The Nice Guy: Episodes 1-2

by starrygazer

The opening week of The Nice Guy lays the groundwork for the family dynamics at the center of the story and gives us insight into what makes our hero tick. He may be a gangster, but he has a soft side that could be his saving grace – or his Achilles heel.

 
EPISODES 1-2

The story begins with our hero PARK SEOK-CHUL (Lee Dong-wook) taking the subway to places unknown. He’s injured and bloody, but he keeps moving. A woman, KANG MI-YOUNG (Lee Sung-kyung), waits anxiously at a bus station and relief is etched on her face when Seok-chul arrives. He tells her to get on the bus as he loads her luggage into the storage hold.

She watches him through the bus window, and Seok-chul gives her a reassuring smile. He’s just about to board the bus when a man grabs him from behind and stabs him before running off. Seok-chul falls to the ground, bleeding heavily and Mi-young cries out for him. Seok-chul thinks to himself that he saw this coming; that he would end up this way.

We fade to black and the story rewinds to the recent past. Seok-chul is doing something even scarier than bleeding out from a stab wound: reading an original poem to a room of people. Though his current occupation is gangster, his true ambition in life is to become a writer and he’s currently enrolled in a writing class. He has a way with words, though his poem about a knife and blood ends up terrifying his classmates rather than moving them. (Seok-chul’s description of blades and stabbing motions was surprisingly hilarious.)

In between writing classes, the gangster life beckons. Even at home, Seok-chul can’t escape work. He still lives with his parents, dad PARK SHIL-GON (Chun Ho-jin) and mum JO MAK-SOON (Park Myung-shin) and though his dad is retired from the gang life, he commands such respect that the police ask for his help mediating gangland feuds, which he does from the comfort of the family home.

Seok-chul’s gang is led by KIM CHANG-SOO (Lee Moon-shik) and they’re currently warring with a group led by KANG TAE-HOON (Park Hoon) over a lucrative real estate project. Both gangs maintain a veneer of legitimacy by acting under the guise of construction companies.

With tensions running high, the two gangs have started brawling in public where civilians could get hurt. The police are desperate to avoid a bloodbath and Dad agrees that the feud has gone too far.

While Dad makes the gang bosses agree to a truce and play nice, Seok-chul shoots the breeze with his old friend and police officer, YOON BYUNG-SOO (Kim Do-yoon). As they sneak cigarettes, Byung-soo muses about the irony that their adult lives turned out to be. He was always fighting in school, yet became a police officer. Seok-chul never fought and loved his books, yet ended up a gangster. The two are clearly close, and Byung-soo even knows that Seok-chul is planning his exit.

After the summit, Seok-chul attempts to quit but Chairman Kim’s right-hand man, OH SANG-YEOL (Han Jae-young) shoots him down. He scoffs, telling Seok-chul this isn’t the sort of job that you can walk away from. But when Seok-chul warns that he won’t be treated like Tae-hoon and insists on taking the matter to Chairman Kim, Sang-yeol changes his tune. (Interesting. There seems to be a lot of history between Tae-hoon and Seok-chul, though we don’t know the specifics yet.)

Sang-yeol dangles an offer: Successfully resolves the problem with their real estate project, and Seok-chul can walk away from the gang. (In my opinion, Sang-yeol has no intention of letting him leave.) They need clear out a rundown neighborhood for a redevelopment project but some of the original residents refuse to leave. The normal way of doing business is to have thugs clear everyone out by force, but Seok-chul refuses to use violence.

He attempts to negotiate with the leader of the holdout residents, KIM JIN-HO (Park Won-sang) but it goes terribly. Seok-chul retreats temporarily to think over his next move, but Chairman Kim orders the gang to move in and clear everyone out, media and police presence be damned.

Jin-ho is a tough man, a former gangster himself, and he’d rather die than cede ground. At one point when the fighting is fiercest, Jin-ho manages to single-handedly repel the gangsters – by pouring gasoline all over them and himself, and threatening to light everyone aflame. In the melee, Jin-ho’s daughter nearly gets pulled into the conflict and when Seok-chul pulls her back to safety, Jin-ho makes a hasty retreat to a nearby temple.

Seok-chul realizes he must end this on his terms so he goes after Jin-ho. Seok-chul tries to appeal to Jin-ho and explains that he genuinely wants to leave behind the gangster life and for him to do so, there can’t be bloodshed. Jin-ho is unmoved and he decides to end his life rather than give up on the neighborhood he calls home. He tries to light himself on fire but he accidentally sets the whole temple aflame. Jin-ho tells Seok-chul to leave him to his death.

Seok-chul doesn’t hesitate for even a moment. He doesn’t even think to escape; instead he grabs Jin-ho and basically drags him to safety. The moment is captured by the press and Seok-chul is hailed as a hero, much to his embarrassment and his father’s pride.

We learn more about the family dynamics following this incident. Dad is proud of his son, but his relationship with Seok-chul is clearly strained. When Mum scolds Dad, telling him he can’t expect Seok-chul’s resentment to go away overnight, it fills in some blanks for us. Seok-chul’s path to gangsterdom all started when he was in high school. Chairman Kim had been sending money to the family while Dad was serving time in prison. Uncomfortable with the handout, Dad had offered up Seok-chul as a new recruit for the gang. Seok-chul hated the idea of joining them even as a high schooler but he felt responsible for his family and did as his father wished.

Family is hugely important for Seok-chul, and it’s obvious they all care a lot for each other, even when they’re at odds. Seok-chul’s sister PARK SEOK-KYUNG (Oh Nara) is the oldest of the siblings and the biggest trouble maker. At the start of the episodes, she’s on the run — from her family. After going through a messy (and expensive) divorce, Seok-kyung ran up huge gambling debts and even lost the deed to Mum and Dad’s house after secretly using the home as collateral.

Terrified about facing Dad, she went on the run and left her adorable son in the care of the family. She’s still somewhere in the city but no one can pin down her whereabouts.

They’ve been searching for ages with no success, until youngest sister PARK SEOK-HEE (Ryu Hye-young) lucks out at work. Seok-hee is a nurse, and she spots Seok-kyung’s best friend at the hospital for a consultation. After successfully pressuring the friend for info, she and Seok-chul head out to confront their sister and bring her home.

Seok-kyung has been hiding away and working at an illegal gambling den to pay off her debts. She’s shocked at seeing her siblings and when they refuse to leave without her, all hell breaks loose. Seok-hee goes in on the gambling den’s boss for insulting and pushing Seok-kyung, which kicks off a bigger brawl between Seok-chul and the den’s enforcers. Seok-chul takes down men left and right, punching and head-butting people into submission, but Seok-hee is losing her battle with the gambling den boss.

Seeing her baby sister pushed around and hurt makes Seok-kyung jumps into action with a headbutt of her own, and she knocks her boss out. (It seems the family’s signature move is headbutting. I got a surprising laugh out of this scene, too.) With the boss out cold, the siblings make their escape. Seok-kyung still can’t work up the nerve to face Dad and return to the family home, so they decide she’ll hide out at Seok-hee’s flat till she gets her courage up.

For Seok-chul, the past never seems far from the present. Both with his life as a gangster and his family, past decisions still ripple out into his current life. Even in matters of love, the past carries into today.

Seok-chul is visiting Seok-hee at work when he runs into a familiar face, Mi-young. Mi-young knows both Seok-hee (they were high school classmates) and Seok-chul, though they haven’t seen each other since their school days. Mi-young had left school suddenly and disappeared, but she recently moved back to the area and got in touch with Seok-hee.

They had all been in high school at the same time (just go with it), and Mi-young had developed a crush on Seok-chul. She confessed her feelings to him with a gift, a book by Hemingway, “The Sun Also Rises.” Seok-chul admitted right away that he’d also liked her, but not long after the confession, Mi-young left the school without a word.

When Seok-chul and Mi-young spot each other, there’s no pretense of not remembering each other. In the present, Mi-young is an aspiring singer with a growing YouTube channel (Of course, Seok-chul subscribes right away). Though she’s still unknown, she’s clearly talented.

When he’s alone, Seok-chul listens to Mi-young’s songs whenever he can and reminisces about when she used to sing for him back in the day. We see that he still has the book she had given him when they were in school together. (Cute.) He reads the inscription and smiles, as though he can now dare to think that the sun is starting to rise for him again.

Eager to reconnect, our lovebirds meet up and have a heart-to-heart. Mi-young apologizes for leaving without saying goodbye and tells Seok-chul she thought about him often. Seok-chul admits he’s thought of her as well, and wondered if they would meet again. Conversation flows easily between them and Mi-young shares her secret with Seok-chul: she has crippling stage fright and she hasn’t been able to sing in front of anyone because of it. (We also get glimpses of Mi-young’s past and it seems she was bullied severely, though she doesn’t share that with Seok-chul.)

Mi-young has to leave for an appointment, and he insists on driving her so she won’t have to take the bus. She gives him an address and they arrive at a nursing home. Seok-chul’s surprised but doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest and even asks if he can go in with her.

Despite being relatively young, Mi-young’s mum seems to have a type of dementia. Seok-chul politely says hello and asks if she remembers him. She calls him Mr. Broom, but this isn’t a lapse of memory. Seok-chul used to loiter outside her restaurant to see Mi-young and she would chase him away with a broom. (I loved this.)

On their way out, they pass by a sing-along happening in the home’s rec room. Seok-chul stops Mi-young and encourages her to sing, then and there; it’s the perfect low-pressure stage. He tells her to pretend that she’s just singing for him. Mi-young hesitates, but sits at the keyboard. Though her voice falters at first, she overcomes her stage fright and sings for the crowd. Mi-young’s mum is in the crowd and she tears up in happiness at her daughter’s voice (my eyes may have been a little damp too).

It’s a lovely moment for our couple-to-be, but trouble is definitely brewing. Though Seok-chul managed to resolve the problem for the real estate project, his family’s debt is huge and about to come due. Dad tries to finesse the bank manager about the debt, and the methods that worked in the old days don’t have the same impact. The only way to get an extension is to pay down part of the principal within a month – 70 million won. Backed into a corner, Dad goes to see Chairman Kim, which is when Seok-chul realizes that if Dad borrows money, Seok-chul will have to stay at the firm to repay the debt.

With Mi-young having taken the first step in dealing with her stage fright, she decides to audition for a jazz club, and it happens to be run by Tae-hoon. They interact briefly, just in passing but it’s clear he’s already intrigued by her.

It seems inevitable that these brewing conflicts will come to a head in a violent way. Despite this, it’s remarkable how such a tough character can be so soft. Seok-chul’s actions and words make it crystal clear that he has never wanted to choose violence. The tension with his dad is understandable. Just when his dream of leaving the gang life is within reach, his dad is pulling him back in (even if inadvertently, after all the choice is losing the family home vs. borrowing from his old comrade).

The very first scene showing a beaten and bloody Seok-chul has me worried. Is this the final ending for our love birds? I have enjoyed watching the relationships unfold so far and have had some unexpected laughs and some tears, too. Overall, The Nice Guy is off to a strong start. I’m already emotionally invested in the characters, and I hope things don’t get too bloody for them.

 
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