GOLDEN CROSS EPISODE 1

A man's life is destroyed when his sister is murdered and his father is framed for it. When he vows revenge, he stumbles upon a shadowy conspiracy that extends further than he could imagine.

We start with Kang Do Yoon getting sworn in as prosecutor, a position he has worked hard to attain, while his proud family looks on. Do Yoon's celebration is cut short when he gets word that his father bashed his sister's brains in with a golf club. He grabs his father and screams at him, imploring his father to tell him why. For the answers to that, we need to look back three months earlier.

The scene is a less-than-happy family. Dad's ne'er-do-well brother absconded with his money, and Mom's dreams of owning her own restaurant are gone with the cash. Everyone's unhappy at Dad; his son is angry at him for being a pushover, his wife is angry simply because all he can say is he'll handle it.

Meanwhile, Do Yoon's sister Ha Yoon got pegged as a star by a talent agent on the street for "SR Entertainment" (A nod to SM Entertainment, no doubt). She talks tirelessly of the fact that she's going to be a star, and has her head in the clouds. She is ecstatic when she gets a call for a movie audition in Hong Kong, and flies out there to be made a star. The call was not for a movie, apparently, but for a businessman's bed as a phone call from her agency tells her to "do whatever he wants."  A smiling Seo Dong Ha walks into her hotel room, and we fade to black.   

Behind the scenes, deals are being made. At a book signing, former Financial Minister Kim Jae Gab makes a speech to the crowd's delight. His family is there, and his prosecutor granddaughter Yi Reh couldn't be more bored as her family schmoozes with the rich and shameless.

Yi Reh's father Seo Dong Ha (remember our date rapist?) and Michael Jang are the real power players, Dong Ha being a director at the Financial Policy Bureau and Jang the PAX Korean Branch President. Dong Ha sells the Hanmin Bank, where Dad works, to Michael. As this is illegal, they need a fall guy -- our hero's father, Kang Ju Wan, is broke and the ideal patsy.   

Ju Wan is manipulated into changing stats to downgrade his bank's status, which will allow the sale to proceed and Ju Wan's fortunes to change. The family will get a nice house free and clear, and Mom can get her restaurant. Ju Wan is, ironically, further driven by his son's harsh words. He will prove he's not a loser. This is a bit of conjecture here, but much of it is implied.

Do Yoon arrives home just in time to see Ha Yoon stuffed into an SUV and taken away against her will. She's taken to a building and dragged into an elevator, which Do Yoon cannot enter without a proper key card. Ha Yoon tries to quit the agency and warns that her brother will bring them to justice. The secretary, Sa Ra, tells her that if she does something, her brother can be quickly made into a criminal instead of a star prosecutor. Apparently, these people have a lot of power.  

I'm kind of divided on this drama. If not for the taut scene at the beginning, I would have thought it was just another family drama. Plenty of time is spent on scenes with our unhappy family. Our hero plays the cocksure oppa, teasing his sister and yelling at his his father whom he sees as a chump. Most of the drama is spent in this manner with occasional scenes that don't make much sense.

I have a feeling that the second episode will help make more sense of all this. Was the father indeed framed for his daughter's murder?  If so, why? Yi Reh and Do Yoon have a fairly charming relationship, too. When he says goodbye to the office where he interned, Yi Reh replies that when he's done with training, she'll buy him a cup of coffee. The exchange is short without the usual formal endings. That speaks of a closer relationship that I'm hoping the show will develop more. We could use a romance thrown into this bleak mix.

I like the soundtrack, and there's even a remake of Cranberry's 1994 hit "Linger" (all in Korean, naturally). The drama was reasonably paced and I wasn't bored, but I spent a lot of time confused. It jumps around a bit in time, and I wasn't sure what significance certain characters had in the plot.  I can tell you that Sa Ra, Dong Ha, Michael, and Kim Jae Gub are all part of the "Golden Cross," and our hero is Kang Do Yoon. I have a feeling Yi Reh will show up here, too, because she is in more than a couple scenes.

So the jury's still out. I didn't hate it, certainly, but I think it will take more than one episode to piece together what's going on. I'm sure it will take much of the show to unveil the conspiracy and bring the perpetrators to justice.

What do you guys think?

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