Details
Title: ???? / City Hunter
Genre: Action, romance
Episodes: 20
Broadcast network: SBS
Broadcast period: 2011-May-25 to 2011-Jul-??
Air time: Wednesday & Thursday 21:55
Synopsis
The story takes place in Seoul, 2011. Lee Yoon Sung is a talented MIT-graduate who's working on the international communications team at the Blue House. He encounters dangerous situations while solving a variety of cases, both big and small, for people who need his help, and eventually becomes a "city hunter."
Cast
Lee Min Ho as Lee Yoon Sung
Park Min Young as Kim Na Na
Lee Joon Hyuk as Kim Young Jo
Hwang Sun Hee as Jin Soo Hee
Goo Ha Ra as Choi Da Hye
Extended Cast
Kim Sang Joong as Lee Jin Pyo
Chun Ho Jin as Choi Eung Chan
Kim Sang Ho as Bae Shik Joong
Park Sang Min as Park Moo Yul
Kim Mi Sook as Lee Kyung Hee
Lee Seung Hyung as Song Young Duk
Yang Jin Sung (???) as Shin Eun Ah
Lee Kwang Soo as Go Ki Joon
Kim Byung Choon as Jang Woo Hyun
Shin Young Jin (???) as Kim Mi Ok
Lee Hyo Jung as Lee Kyung Wan
Choi Jung Woo as Chun Jae Man
Choi Il Hwa as Kim Jong Shik
Choi Sang Hoon as Seo Yong Hak
Production Credits
Original work: Manga "City Hunter" by Tsukasa Hojo
Producer: Kim Young Sup
Director: Jin Hyuk
Screenwriter: Hwang Eun Kyung, Choi Soo Jin (???)
source: http://wiki.d-addicts.com/
Episode 14 synopsis/recap/summary:
Caught between certain downfall and death, Kim Jong-shik lets go of the railing and falls to the highway below, hitting a car windshield and landing on concrete. Considering how he chose money over his son, this man is just all about the bad decisions.
Young-ju looks up and sees the City Hunter at the railing. Yoon-sung is shocked — not just at these unexpected events, but at his own actions: “What the hell have I done?”
Jin-pyo calls to ask sternly why Yoon-sung would start his revenge only to turn back to save the guy — clearly he’s watching nearby. He adds, “Then striking down Shik-joong becomes meaningless.” Oh, because it was so meaningful before?
Dun dun dun! Yoon-sung realizes that Jin-pyo was the one who hit Shik-joong, to make him go after Kim Jong-shik, and storms in to confront Bad Daddy. Hot damn, I love that these kinds of secrets aren’t dragged out, but quickly realized so we can cut to the interesting part: the fallout.
Jin-pyo admits readily that he did it, saying, “It had an immediate effect, didn’t it? What I wanted to see from you was this. Eyes blazing in vengeance, ready to go through fire and water.” He wanted their enemies shot through the heart quickly, “By your hand. That is how you protect the ones you love.”
Yoon-sung snarls, “I’ve thought it over, asking myself who’s dear to you, and couldn’t think of any. Except…for one.”
Oh God, don’t mean yourself, oh God, don’t mean yoursel—
Whack! He grabs a letter opener from the side table and stabs his hand to the table with it.
OH MOTHERFUCKING @#$%@$, HE MEANT HIMSELF. Blood drips through wood to the ground beneath. Oh god, oh god, oh god.
Wheezing through his pain, Yoon-sung tells his shocked father, “Me. That’s your one dear person. Does this hurt your heart? It should. It has to. No matter how much you want it, I can’t kill people. I felt that certainty today.”
He wrenches the blade from his hand and walks away, hand bloody. Even Jin-pyo looks stunned.
At the hospital, Nana sees Kim Jong-shik being brought in via ambulance and Young-ju staggering out of the emergency room in shock. They both hear that eyewitnesses stated that it looked like Kim was committing suicide, after trying to grab documents that fell over the railing.
Young-ju checks his phone to find one last text message from Dad: “I’m sorry. Chun Jae-man is next.” Aw. Despite the father-son standoff, this is an acknowledgement that there IS something to investigate. It doesn’t begin to redeem Kim Jong-shik, but it does show us that he cared about his son. Well, enough to feel bad about the corruption he insisted he was entitled to.
Nana finds Yoon-sung sitting with Shik-joong, alarmed at his injured hand, which he says dully is “no big deal.” All full of tortured conflict, he barks at her to leave him before she turns out like Shik-joong, and that it was Dad who did this, not Kim Jong-shik: “To him, I’m neither a son nor Yoon-sung. I’m just his possession.”
Tearing up, he tells her that he’s the one who made Shik-joong like this. He starts to say, “Even with Kim Jong-shik about to die, I pretended not to see—” but Nana cuts him short, enveloping him in a hug.
She knows that feeling of wanting an eye for an eye and says, “It wasn’t you who did it — it was me. If you hadn’t done it, I would have. So don’t torment yourself.”
Young-ju finds the voice recorder he’d left in his father’s jacket pocket, which recorded Kim’s damning conversation with Yoon-sung in the car. Young-ju’s reaction is heartbreaking, because this conversation evokes such a mix of warring emotions with its revelations: Finally, he gets a lead in the 1983 case with mention of the incident off the shores of North Korea; Yoon-sung’s voice practically confirms his City Hunter identity; and lastly, his father begs Yoon-sung to spare his son.
It’s the last one that breaks Young-ju, who screams in fury.
Turns out that Kim Jong-shik isn’t dead, but in a coma. (Possibly Inappropriate Aside: What does it take to kill a character around here? I do appreciate that all these dramatic turns are feasible with comas rather than murders, but c’mon, drama, I want some death-inspired darkness up in here. Or I’m gonna have to downgrade you to Balls of Aluminum. *crumple*)
Young-ju finds Yoon-sung outside his father’s door and rushes him, shaking with rage. He growls, “Don’t you dare get caught by anybody else. I’ll be the one to do it.” He warns him that he’ll be dogging his every move. Yoon-sung keeps up his smartassy cover, though it lacks the usual punch: “You must really feel wronged, to take your anger out on a random person. You’ve wrinkled my clothes.”
Young-ju seethes, “You’re no hero. You’re just a killer.” Just the words to cut Yoon-sung to the quick.
Young-ju reports for work and volunteers to drop the City Hunter case, to his boss’s surprise. In exchange, he wants to be granted a secret investigation of Haewon Group chairman Chun Jae-man, as he has evidence of Chun harboring a slush fund and evading taxes. At Young-ju’s insistence on taking on another bigwig, the department head dryly notes, “You’re my anti-fan, aren’t you?” Heh. The previous department head had to resign when he’d tried to go after Chun, and Boss sighs, “I’m like hay in the face of a typhoon.”
Young-ju gets his boss’s tacit agreement when he declares that if he fails this task, he will quit being a prosecutor.
Nana surprises Jin-pyo by arriving at his home unannounced, having gotten the address off Yoon-sung’s GPS. Whoa. I’m thinking maybe she picked up those Balls of Steel.
She gets straight to the point: “Let Yoon-sung go. So that he can live like a person, happily — let him go now.” She calls him a puppetmaster wanting to control Yoon-sung with his strings.
Jin-pyo says that she won’t be able to leave as easily as she arrived. Nana isn’t intimidated: “If I stepped back because of your threats, I’d be a coward. But what can we do? After fighting this heartless world on my own, I found I can’t do things without risking my all. Do you not love Lee Yoon-sung? How could you make someone you love do those cruel things? How much more must he be destroyed for you to stop?”
Jin-pyo stands suddenly and whips out his gun, and Nana doesn’t even flinch. Cocking the hammer, he says he could kill her right now.
Nana: “That’s fine. I’m a human shield anyway.” Dayum. Way to invoke her bodyguard creed, that her value is in taking the bullet for the president.
Jin-pyo releases the hammer and says that it seems a waste to kill her right now, with that look in her eyes. Nana tells him to back off, saying that she won’t stand by, either: “I’ll rally everything I’ve got to block you. I came to say this.”
Chun Jae-man’s turn for the spotlight: He demonstrates why he was one of the Council of Five as he hears of Kim Jong-shik’s coma state and figures it would’ve been “cleaner” had he died. He orders his minion to keep a close watch on Kim’s condition, and if he shows signs of waking, “Get rid of him.”
Recognizing that all-out war is the name of the game, he decides he’ll have to act first. Ergo: Press conference, where he controls the story.
Chun reveals that the dog tags sent in by the City Hunter belonged to special agents, but describes them as traitors who were fleeing after stealing national secrets back in October ’83. They were killed, and upon receiving the report, Chun and his colleagues had decided to keep the matter quiet because public tensions had been running high after the Aungsan bombing.
Clever clever. Just enough truth to seem true (and be backed up by facts), but enough fabrication to turn himself into a good guy, and the City Hunter into the villain. He adds that the City Hunter’s motivation in this is retaliation and chaos. Chun tells the public not to forget that “The City Hunter is not a hero, but a traitor to his country.”
Ironically enough, his pre-emptive strike confirms to Jin-pyo that he’s Target No. 4. Jin-pyo muses, “He’s turned on the spotlight, so it’s time to climb up onstage.” Yoon-sung comes to the same conclusion, that Chun has declared war.
Shik-joong wakes, and Yoon-sung is overcome with relief. And then shock, when Shik-joong tells him that he’s found his mother.
Yoon-sung rushes to the temple and finds Kyung-hee lying down in her sickbed, having refused to leave, saying that her son might come looking for her now that he knows she’s here. That just brings a tear to my eye.
Kyung-hee sits up to see him kneeling at her side, and whispers, “My baby. My son. Not a day has gone by that I’d forgotten you, but how hurt you must have been that I didn’t recognize you at once. My son, I’m sorry.”
She cries into his chest, and he stutters, “M-mom.” Ahh, such satisfying words.
Thankfully she can now resume treatment for her leukemia while awaiting results of Yoon-sung’s donor match test. Yoon-sung requests that this visit be kept off the official records, saying that she has a stalker-like situation going on, and that he’ll pay in cash. The doctor offers to admit her as a foreign patient (hence, no national ID number).
Kyung-hee agrees to be admitted to the hospital now that she’s found a reason to live, but asks to go out, just for today. Yoon-sung balks, citing the danger, but she says that after 28 years apart, she wants to cook for her son. “More than living one more day, I want to feed my son.” Who can resist this universal mom gesture?
And so, Yoon-sung accompanies her home. Before she sets out to cooking, he stops her and admits with difficulty that he’d hated her, having thought she’d abandoned him. And that he’d been angry to see her sick, thinking that she should have been living it up if she’d tossed him aside to be free of him, and that he’d wanted her to keep living because he wouldn’t be able to hate her in death. He apologizes for all that now.
Mom tells him she’s the sorry one, for not protecting him or finding him first, and for being sick like this. She promises to live: “Yoon-sung, let’s live happily, for a long, long time.”
To cast a pall over this moment, watching just outside is Sang-gook, who gives his phone a conflicted look. Don’t do it! Save yourself, and save your soul! Also Yoon-sung!
He turns away without calling (thank heaven) — only, Jin-pyo’s not to be duped and shows up behind him. Gah! Why do you even need minions if your devil’s work is so efficient without them?
He accuses Sang-gook of letting compassion overrule his orders. He warns him that he’ll let it slide this time, but won’t the next.
Jin-pyo watches the touching mother-son reunion and wonders, “Will you two be able to understand me?” I’m hoping no, since I’d like the others to retain their souls, please.
While eating, Mom notes that Yoon-sung has the same food habits as his father. Yoon-sung calls her jjigae tastier than Shik-joong’s, describing him as a mother, brother, and (ha!) sister figure, and describes Jin-pyo as a demanding type who pushed him to excel in studies and athletics. Understatement of the year award, we have a winner.
Yoon-sung says he was the reason for Jin-pyo’s leg, because he’d saved Yoon-sung from an accident. For that, Mom’s thankful, but she asks, “Does he put you in danger?”
Yoon-sung laughs that off to ease her, then asks about his father, and hears that he was a warm man. Agh, the what-could-have-beens, they’re killer. I know we’d have had no drama without the baby-stealing and whatnot, but I sigh for Yoon-sung’s and Kyung-hee’s lost lives.
He asks, “Losing someone dear to you — it’s a sad thing, isn’t it? Stealing those loved ones from someone, hurting them — they’ll be punished for it, whatever the reason.” Mom senses his turmoil and urges him to confide in her, but he says he’s just talking about their situation.
Nana comes just in time to see the happy scene, smiling to see Yoon-sung eating his mother’s food. She takes a photo quietly before leaving.
Chun is financially strapped at the moment due to pending business matters, and tries to think of ways to come up with 500 billion won, approximately $4 million. Jin-pyo seizes this as his in, and presents himself as a potential investor, wealthy American businessman Steve Lee.
Yoon-sung knows that despite his precautions to keep Kyung-hee hidden, it’s only a matter of time before Jin-pyo tracks her down, and therefore prepares to transfer her to an American hospital when his business here is over. Words that briefly deflate Nana.
Yoon-sung asks Nana if being with him makes her happy — isn’t she scared? — repeating the familiar “Being with me will endanger you” refrain. Nana reminds him that her feelings are her own, so he needn’t worry.
Just then, they spot Jin-pyo entering the hospital, escorted by Chun Jae-man. Yoon-sung tells Nana to wait for him in the car, then follows his father to the VVIP reception area. Jin-pyo’s face immediately goes from politeness to hardened badass, while Yoon-sung’s undergoes a similar instant change, but from challenging stare to playboy smile. The smile is reserved for Chun’s flattered secretary, who preens. HA. The pretty boy persona wins again.
Yoon-sung finds Dad in the restroom to tell him that he may get hurt if he goes after Chun, who’s no easy target. I love how the targets are getting tougher — I don’t rank their misdeeds in any order (how do you rank embezzling against lobbying and drunk driving and draft dodging?), but the baddies do appear to be revealing themselves in order of shrewdness. Which makes sense, since it only follows that the careless brash one who’s drunk on power would be found out before the paranoid one who’s vigilant of possible threats.
Dad replies that Yoon-sung doesn’t have the luxury of worrying over him, when he’s got his own troubles to deal with. To which Yoon-sung replies that he’s not concerned: “I’m telling you not to get in my way.” Gauntlet! Thrown.
Dad tells him he’s being arrogant, and tells him to watch and learn: “Revenge has to be done in the spirit of revenge. Like I’m doing.”
Nana worries that the Chun/Jin-pyo connection means they’ll have to move Kyung-hee from this Haewon-owned hospital, but he says that it’s darkest underneath the lamp — meaning, it may be safer to leave Kyung-hee here.
Nana asks him to take her home, now that the danger from Kim Jong-shik is gone and she can resume her life and her job. Yoon-sung doesn’t like this idea for numerous reasons, which he expresses in his usual way, sniffing that he’s glad, hmph.
He makes himself at home on her couch, and asks if she’s sure she’ll be okay, what with the danger and all. She retorts that he’s much more of a danger to her, prompting him to pull her down on top of him (rawr!), asking innocently, “Why? What about me?” He says he’s done a mental check of his savings account, saying she’s expensive — a reference to their no-contact contract. Which, frankly, just seems like a skinship menu now. (Uh, where can I get me one of those, Mr. Lee Min-ho?)
Example: She hits his shoulder, and he demands 100,000 won, which she offers to repay with some really awesome coffee.
Nana smiles as she shares that the mere sight of coffee makes her think of him now. But that puts a damper on his mood, and he refuses the coffee, saying he’s quit. He leaves abruptly, leaving Nana bewildered at his sudden change of mood, while he sighs, “The sight of coffee makes her think of me? That can’t happen.”
Young-ju sits down for lunch at the cafeteria, which causes all the other employees to get up and leave, now that he’s been outed as a tainted prosecutor. Oh, so sad. As if it weren’t bad enough that Dad’s teetering on the brink, he gets tarred with the corruption brush when, really, he’s the most morally upright one in this cast.
Young-ju receives word about Chun’s meeting with Steve Lee, which is a clear red flag that something is up. He finds an old article about the Aungsan incident mentioned in Chun’s speech, and notices that both Jin-pyo and Mu-yeol are on the list of Secret Service survivors.
Nana reports to work, only to find to her surprise that so has Yoon-sung. Gee, I wonder why! The ensuing scene between Yoon-sung, his IT colleagues, and Da-hae and her bodyguards has me cracking up because there’s so much stuff going on all at once, and it’s hilarious.
For instance: IT boss is thrilled to have Yoon-sung back, as is Da-hae. Yoon-sung’s only got eyes for Nana, who hangs back and smiles at him — until Da-hae flings herself at him, which provokes a frown of jealousy. Eun-ah makes eyes at Ki-joon, but her comments are flirty toward Yoon-sung as well. For instance, the boss writes off his absence as vacation, to which Yoon-sung balks that that’ll interfere with his real vacation, and he needs to see bikini-clad bodies to remain healthy. Ha. Eun-ah suggests the pool rather than the beach (easier to safeguard Da-hae), and offers that she has a bikini — which makes Ki-joon yell out in protest, apropos of (seemingly) nothing. Heh. These Blue House scenes have really grown on me; they’re frivolous, but they make me giggle.
Nana tells Yoon-sung (calling him Mr. Bad Luck Bastard now, affectionately) that there are pictures of his father in the Secret Service records, so he takes a look at the books…of which the 1983 volume is missing. Who should show up to hand it over but Young-ju, who’s just had a look.
This means that Young-ju now has confirmation that Jin-pyo, who’s pictured in the book, is also Steve Lee. When he shows up to confront him, he cuts to the chase and calls him Jin-pyo.
Jin-pyo doesn’t play coy, and acknowledges that he’s one and the same. He says that he took on the Steve Lee persona because people would treat him differently if they knew he was a former Secret Service agent, and he’s proud of achieving his business success on his own.
Young-ju finds it mighty suspicious that he went as far as to invent a new identity (the term is identity laundering), and Jin-pyo says he had reason to do it: “I washed my soul in the ocean with that incident, back then.”
Young-ju: “That incident?” Jin-pyo tells Young-ju to figure it out. Young-ju leaves him with the warning that he knows Jin-pyo’s working to get to Chun Jae-man, who he knows is the next target.
Shopping time for Yoon-sung, which gets a chuckle out of me since they’re at a Trugen store, the menswear line for which Lee Min-ho has been brand model for the past couple years. Nana’s here to give him a two-fold gift — to repay the 100,000 won he demanded, as well as welcome him back to work — and tells him to pick out a tie. To put the kibosh on his complaining, she gives him five seconds to choose, ha.
Make that a three-fold gift: It’s also a pseudo-bribe so he’ll keep her in the loop as his partner. Reluctantly he agrees, and I wonder if he feels the least bit of satisfaction when the reward for her pestering is that Nana has to watch him check into a hotel with another woman on his arm. Heh.
It’s Chun Jae-man’s secretary, who pouts to him about how hard her day was and mentions his meeting tomorrow with the National Intelligence Service’s head of records. With that key info secured, Yoon-sung raises his glass for a toast, and the drink knocks her out cold.
Yoon-sung takes her employee keycard and heads out, only to be confronted by an annoyed Nana, who asks why he had to use these methods: “Use me instead! Why mistreat your body like that?” LOL.
Chun Jae-man visits comatose Kim Jong-shik in the hospital (whose hand twitches, unseen) and comes face to face with Young-ju. He’s aware that Young-ju’s digging around in his affairs — he’s got informants to keep him apprised — and asks what’s got him sniffing around. Young-ju refers to Chun’s press conference statement about the traitors who were killed, and drops the hint that he knows he’s covering for the North Korean incident of 1983.
Chun decides that it’s too bad that Young-ju’s his friend’s son, but orders his minion, “Get rid of him.” Dude, that’s his solution for everything, which makes him the deadliest target thus far, though I can’t help but laugh at the image of him dealing with every minor crisis in the same way: “The cleaning lady can’t make it? Get rid of her. The dog won’t beg? Kill it.”
Yoon-sung heads to Haewon Group in time for Chun’s meeting with the NIS guy, and takes on the two guards stationed at the front desk with cool efficiency, knocking them out with their own walkie-talkie. He positions them in their seats to look normal (asleep, perhaps), and calls Chun’s secretary to say he’s here to see her, but can’t get in without a pass. She hesitates to leave her station, but when he suggests he’ll just turn back and go home, she offers to come down to meet him.
Yoon-sung waits for her to vacate her desk, then slips inside — using her keycard — and approaches Chun’s office. He opens the door quietly, just cracking it enough to affix a tiny camera to the inside of the door, then monitors the scene on his phone.
Chun pays off the NIS head of records for the file containing reports of the 1983 incident. It is to remain classified until 2030, and is the file Young-ju had wanted.
With the file safely in his hands, Chun mutters that nobody needs to know something that was to remain secret till 2030, and takes his lighter to the book…just as he gets a phone call.
Chun orders his minion to make the death appear as suicide, saying, “That Kim Young-ju fellow has gotten too arrogant.” Young-ju’s current status as persona non grata will explain his suicide, and Chun says he’ll wait for the report on tonight’s news.
Which means, of course, that the plan is going down today. Possibly now.
Eee! This sends Yoon-sung running, even though it keeps him from stopping Chun when he holds the lighter to the book again. He calls Young-ju, only to get his assistant instead, who reports that Young-ju was called by his apartment building to address an issue about his gas line. He’d headed home, but left his phone behind.
In his apartment, Young-ju can’t find a problem and calls the apartment management office, only to hear that they hadn’t called him. He frowns; how odd.
When he enters his car, he’s attacked from behind by a man with a chloroform-soaked rag, and knocked out as the minion locks the doors and gets the carbon monoxide pumping.
Fumes quickly fill the car, while a barely conscious Young-ju fumbles for the door. But in his weakened condition, all he can do is gasp and cough.
Yoon-sung arrives in the parking lot and scans the aisles — just as Young-ju’s hand lands on the steering wheel and blares the horn. Rushing to the car, Yoon-sung pounds on the doors and yells at Young-ju inside, but the doors are locked.
Time’s ticking. Yoon-sung draws back his hand and smashes his bare fist through the window.
He drags Young-ju out of the car and checks for a breath. Judging him alive, he starts to walk off — only to have Young-ju grab his ankle, stopping him..
source: (Thank you and credits to
http://wiki.d-addicts.com/
http://www.dramabeans.com/
and all sources for the information and pictures)
