Episode 15: Justice

By: Mai Ling Shannon Li

Synopsis

Yeo-jin collects evidence as Si-mok interrogate the suspect. Many questions get answered, but the most important problem of all remains to be solved.

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In the interrogation room, Si-mok gets straight to the point and asks Yoon, “Why did you kill [CEO Park]?” Yoon blankly answers that CEO Park had to die by his hands — he’d wanted CEO Park to understand the pain of being burned by fire. Si-mok is confused, so Yoon elaborates that he heard being burned alive is the worst pain of all… and that’s exactly what his six-year-old son had to endure. - It turns out that Yoon had meticulously planned the murder for a long time.

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A man who found himself going down the wrong path. Lee was on that path, he seemed to think that it was too late to turn back. Even when he shows regret, you still see that he feels the need to move forward, like he needs to finish what he started. And that snap decision to keep moving forward in their terrible deeds is what separates the average person from the corrupt.

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Discussion

This drama highly emphasises the issue of corruption in Korea, and how those influential companies and government manipulated the media, and then the society as a whole. In the previous blog discussion, we talked about the issue of corruption in the Korean society, and for this discussion, I would like to examine justice in Forest of Secrets.

As previously mentioned in the early discussion, the type of corruption that Korea faces today is a “[jaebeol]-led one (i.e., explosion of the use of threats and corruptions by the super-rich over the poor) (243-244) (e.p.3 discussion). Moreover, as information becomes more digitalised and is offered by an increasing number of outlets, especially in Korea, one of the technologies and media leaders in the world, it becomes more widespread and can be utilized in the everyday lives of people everywhere. Of course, the accuracy of information is an entirely different subject, as media bias and sensationalism are very real things and can just as much negatively affect a person’s life, for example government and corporations bribed the media in order to release false information. However, it can have positive effects for someone else. 

Forest of Secrets aired around 6 months after the impeachment of former Korean President Park Geun-hye. This is relevant to the importance of the drama itself because the former president’s impeachment was sought for by those opposed to what they saw as corruption in their government. The removing of Bak from office was the culmination of years of effort put into restoring a liberal democracy- defined by the public, media, and the opposition party- and taking back the country from a person who was generally seen as an illiberal and undemocratic president (S. Nathan Park 2017).  Although Forest of Secrets is a fictional story about prosecutors and police officers alike battling institutional corruption, it is incredibly relevant in the context of both what reality it was based on and when it was released.

In my opinion, we are surrounded by behaviors of justice and corruption in our daily. They may seem to be opposite or, in other words, antonyms of each other; however, personally, I would not state that they are the opposite of each other but are interrelated to one and another.

One of the definitions for justice is the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments. In Forest of Secrets, there are two characters that fully showcased the idea justice are Hwang Si-mok and Han Yeo-jin. They portrayed justice acts in many different ways throughout the whole drama and one of the most apparent evidence is how they fought against bribery and persevered to discover the murderer and exposedthe main issue of the government in the drama. One of the examples is Si-mok promises showed his determination to take on the responsibility and to be accountable to the public. After Hwang’s speech, the audiences at the television show showed their support and trust in him by applauding. This shows one of the factors in justice- accountability.

Furthermore, fairness is an important element regarding justice. Last scene in this drama, the host asked for Hwang’s opinion upon the fact that one of the authorities hired Yoon Se-won to murder Bak Mu-seong and Kwon Min-ah in order to hide his unjust involvement with Bak Mu-seong. Si-mok expressed that the murderer may think of Bak’s death as a small sacrifice for a big cause, nevertheless, anyone’s lives should not be considered as less valuable than the others. Every individual’s life should be valued the same rather than different due to their economic or social backgrounds.

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Questions

1) In your understanding, what is Justice?

2) Are there other factors that could be included in justice? Examples of justice acts?

3) As mentioned above, this drama aired around 6 months after the impeachment of former Korean President Park Geun-hye, do you think this drama successful talks about the issue that’s currently happened in Korea? Do you think using this approach is an efficient method?

4) In the drama, at the start of Strangers, corruption and justice are being portrayed by different characters and are divided clearly from each other; however, towards the end of the episode, Lee Chang Jun seems to be the character that portrayed both justice and corruption at the same time (in episode 16 especially) Do you think both ideas could be happened at the same time? And what is the purpose for the playwriter to portray in this way?

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Bibliography

Ahn, Gil-Ho, and Je-won Yoo. 2017. Stranger. Film. South Korea: Signal Entertainment Group, IOK Media.

Merriam-webster, s.v. "Justice," accessed November 30, 2018, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/justice

"Stranger (2017 TV Series)". 2018. En.Wikipedia.Org. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_(2017_TV_series).

"Forest Of Secrets: Episode 15 » Dramabeans Korean Drama Recaps". 2018. Dramabeans. http://www.dramabeans.com/2017/08/forest-of-secrets-episode-15/.

Park, S. Nathan. “How ‘Corrupt but Competent’ Leadership Falls.” The Atlantic. March 16, 2017.