My Name Series Review: A girl and her father. She and her loneliness, she and her distant father. This is where My Name, the 8-episode series by Kim Jin-min, director of Pride and Prejudice (2004), starts. Presented at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, the series is a police thriller, starring Han So-hee. This is a story of blood and sweat, anger and violence, with a young girl who takes revenge at the center.
My Name: a story of revenge and love
My Name is a K-drama that tells the story of Jiwoo (Han So-hee), a young girl who seems shy, and insecure, who is alone in the world, but who then knows how to become a war machine. In the incipit, the viewer meets a person bullied by a classmate and because of her father is forced to be alone on her birthday but then everything changes.
Her life has been like this since her father disappeared into thin air and is a wanted man, which is why in class she is known as "the drug dealer's daughter", she is constantly under observation by the local police, in short, a difficult life for a young girl.
The situation gets worse when the tormentor puts a bag with something that looks like cocaine inside on her desk to make fun of her. The protagonist rebels and is called back by the principal. There is only one end: Ji Woo leaves school, feeling like a victim, an outcast, an outcast for the umpteenth time.
My Name Series Analysis:
My Name, however, above all tells the story of a daughter's love for her father, the pain of his loss and the desire for revenge. The girl returns home and argues fiercely on the phone with her father, Yoon Dong-hoon in a conversation that will remain in her heart forever.
"For me, you are dead. Don't come back". These words, said in a moment of anger, are a sad anticipation of what will happen later. The father, hearing those harsh, desperate sentences from his daughter, decides to return home, knowing that for him this could mean being in danger, and in a tragic scene the viewer, together with Jiwoo, witnesses the death of his father, an event that will change his life forever, the engine of the action, the reason for all his choices.
The narration starts from this point: the locked door, she looking through the peephole, the words of one and those of the other. A shot. The father blocks the door with his body so that nothing happens to his daughter, the last words, touching and moving. The man is brutally murdered by a hooded figure and with his hands still dirty with his father's blood, Jiwoo decides to look for the culprit.
The center of the story is its protagonist:
Jiwoo's purpose in life is only one: to find out who killed his father and this means getting his hands dirty, descending into hell. The only possibility seems to be to ask for help from Choi Moo-jin (Park Hee-Soon), almost a brother to her father, one of the biggest bosses in the drug ring and he offers her a place in the "school" where the men of his gang train to prepare her for hand-to-hand combat.
There she discovers a misogynistic and sexist world, there she is harassed, and mistreated but still manages to fight - and perhaps for this very reason, the others can't stand being knocked out by a young girl. When two of her companions try to rape her, Choi Moo-jin decides to push the girl away and have her join the police force, thanks to his connections.
After five years of hard training, Jiwoo joins the narcotics squad of the Jinchang department, so she can investigate her father's death again. Her life is completely different, once again her existence changes direction: she changes name, she changes "face". This new "beginning" will not be easy especially when Jiwoo's two identities risk colliding.
The whole story is based on Han So-hee's body and face, on her strong and courageous character. She is delicate, small at least in appearance but inside she is a rock, she is determined and courageous. She is a character who lives on contrasts, on one side the body, on the other the character, on one side the appearance on the other the merciless and angry eyes that live in the memory of her father.
Her life is a free fall into an abyss of blood, ferocity and resentment, there is never a breath or salvation for her and to support the story there is a fast pace that does not leave you in peace. The action of My Name is tight, and rhythmic, and does not give a moment to respite. The protagonist is cold, and rational despite being infused and full of rancor and desire for revenge, she lives like all the other characters of extreme reactions, inhabited by violence and hatred.
My Name: a female revenge series that strikes but also leaves some doubts
My Name is interesting because the point of view is female, usually in revenge K-dramas the point of view is male. The series, despite being a little too slow, manages to impress especially for its protagonist and for the various twists.