Korea's tortured past explored in "Mr. Sunshine."
A tiny backwater country becomes a big-power battleground..
I’ve always been a history buff, and being a Kdrama and Kpop fan led me to want to know about how a tiny country that’s been brutalized for most of its history could suddenly explode onto the world scene first with its electronics and then its entertainment. Although it doesn’t directly give an answer, “Mr. Sunshine” is a good place to start in understanding Korea’s past.
“Mr. Sunshine” is the nickname given to grim-faced Marine Corps Major Eugene Choi (Lee Byung-hun), who was able to escape Korea after his serf parents were killed by a high-ranking Korean family. Coming to the US with the help of a kind evangelist, Choi realizes there are few avenues of advancement open to him so opts to join the US Marines.
With grit and discipline, Choi is able to advance quickly to Major, and when it’s decided to send a group of Marines to safeguard the American Ligation from the turbulence rising in the country, Choi is selected both for his competence and his fluuency with the language.
The Korea he finds isn’t much different from the one he left. Most of the ordinary people are still treated like dirt while the nobles live lives of luxury. The one big change is that Russia, Japan, and China are angling to subjugate Korea. War is coming between Russia and Japan, and Japan wants to build a railroad that will help it move war material. Russia naturally wants to stop this, along with China which has traditionally regarded Korea as its “backyard” and hates the arrogant Japanese as well.
America is officially neutral, but Choi naturally finds this hard, especially after he finds himself drawn to Go Ah-shin (Kim Tae-ri), a young noblewoman whose parents were killed by the Japanese.
One night when he’s assigned to assassinate a man believed to be passing secrets to the Japanese, he discovers he’s not the only one after the man. A second masked sniper is after him as well. After the man is killed, he discovers Ah-shin was the second assassin.
Because her parents were part of a secret guerrilla group fighting for Korea’s independence, she was trained in secret as a sniper and has become a deadly shot with no hesitency about killing people. They’re both attracted to but wary if the other can be trusted.
Their growing relationship becomes complicated by the return from America of KIm Hui-seong (Byun Yo-han), a rich nobleman and grandson of the people who killed Choi’s parents and is betrothed to Ah-shin. His always happy and smiling demenor hides the terrible guilt he feels about the cruelty of his family and eventually become a publisher putting out a clandestine newspaper documenting the brutal behavior of the Japanese, hoping he can alert the world to their barbarism.
Another complication comes in the form of Gu Dong-mae (Yoo Yeon-seok), whose parents were also killed by Korean nobles and saved from death as a child by Ah-shin. He feld to Japan where he became Yakuza and was sent back to Korea to run the criminal organization there and help the Japanese take over the country. He’s secretly in love with Ah-shin, which not only puts him at odds with the grandson and the Major, but eventually with the Yakuza back in Japan.
The final character in the mix is Kudo Hina (Kim Min-jung). Forced to marry a rich Japanese businessman, she inherits the best hotel in the city after his death, and like “Rick’s Cafe” in “Casablanca,” her hotel becomes the spot where anybody who’s Anybody meets to drink a new beverage called “coffee,” plot, and occasionally fight.(It turns out you don’t want to get into a sword fight with her either.)
Despite their differences, the four are drawn to Ah-shin and soon find themselves involved in her fight for Korea’s independence.
The nearly-thirty hour series is a pretty comprehensive look at the Korea of that time; a land full of industrious but miserable people still living a near-medieval life, led by a weak King whose own cabinet was either in collusion with the Japanese to annex the country or standing on the sidelines waiting to see who would come out on top. The length of the series is unusual, but it was a smart decision because it really allows us to get to know the characters and watch them evolve. The Major and the Yakuza start out not being to stand each other or the Dandy grandson, but as they keep bumping into each other and gradually learn each other is taking risks to help Ah shin, they become wary friends and allies to her cause. The length also allows the story to give depth to the many secondary characters from the weak king, the traitorous vultures around him, and the brave guerillas fighting to free Korea from foreign domination.
The story gradually tightens with more and more people dying until it becomes an all-out battle to survive with a bittersweet ending showing that no matter what, there will always be Koreans willing to fight overwhelming odds for freedom. The actors are all uniformly excellent and really inhabit their characters, and it just kills you as they begin to fall one by one.
This is really a great series that flies by quickly despite its length. If you’re looking for a series you can really sink into and wonder where the time went while you’re watching it, give “Mr. Sunshine” a try.