of the firm. According to his sister-in-law, he'd actually been divorced from his wife for 15 years, but continued to visit her for appearances. It was also revealed that he would often do shady things in his wife's name to avoid suspicion, despite the fact that she'd been in a coma for years.
Anyway, Piljung's thing was that he was power-hungry and would help to put people in positions that would make them vulnerable to his manipulation. He never did anything that would not help himself personally.
When Heejae's father was in deep shit, Piljung cut his losses and refused to help because he didn't want to implicate himself, which stung for Heejae. That's when Heejae made it his mission to protect his father, and also to bring down Piljung.
As I predicted, Piljung was not found guilty for corruption (because Heejae's father refused to own up to his own misdoings), but was instead brought down by his involvement in the murder of Seo Jeonghwa (i.e. the Ha Chanho murder case). Most powerful people who abuse their power are not taken down for their crimes, but instead for something else entirely that's easier to prove and less easy to cover up.
The story ended with Piljung being arrested, and Geumja showing him the evidence that they had on him. I wish the show would've ended with him being behind bars, but I guess this is acceptable if there were time constraints, as Piljung was still hit with that sense of uneasiness, knowing that he wasn't as infallible as he thought he was.
Kim Minjoo
Kim Minjoo was Song Piljung's sister-in-law, and I guess the Kim to Song & Kim, though her father was the original Kim. She was inactive in the firm until the events in this drama.
I'm kind of disappointed that she was barely used in this drama as a character. Come of think of it, she didn't really do anything to threaten Song Piljung, other than embarrass him in front of Kevin Jung, though that did not stop Kevin from doing business with him. As a counterweight to Song Piljung in Song & Kim, she really didn't do that much unfortunately.
Ma Seokgu
Ma Seokgu was a lawyer at Song & Kim who kind of hated Heejae and wanted him to fail. He would work with Kim Minjoo to bring down Piljung, Heejae, and Geumja, though to varying degrees of success.
Yoon Chungyeon
Chungyeon was Heejae's dad, a judge who had worked extensively with Song Piljung, and he was later tried for corruption. When he had initially been found out, he had attempted suicide, but was unsuccessful. Heejae had interpreted his dad's attempted suicide as him wanting to protect the operation that Song Piljung had built, which angered Heejae because, like, his dad was throwing his life away for someone who wouldn't even help him in his time of need.
Heejae had tried to motivate his dad into owning up to his crimes because (1) it was the right thing to do and (2) if he confessed, it would be easier to pin down Song Piljung by association. Unfortunately, Chungyeon pleaded not guilty to corruption charges. He said to Heejae that he'd done it because it was the best way of protecting himself.
Taking that into consideration, perhaps Chungyeon attempting suicide was not necessarily him protecting Song Piljung, but instead him protecting his own pride, since he wouldn't have to own up to his own crimes.
Again, Heejae was incredibly disappointed because his dad had instilled morals in him that he is now turning back on. But it's the whole "absolute power corrupts absolutely" or whatever. If Chungyeon wasn't an immoral man, he wouldn't have bought into Piljung's scheme to begin with, and it's hard for anyone but himself to take him out of it.
Chungyeon's case wasn't really brought up again, because Heejae then focused on bringing down Piljung via the murder case, so that entire corruption scandal came to an end in a rather unsatisfying way.
Shim Yumi
Yumi was a school friend of Heejae's, and Geumja used her to get close to Yumi. She was kind of a loudmouth, and unfortuantely it was through her that others at Song & Kim found out that Geumja and Heejae had been dating. But Heejae and Geumja never really thought poorly of her, they knew that she was just overdramatic.
Jung Chunsu
Chunsu was Geumja's (adoptive) dad. He'd killed Geumja's mom but was let off easy, so Geumja and Juho worked together to frame him for attempted murder of Geumja. He was supposed to go to jail for 30 years, but was let out recently, which shocked Geumja.
What was more unsettling was that Chunsu was now apparently a changed man, one who was religious, which apparently made him better than everyone around him. He somehow realized that Geumja and Juho had framed him, and he wanted to use that to blackmail them, but they didn't really know what evidence he had on them, if any.
Anyway, Geumja lost her cool with him because he would not let them go even after she threatened him with violence. She was going to settle the score with him one last time, but was attacked by one of Song Piljung's men who stabbed her and subsequently stabbed Chunsu to death. Chunsu died off screen, to which Geumja just kind of said good riddance to.
Like I said, I didn't think Geumja's past was explored enough. Though he relationship with her dad was straightforward enough, I felt that the writers took the easy way out by making her dad still an asshole so she wouldn't have to do any deep thinking about him. Not that it's bad, it was just the easy way out. If Chunsu was actually a changed man, that would've brought Geumja a lot of weird mixed feelings, which this drama probably isn't really prepared to tackle given that its writing is stronger in legal thrillers and not so much emotional conflicts.
Park Juho
Juho was Geumja's childhood friend. He was working as a police officer and would give Geumja private intel, but was later fired.
In the middle of the drama, he was confronted by Chunsu, and in a fit of fear, Juho sought legal advice from Heejae and basically told him Geumja's entire life story, which was definitely rash and didn't really match Juho's personality. He was way too private to be such a blabbermouth.
Anyway, later on, Juho joined Geumja and Choong as an investigator, since that was what he was good at.
Kwon Yongun
Yongun was a prosecutor. He didn't have a huge role, but he was a recurring character. From time to time, Heejae would approach him when working on cases, and in the end, Yongun worked with Heejae and Geumja to arrest Son Bongu and Song Piljung.
Ha Chanho
Chanho was the eldest son of the Ha family, and the CEO of Issume. He was a druggie and was obsessed with his mistress.
The first case covered his divorce with his wife, which ended in a loss for him. In the middle of the drama, there were some power struggles as his younger sister wanted to take control of Issume (and she was far more capable of doing it too). One of the last cases in the drama was regarding the murder of his mistress. Ha Chanho looked very obviously like the murderer, but it was later revealed that he was framed.
What wasn't great about Ha Chanho was that in the end, when it became more apparent that he was framed, it seemed like the show was showing him in a more sympathetic light, even though he had always been an abusive asshole! Just because he's not a murderer doesn't mean he didn't literally lock up his mistress and hurt her.
Kevin Jung
Kevin Jung was the CEO of AP Eon, which was a firm that wanted to acquire Issume. Kevin took a personal interest in Geumja the first time they met. While Geumja did work with Kevin the entire time, it really felt like she was neutral to him and that all the interest was from his side.
By the end of the drama, Kevin took little damage financially. I think the official acquisition of Issume was interrupted by Piljung getting arrested, so I'm not sure if that will go ahead, and if it doesn't, it doesn't really hurt Kevin's status quo.
Kevin was still interested in Geumja, and the last episode was when Geumja had to make it clear to him that she was only polite to him because of work and that she never liked him (since apparently he couldn't take any cues lol).
Themes
Geumja and Heejae came from two different worlds, so at the begining, when they were always butting heads, I felt like there were a lot of juxtapositions about how differently they lived. Heejae said that he lived in the past and the future, which is something that is usually true of rich powerful people. They are who they are because of their background, and people anticipate what they can become. On the other hand, people like Geumja must live in the present because her past weighs her down, and nobody will give her the time of day to invest in her future. As someone who's come from a tough past, she must think only of the now.
There was a loose theme of memories as well, with Geumja wanting to paint over her past painful memories. She wanted to stop remembering the painful memories of her abusive father because she hated being reduced back to that frightened young girl. And she wanted to buy that building that she was abandoned at because she didn't want it to be a sad place anymore. At one point, Yumi had said that she was trying to build new, good memories over her old ones by having dates with Gihyeok in places that she used to go with her ex-husband. It's essentially what Geumja was trying to do, but a little further in the future I suppose.
Overall
Sorry if my writing was all over the place. I'm not so good at writing about TV shows and my thoughts tend to jump around because there is so much to write about.
But anyway, even though this show wasn't perfect, there were a lot of good things going for it, particularly the investigative teamwork scenes and the thrilling courtroom scenes. The characters were well written enough but they weren't given an opportunity to shine to their full potential. At points, there were too many things happening at once and not enough attention were given to the right things in my opinion.