#kim shin rok

[ladyverdance]

Is that why you asked me that? Did you find anything? That was the first thing you asked me. "Are you looking for her?" - that wasn't what you asked. When it's Min-jeong of all people. And we hadn't found her body.

Kim Shin-rok as Oh Ji-hwa BEYOND EVIL (2021), dir. Na-Yeon Shim

[dramastream]

Kim Shin Rok for Harper's BAZAAR Korea, February 2023

[namjhyun]

Yoon Kye Sang, Park Sung Hoon, Yu Na and Kim Shin Rok for VOGUE Korea September 2023 promoting The Kidnapping Day.

[fridayvelvet]

Whore fits

[michyeosseo]

you’re like a car crash through my heart

I Know What I Like by Muki

[lemon-inferno]

Reborn Rich the final episode

What an ending.

It's so bittersweet but I love it. Maybe it's my obsession with Jin Do Jun, but if you follow the actual chronology of things - Do Jun was reborn as Hyun Woo first. Because he died first. And if fate cannot be changed then he was meant to recover his memories as Jin Do Jun, which had alread been burried within him. Even before Hyun Woo "died" (for a week), it was meant to happen. So who is really who at the end? As Hyun Woo called it, you could think of it as repentance, but for me personally, Do Jun existed in Hyun Woo long before Hyun Woo got "reborn" as Do Jun.

All that being said, I do have some very smaaaaaall issues with the ending.

First, it felt rushed. Honestly the last 3 episodes or so felt really rushed compared to the rest of the drama's pace. Everything that needed to happen still happened, but it was just.... I don't wanna say half-baked but.....

Second, Hyun Woo got shot straight in the head point blank. You're telling me he miraculously survived that? Sure there are some miracles that happene even in real life, but it's a patter I hate with tv shows, nto just kdrama. At the very least, he would've needed years to recover. Although, if I really want to defend it, I could say the years he spent as Do Jun somehow changed Hyun Woo's brain's perception of time which afforded him just enough time to recover. Still, between Do Jun's and Hyun Woo's death, Do Jun would've had a much higher survival rate than Hyun Woo. Sure, Do Jun's car got slammed pretty hard, but it's not comparable to getting shot at point blank IN THE FREAKING HEAD, now is it? :/

Also I would've loved to see the actual process of Mr. Oh Se Hyun working with Do Jun's mother, instead of just hearing about all the things they're gonna do..... but we don't get to see them.

Jin Sung Jun's character deserved more too. Sure he was greedy, but he was not guilty of ordering Do Jun's murder. Both times he was innocent. He knew everyone would've suspected him, which is was exactly what his father wanted. It's the reason why he got the company in the first place. Sung Jun deserves some justice too. I feel like it would've been that more epic if the show had gone back to the conversation between Hyun Woo and Sung Jun from episode 1 and committed to the bond that was forming. Imagine if we had Hyun Woo and Sung Jun working together in the final episodes. Hyun Woo gets to finish Do Jun's deed and Sung Jun finally has a change of heart and pays tribute to his grandfather and runs the company with the same heart his grandfather had.

On a more positive note (says anticupid), Hyun Woo did not end up in a relationship with Min Young! Which makes logical sense, for once. I'm not saying I'm happy that they didn't get together, I'm saying it happened for the right reasons. But I'm sure most of the ship's fans will be satisfied that she seemed to recognize Do Jun in Hyun Woo in the end. One could imagine they did end up meeting up and like.... making babies. Idk.

I liked the future Min Young a lot more. Although for her to become the Soonyang Grim Reapper and wear only black because she was mourning for Do Jun, I really would have loved to see more of their relationship developing at least? As it was all based on only a few times they talked? Briefly? But I guess human emotiones are unpredictable, so it's possible. Anyways, there's that.

A little sad the endings of the rest of the characters were rushed by too, but I didn't see anything that made me think "hmm this doesn't make sense". Honestly, is there not going to be a season 2? Now I'm kinda disappointed, because I wish we had spent more time with how the other characters' life continued. As well as more to see of Do Jun with his family. But I get it, it was never the focus of the show.

All my other thoughts about this drama flew out the window.

I can say it was a lovely experience. I enjoyed this so much despite constantly finding something to nag about. I loved following Jin Do Jun's life, and that particular era in South Korea's history. The real footage they used. I loved Jin Yang Cheol's character, I loved Lee Sung Min's acting (as well as Joong Ki's, always).

It made me cry a couple of times and any drama that invokes real emotion in me keeps a spot in my heart. Especially when Ha In Seok went to testify and thought Hyun Woo was Do Jun (was he wrong though?) and wanted to protect him. The unspoken hero of this show. It was a fantastic story, even if we look at it only from Do Jun's perspective, it makes for an amazing story. Had Hyun Woo not even been a part of this drama, I would've still loved just watching Do Jun and his grandpa. Hyun Woo's growth at the end was the bonus for me. I get to exprience something which unlocked his cage and his heart. The boy who grew up in poverty and had many hardships because of it, the boy who willingly walked into a cage because of his trauma caused by poverty. He put his emotions aside, thinking that money was more important than them. Finally, he was freed from it all.

With a new look on life, a new heart and a new dream, he was able to leave all of his hurt behind and live in a way that not only fits him better, as a human, but also a life that Do Jun would be proud to see him live.

Ugh. I'm gonna miss Do Jun's smile though. I know Joong Ki plays both, but that smile is now Do Jun's until the day I die and there's no changing my mind.

Alright, time to go cry in a dark corner. I love-hate this ending.

[undisclosedmemoirs]

My guess? Young Ki is responsible for the accident and Sung Jun knows about it. Do Joon will eventually be out of the picture and Young Ki is going to get the CEO position in the end, so we will have to wait for the board meeting to see how that will happen.

I am not ready to see the downfall of Jin Yang Cheol. By downfall I mean going from a strong and imposing business man to a frail and weak old man. Nothing wrong with that, it's life and he has serious health issues, but looking at the preview and seeing him showing signs of dementia is truly heartbreaking (LEE SUNG MIN WITH HIS GENIUS ACTING).

I know he is not the best man around but the show really made us actually care for him a bit. All in all he is the antagonist of the show, but not really. He is an emperor who built his empire from scratch and wants someone to understand that. To understand the struggles he went through and what it takes to mantain that empire. Unfortunately, his first son and grandson can't grasp that idea, the second son only wants affection but does not have what it takes to take over, his only daugther is automatically out of the race and his fourth son was practically disowned. However, his youngest grandson does get it and their interactions are getting increasingly precious, even after knowing how ruthless JYC can be.

[dramaddict-and-proud-of-it]

Reborn Rich

Year : 2022 | Country : KR | Nb of episodes: 16

My rate: 9/10

Synopsis :

Yoon Hyun Woo is a devoted, hard-working, and loyal secretary to the Soonyang chaebol family, which runs the lucrative Soonyang Group business empire, founded by Jin Yang Cheol. During a power struggle between Jin Yang Cheol's children for control of the empire, Hyun Woo is ruthlessly betrayed and killed under the orders of an unknown member of the chaebol family. Miraculously he wakes up as a kid inside the body of the youngest member of the family – Jin Do Jun.

After he realizes what has happened, Yoon Hyun Wo plots to use his new “identity” to formulate a hostile takeover of the group – and punish the people who killed him. But, will the cold-blooded and money-hungry CEO of Soonyang Group, one who firmly believes in right of primogeniture, be so easy to win over or conquer? Will Hyun Woo be able to wrest the reins from Jin Yang Cheol's children? And what role will be played in all this by a dogged public prosecutor named Seo Min Young, nicknamed “Soonyang Group Grim Reaper”?

Main cast :

Song Joong Ki as Ji Do Joon / Yoon Hyun Woo

Lee Sung Min as Jin Yang Cheol

Shin Hyun Bin as Seo Min Young

Yoon Je Moon as Jin Young Ki

Jo Han Cheol as Jin Dong Ki

Kim Young Jae as Jin Young Ki

Kim Shin Rok as Jin Hwa Young

Kim Nam Hee as Jin Sung Joon

Park Hyuk Kwon as Oh Se Hyun

Tiffany Young as Rachel

My thoughts on this drama :

This is a drama that made we go What The Hell at the end. Like, really.

It's a masterpiece. As far as modern, cheabol themed dramas go, this is by far one of the very best. We're again dealing with some big money revenge plot but it is so well executed! Song Joong Ki aced his role. I'm still stuned by his performance.

Highly recommended if you wish to enjoy a fast paced, well built story with interesting characters.

A Favorite ?

YES

[fyeahkoreanphotoshoots]

Kim Shin Rok - GQ Magazine March Issue '22

[dramastream]

Kim Shin Rok for Arena Homme+ Korea (Feb. 2023)

[namjhyun]

Kim Shin Rok for Harper’s Bazaar Korea January 2023

[alltomevibes]

so there's gonna be a kidnapping day s2, right, because the way the last episode ended....

[michyeosseo]

You sound sarcastic.

[lemon-inferno]

Reborn Rich episode 10 ✔️

This is my longest one yet.

I started this episode already frustrated, because I know where we left off in the previous one. If read my post about episode 9, you know how I feel about Seo Min Young’s character and why. The beginning of this episode was hard to watch for me.

You may be thinking “But she came to help Do Jun”, but for me he didn’t. Do Jun helped himself by convincing the secretary to turn against Hwa Young and save herself. Before that Min Young was full on investigating him and Miracle Investments. Which I understand is her job as a prosecutor, but she only started this investigation against him because she thought he lied to her, which hurt her since she has feelings for him, which is not professional at all. If Do Jun hadn’t given her the tip about Hwa Young, she wouldn’t have even gotten that far. However, I almost liked that she at least tried to stand her ground and insist on seeing through the investigation against Hwa Young. I thought, maybe the conflict that formed with her senior will help the character take a better shape, for me. Maybe from this point on she takes on her career as a single point of focus instead of being all over the place. Yet again, I was disappointed when she called up Do Jun to cry about it. Somehow now it’s his fault that she couldn’t carry out the investigation. He did enough just by giving her the tip, from then on, she had the ball. It’s not her fault that her boss is a jerkface, but it’s not Do Jun’s fault either. He could care less about whether Hwa Young actually goes to prison or not. He just wanted her shares.

Over all my impression of her character didn’t really improve for me this episode either. Her lines in the restaurant didn’t make sense to me. Her personality between prosecutor and a girl that’s in love feel disconnected from one another, as if they tried to combine two characters into one. I don’t understand why Do Jun is attracted to her, other than they met for two minutes in his previous life. I wish they had given us a better reason or shown us a stronger connection between the two. The “grab her wrist and run together” moment is also so cheesy and recycled. I wish dramas would stop doing that in general. Surely you can come up with a better way to create an exciting and memorable moment. And the kiss. And the date. Which I will not discuss. Maybe I’m really just a broken person and I understand nothing when it comes to romance (not to be confused with relationships). But enough about this. I don’t know why it gets me so fired up.

What I really like is the idea they put forward with Min Young having to go against Do Jun after all, because she’s forced to. Or something similar to it. The kind of dynamic in a relationship I want to see in kdramas is a love/hate one, with intense chemistry between them. That’s not what we’re currently getting, but it made me think that it would’ve been sooooo much more exciting and entertaining if Min Young and Do Jun had that kind of relationship. A dynamic where they’re natural enemies, who feel strong s*xual attraction between them, but their pride doesn’t let them admit it, so they continue a cat and mouse game.

Next, I should’ve talked about this early, or maybe I shouldn’t at all because with Lee Sung Min’s impressive filmography it shouldn’t be a surprise, but his acting is so, so good. He makes the chairman’s role so exciting and interesting to me. He makes it feel like a real person. Even though the show never showed us Jin Yang Cheol’s process of creating Soonyang, suffering while growing it and all the sacrifices he made, we do get plenty of hints of it. What Lee Sung Min does best is make us feel like we actually saw all of it, like we were with the chairman every step on his journey to where he is now. I get an incredible feeling of admiration every time he’s in a scene.

A precious scene was when Jin Yang Cheol called Do Jun “this innocent kid…, my own grandson…”. We don’t see it often, but every time the chairman shows some kind of sentiment towards Do Jun, it warms my heart in a weird, remony way.

I’m very interested in the fact that Jin Dong Ki is interested in numerology and believes in it. I’m not surprised by the fact that numerology is involved, because it’s not uncommon for East Asian countries, but rather I’m surprised that they’ve decided to add it to his personality. And so late in the show, at that. But it does give some more spice to the character and it makes it feel a bit more complete. I wonder if it’s to underline the idea that fate is one and you can’t escape it, if anyone disrupts it karma gets involved? Since Do Jun is living a second life, which takes place in the same timeline as Hyun Woo, you could argue he’s rewriting history. However, no matter what he’s done as Do Jun that didn’t exist in his timeline as Hyun Woo, the results remain more or less the same as when he was Hyun Woo. Or at least they have so far. We do still have to see the actual ending to know if this theory is correct though. Also, at the end of the episode he remembers that he was the real Do Jun before Hyun Woo, who died. So, is this a reincarnation cycle? He was Do Jun first, then Hyun Woo, then Do Jun again? A bit confusing, but very interesting. Can’t wait for the next episode.

After Dong Ki’s breakdown scene, I’m finally able to understand his three kids (from his wife) as separate entities, not a horde of greedy villains. This was always lurking somewhere in the back of my mind, but it couldn’t form into a ripe thought. The greedy one, it’s Hwa Young. As an only daughter she was spoiled and never grew up, or only grew up to want more. She’s fighting for money that she never learned how to earn. Dong Ki is fighting for his father’s love still, at this age. He’s been working hard to prove himself and get his father’s approval, and most importantly – attention. Things he’s never had as a middle child. In his mind he was always overshadowed by either the oldest (the successor) or the youngest (the precious). Young Ki is fighting for his son, to give him what he couldn’t have. Both his father’s love and attention, and Soonyang Group. Jin Yang Cheol’s favorite child however, is Soonyang. Not because he’s greedy, but because it’s his life and pride. He wishes at least one of his kids would recognize and share his sentiment, which just doesn’t happen. This realization made that breakdown scene very emotional for me.

The scene where Do Jun removed Soonyang Department Store’s tag from the Soonyang Group tree and put it under Miracle Investments on the white board was so good. It felt like a chess move. Which I guess it was, only, in business terms. Speaking of Soonyang, someone pointed out to me today that there’s a “nyang” in Soonyang and that’s what Koreans use for “meow”.

They called it Soomeow Group and I got their permission to steal it.

[undisclosedmemoirs]

Holy moly I was so annoyed by Jin Hwa Young and her spoilt brat attitude this episode. Kim Shin Rok is doing a superb job with her character. On another note Jin Yang Cheol's words were so cruel it almost made me feel bad for her "You are not my problem anymore". Even if by social and cultural rules (not that applied anymore thank heaven, at least not were i am from) a woman being married off means she marries into her husband's family and is theoretically no longer fully part of her own family (from what I understood this to be), to say that to your own child....

That is wild to me and no wonder she feels left out, is spoiled and needs her father's approval and attention. She was literally cast aside for being a woman. Although it does not invalidate the fact that she is in fact a spoiled, priviledged and manipulative brat. What she wanted to do to her financial manager made my blood boil.

[figr0llmouse]

Top 3 Kdrama Villains

Shin Sung Rok as Lee Jae Kyung in My Love From The Star

Kim Yeo Gin as Choi Myung Hee in Vincenzo

Lee Soo Hyuk as Gwi in Scholar Who Walks The Night