In this episode, we recap and analyze Episodes 5 and 6 of Mr. Sunshine, the hit K Drama on Netflix. We talk about:
- How Ae-shin has discovered what “love” is and she’s horrified. She wants to call off what she and Eugene have decided to do.
- How Eugene can’t read Korean, but Dong-mae can, as well as Do-mi, the messenger boy whom Eugene has just hired at the legation.
- How Eugene, Dong-mae and Hui-seung met outside the hotel and Hui-seung has just realized that all three of them are after Ae-shin’s heart.
- The amazing cinematography in Mr. Sunshine, including how the director artfully used laundry during the scene with the three men outside the hotel.
- The document that everyone is looking for, what it is, how valuable it is, and how Major Moore has convinced Eugene that the document properly belongs to Joseon.
- The theme of budding relationships and shifting loyalties among the main characters, especially Eugene’s change of heart about possibly helping Joseon after meeting with the King.
- The shocking revelation that Lee Wan-ik is Hina Kudo’s father.
- All the triangles and squares in this show, including Ae-shin who is surrounded by three men, and Dong-mae, who is surrounded by three women.
- How Ae-shin now knows that Dong-mae is in love with her, and while she can kill him, he can’t kill her.
- How Ae-shin has nerves of steel to be able to walk normally in front of Dong-mae, despite having been shot in the leg.
- Our favorite lines from the show, including “the beginning of revenge and end of jealousy.”
- The amazing Yoo Yeon Seok, who plays Dong-mae in Mr. Sunshine, and who is Ahn Jung-wan in Hospital Playlist.
Next week, we will recap and analyze episodes 9 and 10 or Mr. Sunshine and talk about Byun ho-han, who plays Kim Hui–seung.
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K Drama Chat is a weekly podcast where we take one Korean (K) Drama each season and and recap and analyze each episode. K Drama Chat is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

I notice the recaps are in english. Are you english speaking and watching this undubbed?
ReplyDeleteYes, we are English-speaking. I am Korean-American with a very rudimentary understanding of Korean and working on learning more. In certain cases, I look at the subtitles in Korean to try to get a better understanding of what they're saying, using a dictionary to pick out relevant words. In any case, we always watch in the original language, since we believe that the voices of the actors are so crucial to the portrayal of the characters.
DeleteHi Anonymous. This is Joanna. Sung Hee and I are English speaking. We watch the shows in Korean with subtitles. Sung Hee understands Korea, especially when she slows down the speech. Neither one of us would be able to comment or have a conversation in Korean!
ReplyDeleteThank you for asking!
I have watched the series, and need your podcast to get over it. I see it like a kind of therapy. It is a hearth-breaking love story on the background of a hearth-breaking history Korea had to deal with. For the line ''the beginning of revenge and end of jealousy'' , I interpreted it as the start of revenge towards Hui-seung and thus the Kim family, as a way of breaking off the engagement and to make sure that the Kim family will not have an heir. The end of jealousy I saw as a reference to the unspoken rivalry between Eugene Choi, Dong-mae and Hui-Seung because of Ae-shin, which now he has ended as he got her love attention.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I do not think the Japanese soldier shot Eugene Choi in the arm, but Eugene does it himself in order to fool the Japanese soldier that he had wounded an American, and thus declares war on America. It was an ultimate sacriface of Eugene to save Ae-Shin in this dangerous situation with the aggresive Japanese soldier (who had shot already two innocent Joseon civilians and could thus also shot Ae-Shin in a blink of an eye without repercussions).
ReplyDeleteThat Eugene shoots himself in the arm is why he cannot go to a hospital, because the doktors will discover that it is a bullet from an American gun, also later in the ammunition muster by major Kyle Moore, it appears that the gun of Eugene misses three bullets (two being shot by Ae-Shin and one by Eugene).
ReplyDeleteFinally, (sorry, me again), in episode 8, Eugene explains that he father's name is Choi because his first slave owner was named Choi, and that his mother died without a surname at all. I have no knowledge of how the naming happened for slaves, but as his mother was a slave of the Kim family, she would have named Kim with her surname, not? But Eugene does not mention not.. most likely no to reveal to the king this connection to the quite rich Kim family? But that is quite a wild suggestion as I have no further knowlegde of slave names and the rules behind it.
ReplyDelete