The Kidnapping Day: Episodes 1-2

by solstices

When a desperate father kidnaps a rich family’s young daughter, he certainly doesn’t expect to be outwitted and outplayed by her — much less develop a paternal affection for her in a matter of days. Zippy, fun, and chock full of heart, this premiere week hits all the right humorous beats, leaving me eagerly anticipating where the story goes next.

 
EPISODES 1-2

Our tale begins all the way back in February 1993, in the crowded lobby of a hospital. A man observes the people passing by, his face obscured by a cap. When a doctor and his young patient walk by, the man brandishes his knife, and though he’s swiftly disarmed, he manages to swipe a nearby scalpel. With an anguished wail, he slashes at the pair — but he winds up slicing the little girl’s neck, and judging by how he comes to a shocked standstill, his blade found the wrong mark.

Fast forward to May 2023. Our bumbling protagonist KIM MYUNG-JOON (Yoon Kye-sang) displays his clumsiness right off the bat, choking on his hastily-swallowed notepaper and flinching at the sound of his ringtone. He’s such a nervous wreck that he can barely follow the instructions of the woman on the other end of the line, and the sound of a passing patrol car spooks him enough that he chickens out of their plan. That is, until a little girl suddenly runs into the path of his car, fainting just inches away from its bumper. And as Myung-joon’s luck would have it, she’s CHOI RO-HEE (Yoo-na), the kid he needs to kidnap.

When Ro-hee regains consciousness, she terrifies the living daylights out of Myung-joon by firmly demanding for an identity. Except she isn’t asking for his name, but her own. She’s awoken without her memories. Pressed for an answer, Myung-joon fibs that she’s his daughter Kim Hee-ae. She accepts this for now, though the fake name obviously doesn’t ring a bell.

The more we learn about Ro-hee (and the more she discovers about herself), the more we realize something’s amiss. Not only is she remarkably precocious for her young age, but she’s also a proficient polyglot, stunning Myung-joon with a multitude of foreign languages that sound like alien gibberish to his ears. It’s clear from Ro-hee’s prim demeanor and impertinent attitude that her upbringing was privileged and pampered, though she doesn’t remember a single bit of it.

Ro-hee is every bit a tiny terror, threatening the bewildered Myung-joon with his own back scratcher and turning her nose up at his poor living conditions. (LOL, I love that she keeps speaking to Myung-joon in banmal!) Ever the pushover, Myung-joon can’t help but give in to her demands, partly out of fear and partly out of paternal instinct.

Taking care of Ro-hee sparks fond memories of Myung-joon’s own daughter Hee-ae, who had been diagnosed with leukemia. With her only hope of survival being a bone marrow transplant, Myung-joon has been working himself to the bone in order to scrounge up enough money to cover the cost of her hospital bills and surgery.

Three months ago, Myung-joon’s ex-wife SEO HYE-EUN (Kim Shin-rok) returned from abroad after three years upon hearing of their daughter’s illness. Knowing that her former spouse doesn’t have the means to afford the surgery, Hye-eun offers up a photo of Ro-hee. All Myung-joon has to do is hold the child hostage, and her ransom will be more than enough to foot Hee-ae’s bill.

Unfortunately, our amateur kidnapper’s ransom plans aren’t going too great. Myung-joon is perplexed that Ro-hee’s parents aren’t answering his calls, but he soon finds out why. They’ve been grotesquely murdered in their own home, decomposing for days until their holidaying housekeeper finally returned to discover their corpses. Myung-joon’s stomach sinks with dreadful horror — he’s just gone from a kidnapper to a murder suspect.

Meanwhile, we meet the knife-wielding man from 1993 again. He’s now a junk collector, and it seems he harbors shady, ulterior motives. After lurking around Myung-joon’s vicinity, the man breaks into the house when he’s out. Luckily, the quick-witted Ro-hee manages to escape in the nick of time, and when Myung-joon comes to her rescue by throwing himself in harm’s way with zero hesitation, Ro-hee’s gratitude finally has her retracting her claws. (Though she’s still very much a tsundere, hee.)

Ro-hee may be safe and sound, but Myung-joon certainly isn’t. Detective PARK SANG-YOON (Park Sung-hoon) is hot on his heels, and the simple-minded, scatterbrained Myung-joon has left behind more clues than he realizes. Not only has he been captured on CCTV multiple times, but he also didn’t burn his getaway vehicle properly. Sang-yoon manages to recover his burner phone with call logs to Ro-hee’s father, conclusively tying Myung-joon to Ro-hee’s abduction.

However, the observant Sang-yoon immediately clocks the stark differences between Myung-joon’s haphazard kidnapping and the meticulous murders. Furthermore, why would a kidnapper murder the people he wants to demand ransom from?

Thoroughly spooked by the abrupt escalation of the case, Myung-joon resolves to nip his crime in the bud before it spirals into something worse. He’ll send Ro-hee home and turn himself in. Before that, though, he takes Ro-hee out for one last meal together, wanting to properly satisfy her demands for delicious food.

Myung-joon’s a good dad through and through — when Ro-hee suddenly collapses from an allergic reaction, he doesn’t think twice before rushing her to the hospital, wailing for the doctors to save his daughter. Ro-hee is treated in time, but Myung-joon’s fabricated patient particulars and the bruises on Ro-hee’s arms raise suspicions of child abuse among the hospital staff. When the police are called in, it’s the astute Ro-hee who takes charge, tugging Myung-joon away and escaping the hospital.

Once they’re far enough away, Ro-hee wields her back scratcher at her supposed dad. The jig is up — she heard Myung-joon calling out her real name while searching the alleyways last night. He’s not her father, so who is he?

Have I mentioned that I love Ro-hee already? She may be a brat, but she’s such an intelligent, endearing gem. It’s no wonder Myung-joon can’t help but melt in the face of her peculiar behavior. Underneath her blunt speech and pompous bluster, Ro-hee has a good heart. When an impromptu voice recording of Ro-hee calling for her dad — initially intended as ransom bait — inadvertently brings Myung-joon to tears because it reminds him of Hee-ae, the perceptive Ro-hee secretly leaves a recording on his phone later that night. “Dad, I miss you! And sorry for hitting you earlier!”

Ro-hee’s past may be shrouded in secrets, but the drama’s opening sequence harbors a few hints if we squint. Scraps of journal articles and research notes discuss “The Genius Child Project,” which lines up with the surgical room discovered in the Choi residence. Not entirely out of the ordinary for an affluent brain specialist, but it looks suspiciously like an experimental laboratory — and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ro-hee was the test subject.

Myung-joon, in all his hapless fumbling and sincere concern, is exactly the kind of likable protagonist you want to root for. It’s clear from his interactions with Ro-hee and his flashbacks with Hee-ae that he loves deeply and selflessly — he’d sacrifice anything for his child in a heartbeat. Myung-joon barely has any pieces of the overarching puzzle just yet, though, because there’s also a mysterious benefactor who secretly footed Hee-ae’s entire hospital bill.

Who is this guardian angel, who did the little girl from the 1993 flashback grow up to be, and what are the junk collector’s motives? The characters we’ve met so far are deeply compelling, and the characters we haven’t seen yet are already sparking my curiosity — I hope we get to see more of Kim Shin-rok, and I can’t wait to find out what role Kang Young-seok will play in this mystery. With an intriguing premise, a solid cast, and such entertaining execution, The Kidnapping Day definitely has me hooked with its promising premiere.

 
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