“One Ordinary Day” (어느 날)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
October 2, 2022

Kim Hyun-soo (played by Kim Soo-hyun)
Shin Joong-han (played by Cha Seung-won)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

The entire premise of this series centers on a murder. Since this show has been out for almost a year, and since it’s based on a well-known 2008 British series (“Criminal Justice”) with the same plot, I’m going to tell you about the event that starts this gripping series. If you don’t want to know, I advise you come back to read this after you’ve watched the show. Regardless, I highly recommend this K-drama, which had my stomach in knots for much of the eight episodes.

Hyun-soo is a college student in his early 20s. He’s cute, asthmatic and isn’t a loner. When his friends invite him to a party that will be full of pretty girls, Hyun-soo declines, because he has to take part in a study group. When the latter is canceled, Hyun-soo excitedly tells his friends to count him in. Unfortunately, he can’t catch a ride with them or pay for the $100 cab fare it would cost.

So instead, he borrows his father’s taxi. Stopped at a light and trying to figure out how to turn off the “for hire” sign, he’s surprised when a beautiful woman about his age gets into his cab. Though he tries to convince her to leave the cab, she wears him down with her forthright persistence (and aforementioned beauty).  Gook-hwa (Hwang Se-on) asks him to take her to the Han River, where they enjoy ice cream (that she encouraged him to steal) and beers.

And then she invites him into her beautiful and expensive home.

There, Gook-hwa offers him tequila and drugs — which he takes — and she initiates a game of Knife, where one person lays their hand down on the table and hopes the knife-wielding person doesn’t stab them. She expertly misses his fingers and tells him to do the same to her. He accidentally stabs her hand, which elicits a surprising reaction. She is turned on. And though this should have been his first clue that he should just go back home, he and she head upstairs and have sex. (Make no mistake about it. While Gook-hwa may be a bad influence, Hyun-soo wasn’t forced to do anything he didn’t want to do.)

Much later, Hyun-soo wakes up downstairs, helps himself to some water, gets dressed and heads back upstairs to say goodbye to Gook-hwa. But she is lying in pool of blood on her bed. She is dead.

Hell begins here for Hyun-soo. Prosecutors and the police say that the actions he took after finding her stabbed to death proves he is the murderer. Hyun-soo freaked the fuck out and panicked. Instead of calling the police or an ambulance, he runs out to his car to escape. But his car keys are inside his jacket, which is still inside the house. He breaks a window to let himself in, grabs his jacket and notices the knife they used to play Knife. He takes that. And knowing how devastating the scenario makes him look, he sloppily cleans up some of the incriminating DNA on the counter as well. And as he speeds and swerves on his way home, he is stopped by a police officer who is doing random DUI tests.

Most of this happens within the first 20 minutes of the premiere episode. The truly stressful element about this series is that he could have done everything he was supposed to have done, but no one would’ve presumed he was innocent. His DNA was everywhere. There were signs of a struggle (even though it was just two horny people knocking things over in a hurry to get to the bedroom).

The part of the series that bothered me was how haphazard the investigation was, because I know things like this happen in real life. As one of the prisoners he will later meet tells him, people like them with no money or prestigious family connections are never given the benefit of the doubt. They aren’t presumed innocent until found guilty. They’re presumed guilty from the start.

But there were some frustrating oversights that even a rookie attorney or police officer would’ve noticed. Hyun-soo is left handed. His lawyer Joong-han doesn’t question the prosecution’s forensics team about which hand was likely used to kill the woman. Only later does Joong-han’s ex-wife, Jeong-ah (Kim Young-ah)— who works at the National Forensic Service — deduce that the murderer was right handed. Therefore Hyun-soo most likely wasn’t the culprit.

The maddening thing is that though there are other suspects, no one except Hyun-soo’s defense attorney bothered to check into their alibis. Why did no one question Hyun-soo’s friends, who he was headed to meet? While not an alibi during the time of the murder, they could’ve confirmed that yes, he was on his way to join them at a party. And while he technically did take his father’s cab without permission, his dad never pressed charges. So was it legally a theft? Or a son borrowing his parents’ car without authorization?

While Joong-han is trying to prove his client’s innocence, Hyun-soo is taken under Ji-tae’s wing in prison. The alpha prisoner who is feared by everyone, Ji-tae is tough and pragmatic, but most definitely not a good guy. Everyone has a purpose and he sees potential in Hyun-soo to be beneficial to him. Played by Kim Sung-kyu (“Kingdom“), Ji-tae is smoking hot in the same way that Park Hee-Soon was in “My Name.”

Hyun-soo’s nemesis in prison is a repeat offender played by Yang Kyung-won, who was so lovably weird in “Crash Landing on You” and “Vincenzo.” He is chilling here. (You can also catch him in this year’s “Big Mouth,” where he plays another character of dubious morals.)

“One Ordinary Day” reminds me a bit of “Mouse,” where you don’t know who the killer is. Hyun-soo wasn’t completely innocent: he willingly got drunk, took illegal drugs and ran from the scene of a crime without calling for help. While he has no memory of killing Gook-hwa, he also has no memory of not killing her.

As Hyun-soo, Kim Soo-hyun is superb in a difficult role where he has to be sympathetic, but also could be a cold-blooded and manipulative killer. He is required to cry in a manner that allows viewers to feel his panic and fears. And Kim comes through again with his nuanced acting, proving he is one of the best actors of his generation.

Korean vs. International Age: It’s mentioned several times that Hyun-soo is a 25-year old college student, which sounds old, right? A few things about that. Of course there are some students older than the norm. Some may have had to take time off to save up for tuition. Some young men fulfill their mandatory military duty right after high school or after completing a year or two of college. However, in both the dialogue (and the correct subtitles), they are referring to Hyun-soo’s Korean age. On one of his legal documents, viewers can see that he was born in August 1997. And in Episode 8, we see that part of his trial is taking place in May 2021. So he is actually only 23 years old at the time he was arrested for murder and put on trial. (For a more elaborate explanation of Korean vs. International Age, read my “Twenty-Five Twenty-One” essay.)

Cliffhanger: The ending includes a cameo appearance by Kim’s “Moon That Embraces the Sun” co-star Kim Yoo-jung, setting up the possibility of a second season focusing on a new lead actor and the crime she’s accused of committing.

Not suitable for young children: There is a lot of violence, drug use  and minimal nudity (female breasts, male backside). I would say that it’s suitable for children 16 and older.

Airdates: Eight hour-long episodes aired on Coupang Play from November 27 to December 19, 2021.

Spoiler Alert: Hyun-soo didn’t commit the murder. The victim’s former lover — a drug rehabilitation doctor — also supplied her with opioids like fentanyl. He killed her after she found out he was married and broke up with him. When caught, he confessed.

We see that Hyun-soo is now out of prison, but he is not a free man by any means. After having been described as a murderer on the news for months, that’s how people view him. Neighbors graffiti his parents’ home and some passerby recoil at the sight of him. The last we see of him is on top of a high-rise building, smoking a cigarette. He throws his cigarette butt off the roof and looks down. The viewers are left wondering whether he is contemplating to die by suicide or will survive this trauma.

Also, I was truly surprised when another prisoner killed Ji-tae, who seemed invincible until the very end.

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