By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
September 28, 2019
☆☆☆☆
Chae Do-Jin (played by Jang Ki-Yong)
Han Jae-Yi (played by Jin Ki-Joo)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.
“Come and Hug Me” has a strong premise centering around the dysfunctional relationship between a serial killer and his family. But running at 16-hours long, the series became redundant fast and lost my interest about a third of the way through. The story would’ve been better served as a two-hour movie (or cut at least in half and presented as a mini series).
Do-Jin is the younger son of serial killer Yoon Hee-Jae (played by Heo Joon-Ho). As a teenager, he saved the life of his girlfriend, Jae-Yi, from being murdered by his father. Oh, his dad also killed her parents.
Do-Jin also is responsible for sending his father off to life in prison, but his father still talks about him with pride. Hee-Jae has no love for his elder son, who craves his father’s attention enough to commit crimes (hoping that’ll win his dad’s approval). Their stepmother Chae Ok-Hee (played with compassion by Seo Jeong-Yeon) is more of a parent to them than their own flesh and blood. But after she witnesses her husband disposing of the bloody clothes of one of his victims, she runs away with her daughter (from a previous marriage).
The saving grace of this K-Drama is that it drives home the point that bloodlines don’t define who you are or who you will become — and that just because you passed your DNA onto a child, that doesn’t make you a good parent.
Hee-Jae is a psychopath who wants to produce an heir to carry on his stream of kills. He tosses aside his elder son, who he views as weak. The boy can beat up kids, but he’s not blood thirsty enough to murder anyone. But Hee-Jae believes that Do-Jin is capable of following in his footsteps.
The white knight element of this series was beyond irritating. Both Jae-Yi’s brother and Do-Jin flapped their lips about what they would do to keep her safe. They said they would protect her. How? Both work full-time and cannot be with her 24/7. She’s a famous, rich actress who could’ve hired bodyguards to be with her around the clock. And no one thought of doing so. She kept saying she was fine.
Girrrrllll. When the only thing you do when you’re about to get murdered is crawl up into a ball, you are not capable of protecting yourself. This in no way is victim blaming. She isn’t at fault for any of the attacks. But she should take some ownership in taking steps to keeping herself alive.
Both leads were physically attractive, but they had little to no chemistry with each other. Jin Ki-Joo is undeniably beautiful, but wasn’t in her element in this role. Jang Ki-Yong had a little more depth to his part, but he had better, fleshed out characters to portray in “My Ajusshi” and “Search: WWW.”
The best parts of this series were the what if scenarios, when the characters imagined what could’ve been if Hee-Jae had not been in their lives. It was bittersweet.
Airdates:
MBC aired 32 episodes — each ranging from 25 to 35 minutes long — from May 16 to July 19, 2018.
Spoiler Alert:
There are too many loose ends in this series, but here are a couple that stick out. Do-Jin has a colleague who hates him because of his lineage. The superior passes along information about Do-Jin to journalists, in the hopes of hurting his career. But at the end of the series, the colleague has a change of heart and decides that he’ll leave Do-Jin alone, because even though he’s the son of a serial killer, Do-Jin is a stand-up guy. He suffers no repercussions for his duplicity. What? He’s a guy who turned on his own colleague, but OK. 😒
Early on in Jae-Yi’s career, she works with a more-established (but only slightly-older) actress, who treats her like dirt. It turns out the actress had worked with Jae-Yi’s mother and respected her greatly. Yet she sabotages Jae-Yi’s interview opportunities and shows no signs of being a nice person. Then at an awards ceremony, after Jae-Yi wins best newcomer, she congratulates her and says her mother would’ve been proud and begins to periodically reach out. What? She knew Jae-Yi’s mom had been murdered, but offered no support when Jae-Yi was a struggling newbie. She only extended an olive brand after Jae-Yi became successful. Hmmm.
© 2019 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved
I think that the main element of this story was the stark black and white characters. The writers were out to show only that throughout. There was no gray elements to anything. Right/wrong..bad/good is differentiated in great depths. Do jin is good.. period. His character has little growth throughout and that’s what they wanted to show.