TV Recap: City Hunter Ep. 2

Well hello again, everyone. I decided to give Episode 2 a chance, and though there were some minor annoyances here and there, this episode actually piqued my interest a little more since the WTF-ery from Episode 1, so chances are I'm gonna keep watching this series.

Before I start recapping, I realized I'd forgotten to mention that I used to read the City Hunter manga a few years ago. I honestly don't remember anything about it except that the City Hunter character was a huge pervert, but I'm preeeeetty sure there was nothing about avenging his father's death. I remember it was a pretty entertaining manga though. Anyways, on to business...

This episode starts off approximately the same place where we left off, with the exception of a new scene at this building that looks kind of like the White House, except with more obnoxious patriotism because there are eagle statues atop every peak of the building. With all the stacks of hundred dollar bills everywhere, I'm guessing this is supposed to be the Grand Drug Lord aka Crazy McCrazypants' palace of finery, but I'm a little confused. Did they always have this palace? If so, why did they stay in that little jungle villa this whole time? Or did they suddenly build this after he lost his leg, since he can't go tromping around the jungle anymore?

Anyways, handsome jungle-hair Lee Min Ho receives a letter of acceptance from MIT. I have so many questions. How did this happen? Did he even receive proper schooling in the jungle? What did he put down for extracurriculars? "I've been physically training to be an assassin since I was born, which involved fighting in mud and shooting targets placed around my foster mother." I consulted YY, who's seen this series already and suggested that maybe Crazy McCrazypants donated an entire building to MIT, thanks to all that drug money. Sounds about right to me.

His pink pants are a lot brighter than in this pic. Trust me.

Anyways, we now fast-forward to seven years later. I'm not sure if that MIT acceptance was to undergrad or graduate school, but regardless---somehow Lee Min Ho has graduated with a PhD from MIT in that short amount of time and he shows up in Korea wearing bright pink pants, and now we are introduced to presumably the heroine and love interest, Kim Nana. Turns out this girl has been doing all sorts of odd jobs (including passing out flyers while wearing a funny yellow dress) in order to pay the bills to support her father, who's been in persistent vegetative state (PVS) for ten years. She begs the doctor to save her father---and this is where I feel conflicted. On one hand, I sympathize with her grief about father, but as a future med student who's been reading about end-of-life care, I feel like ten years in PVS is not about quality of life for the patient and more about keeping him alive due to her guilt over his death.Given that this is a K-drama, I'm wondering if this is like Chekhov's gun. If you introduce a comatose patient in the first act, does that mean he will miraculously wake up in the following act?

One of Nana's odd jobs is being a Designated Driver--which is kinda funny, because I've had to do this job all the time for friends out of charity and the goodness of my heart. Minor observation: she has this atrocious flowery fringe thing that I don't even know how to describe, but it's detachable from her dress and it made me snort. Anyways, she picks up Lee Min Ho and his drunk paramour from the club, but not before flipping this undercover prosecutor who forcefully tries to interrogate Drunk Chick and is mistaken for being a perverted creepo. Nana drives them to their hotel--well, only part of the way, because Drunk Chick starts getting frisky and Nana is grossed out.

Lee Min Ho doesn't seem to be enjoying this much either.

She kicks them out of the car and says she's only driving this far but he still owes her money. He acts like a walking anal orifice, and this is the first sign of something that ended up bugging me this whole episode, but I'll get to that later. They get in an argument, and she leaves in a huff but later realizes she left her cell phone in the car. Meanwhile in the hotel room, Lee Min Ho starts plying Drunk Chick with wine in order to figure out what Evil Councilman #1, this chick's sugar daddy, is up to. Nana, desperate for her phone, tries a bunch of methods but ends up kicking his car and setting off the alarm. She's not there when he finally comes downstairs all annoyed, but he sees her phone and realizes what she was up to.

At the hospital, Nana begs this doctor to give her father some major stent operation, and he tells her that they don't normally do such risky procedures on PVS patients. But then Lee Min Ho shows up with all his moolah and says, Just do it--I already paid for it. My inner conflict continues to cringe. Ethically, this is not appropriate at all... but... but... sigh.

Next thing we know, Nana is accepted to this Secret Service training program. She runs into Lee Min Ho there, who is newly hired to work in some other national security branch. All his coworkers brown-nose him real bad---I had no idea being an MIT graduate was such a big deal in Korea, seeing that they're practically licking dirt off his shoes at this point lol. Anyways, the pacing of this episode gets all weird around this point. Basically a bunch of things happen all at once:

1. Nana tries to force Lee Min Ho to let her pay him back for her dad's medical bills, best exemplified by when she takes him down twice with this judo move. I am confused--wasn't he supposed to be a beast at fighting, after all the craptastic training Crazy McCrazypants put him through? Is he pretending to be weak, or did all his muscles atrophy while he was studying at MIT? Anyways, he relents and lets her make up the money by hiring her as his driver.
2. Nana and another agent are assigned to be bodyguards for the President's daughter, who is quite a brat but I actually find her kind of amusing. She takes an immediate liking to Lee Min Ho, who shuts her down real fast.
3. Cute Prosecutor is apparently after the same evil councilman that Lee Min Ho is after, and he's trying to arrest him for corruption charges. Lee Min Ho figures out they're after the same person, but Cute Prosecutor hasn't figured out the opposite.
4. Lee Min Ho continues to investigate Evil Councilman #1 and manages to sneak into his home and steal his diary, which has a record of all the illegal crap he's been doing. 

In a notable scene, the President's daughter goes straight to clubbing after school, which to me seems totally ridiculous because who the hell goes clubbing in the late afternoon/early evening---as evidenced by the ridiculously empty dance floor. Upstairs, Nana runs into Lee Min Ho right after he's ended things with Drunk Chick, who's broken up with Evil Councilman #1 and has no use to him anymore. In spectacular K-drama fashion, to make Drunk Chick go away he kisses Nana in this 360 degree panning shot where we are treated to every single angle of their awkward kiss.

Instead of explaining properly, maybe she'll just go away if I kiss you.

Nana is pissed that he took her first kiss so crudely and ends up judo-flipping him right in the middle of the club. She also starts freaking out because the President's daughter manages to sneak out of the club and away from her pesky bodyguards, but fortunately for her, Cute Prosecutor happens to be there and directs her to where he saw the girl run off to. Methinks a love triangle is in the cards. Too bad--I like this prosecutor, such an upstanding gentleman and with such nice manners too!

The next day at work, Lee Min Ho accidentally injures Nana's foot during judo practice so he ends up having to drive her home and helping carry her around and stuff. He's also wearing this horrendous pink shirt--even my dishcloth looks more attractive than that flimsy low-cut t-shirt. They eat ramen together in her apartment, and that's how we learn that Nana's mother died in the accident that put her father into a coma. Most of her belongings are in danger of being repossessed if she can't pay the bills. Anyways, this other storyline begins, featuring these two young kids in Nana's apartment building who are starving and essentially orphans. One of them is allergic to flour but ends up eating bread and is sent to the hospital. When Nana and Lee Min Ho go to the welfare office to ask for help, the numbers don't add up and it's obvious that Evil Councilman #1 has been doing some shady business with playing the numbers in his child welfare project.

Or something like that. END EPISODE.

All in all, this was a relatively entertaining episode, except I was REALLY annoyed by what they did to Lee Min Ho's character in this seven-years-later spiel. You see, he seemed like such a sweetheart back in the jungle. He cared about his foster mother, he rescued a gambler from angry gangsters, he cried for Crazy McCrazypants when the dude lost his leg. Then it was like he went and got a personality transplant in the US when he went to MIT, because seven years later he is a certified Grade A asshole. I've never watched Boys Over Flowers before, but it's probably not too different from Hana Yori Dango and he completely reminded me of Domyouji--who, surprise surprise, is the basis of the character that Lee Min Ho played in Boys Over Flowers.

Maybe he was corrupted by the money that he never got to use while living in the jungle?  I don't know, I just feel like it was completely unnecessary to bestow all the stereotypical K-drama Male Lead qualities upon him--such as Rich Arrogant Playboy Who Regularly Insults Poor Sweet Virgin. Also, I didn't mention this in my last recap, but Lee Min Ho saw a photo of Nana from the gambler when he was in the jungle. It's clear that he still remembers seeing her in the photo. So why does he treat her like such crap and constantly insults her about how he's not interested in her type and that she should go buy a mirror? What the eff man, you totally kept her picture by your bedside seven years ago!!

My prediction: things between Nana and the Cute Prosecutor are gonna heat up, eventually stirring some jealousy from Lee Min Ho. 

SL: lee min ho's behavior now reminds me too much of the typical boys over flowers lead jerkwad character
YY: hmm...oh yeah...I vaguely remember that now... I think it improves?
SL: i dunno. to me, i'm kinda like... does getting a PhD at MIT really make you such a buttfaced miscreant?
YY: actually...probably yes

To be continued...