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k00ps · 11 months

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(Spoilers for Taxi Driver Season 2)

I meant to post this when I initially finished the show, but I had some issues with Taxi Driver 2 (the kdrama).

It very much seemed like a cash grab compared to the first season and you can tell based on the writing, the characters, the predictable storylines, and don’t even get me started on that random lady who showed up at the end of the show just to save the Rainbow Crew.

But anyways what I want to address is On Ha Joon and his character arc. What it was and how it could’ve been better.

On Ha Joon was by far the most interesting character of that season. He most definitely snatched the spotlight from the other characters on several occasions. He was probably the only character who had any real significant personal change.

His character is a representation of one of the themes that Taxi Driver highlighted the whole show: found family. His experience with the cult and Father is a reflection of Kim Do Gi and his loving found family with the Rainbow Crew. This is consistently shown through the loving, fun, and compassionate nature of the Rainbow Crew, vs the distant relationships based on power, material gain, and fear of the cult family.

I feel Ha Joon’s arc was okay, but had so much potential to be better. Like the setup was right there, so I want to walk through some parts of the show and what I would change.

Ha Joon’s introduction is through his infiltration of the taxi job. He is initially presented as naive, innocent, kind, hard-working, enthusiastic, and attentive. However it is soon revealed to be that he is simply someone who can easily put up a facade. Someone who is cold and calculating, but has the capacity to lose his cool and respond with rage. As the show progresses, he becomes more and more violent and frustrated, willing to take extreme measures to remove anything he feels is in his way. He already knows who the Rainbow Crew are as he’s already done quite a bit of research into them. This is all for the sake of entertainment, but also because they could pose a future problem.

Now I *thought* they would go down the route of having Ha Joon experience what true family feels like, through his interaction with Mr. Jang actually caring about his well-being. He even expressed interested “befriending” Do Gi. However, I guess the writers decided to double down on his role as primary antagonist, because Ha Joon completely rejected these ideas of connection to remain fixed on his current way of life and appeal of Father. I would scrap this.

Instead, I think Ha Joon should have had individual bonding moments with every character of the Rainbow Crew, in addition to group outings. Each interaction would chip away at his idea of what a family is and make him question the dynamic he has in the cult. As he spends more and more time with them, his affinity for them would grow, so much so that he might not even want to harm them anymore. This would even be a good place for him to learn about Kim Do Gi’s fatal flaw (the whistle) through Do Gi being vulnerable, instead of him just breaking into the house and seeing it. Kim Do Gi would now have someone new he can be vulnerable with after so long, looking at Ha Joon as a little brother figure.

Then, as the Rainbow Crew continues to ruin the cult members’ enterprises, the stakes would increase as Father’s frustration increases. This would further put pressure on Ha Joon because he would be put in a position where he has to ruin the people who treated him with love and acceptance, or else be faced with dire consequences.

In addition to this, instead of giving the audience suspense bait through Ha Joon *almost* discovering the Rainbow Cave, I would make him actually discover it. This would *force* the Rainbow Crew to be honest with him, and after some cautious deliberation and arguing, they would be fully transparent. They could even use this moment to make Do Gi a little suspicious of how much Ha Joon actually knows until it’s fully revealed that he is apart of the cult.

Now we move forward to Ha Joon being pressed by Father to the point of “killing” Do Gi. Now instead of parading Ha Joon around like a proud villain, they could use this moment to reveal just how much he cherished his moments with them. The decision he made ended someone’s life and that someone was a person he cared about. Someone he looked up to. In addition to leaving his job at the taxi company having “completed” his mission, the subtext of the scene is that he is also leaving because the guilt of staying is too great. As the cult and Father relish in the happiness of having defeated the problem, he stands there in agony. This agony channels itself into frustration and mild forms of self destruction that get worse as the Black Sun arc progresses. This way, when things go to shit, there is *more* of a reason to blame Ha Joon, because everyone has noticed the obvious changes in his behavior.

At the same time, the Rainbow Crew, and specifically Do Gi, suffer from Ha Joon’s betrayal. They realize Ha Joon is an enemy, and sulk in the fact they let someone like him in. Do Gi especially takes this personally. This would make the reunion at Black Sun be more impactful, because not only would Ha Joon essentially feel relieved that Do Gi is alive, but now Do Gi is forced to treat him like every other villain. There’s is a lot more emotion tied into the scene than before.

Ofc atp the Rainbow Crew still doesn’t know about Father, so they don’t know that Ha Joon’s action are primarily caused from that, though this fact doesn’t remove blame. When they discover this, they feel some sort of sympathy for Ha Joon, but they do not forgive him. This does however, give *more* of a reason for Mr. Jang to do his research on Ha Joon’s past, thus that part of the show remains the same.

The story can also utilize the fact that Ha Joon knows the Rainbow Crew’s base, but is deliberately not mentioning it.

Regardless, we press on with the Prison Arc, the Rainbow Crew getting snatched and Do Gi becoming trapped.

This is where I would add another large change. Ha Joon manipulates the prison cages, but instead of doing it with glee, you can visibly see the internal struggle of having to do this to Do Gi. The warden is a reflection of the audience in this scene, because he can clearly see this struggle while standing in the room. The external struggle of Do Gi fighting, and the internal struggle of Ha Joon and his decisions. When Do Gi reaches the room and reveals the villainous plans were foiled, the culmination of all this internal struggle manifests through Ha Joon pulling the gun on him.. however, he is ultimately unable to pull the trigger. The power of the loving found family peeks its head out, then this theme is further exemplified through Father punishing and essentially removing Ha Joon from the cult.

He is now put in a position of isolation due to his failures, but the subtext is this situation is really due to his inability to commit to either family. Just like the original, he is shunned as the cult members turn their backs on him and Father rejects him. His family that he has known for so long no longer wants or needs him, and in a last act of desperation, he gives Father knowledge of Do Gi’s fatal flaw. Not only would this appeal to Father, but it would also make Father wonder why Ha Joon never used it to begin with.

We continue with the scene of Mr. Jang meeting with Ha Joon and telling him his past. This is a breakthrough turning point for him, as the realization of him being kidnapped and then manipulated to kill his own father would shatter his perception of the cult as his found family. Him killing his own father would be a reflection of him “killing” Do Gi, essentially showing he made the mistake of killing family who loved and supported him not once, but twice. This would firmly push him to the side of the Rainbow Crew, but they would not overtly say this just yet.

We move forward to when the entirety of the Rainbow Crew is captured and about to die. Father looks upon them and laughs, while Ha Joon stands on the side watching one family dominate the other. He is now faced with one last decision that will decide the fate of both of his found families. At the 11th hour, Ha Joon, unable to deny his feelings any longer, would somehow save the Rainbow crew, standing up to Father, and choosing love over power/fear. Do Gi and the others watch as someone they gave all their support to stands up for *them* rather than the other way around. The writers could still have him die in the process if they so choose, essentially having him sacrifice himself for this new found family. He could also use this moment to *choose* to use his original name, with the Rainbow Crew validating him by calling him as such. This would solidify the theme of the power of a found family’s love and what a true found family looks like.

I feel this ending would eliminate the need to have that random lady from Japan save them. It would also require the deletion of that last little showdown between Do Gi and Ha Joon, but that’s the price I’m willing to pay.

Ha Joon was my fav character and I feel he deserved so much better. These changes would present him as a conflicted character, forced to bounce between two families with heavily contrasting dynamics. As his internal struggles grow, so do the consequences of his actions, until he is finally pushed to fight for a family that truly loves him rather than one that uses and manipulates him.

#taxi driver #taxi driver 2 #kdrama #my thoughts #On Ha Joon #Kim Do Gi #criticism #review #long post

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