[Drama 2023] Payback/Law Money, 법쩐

[widala]

I love episode 3!

The pace is just right, more intense than ep 2 imo now that Eun Yong and Park Joon Kyung has teamed up.

Jang Tae Chun is still 50-50 I think... He wants to hold on to his ideal, but he also has to choose side. And neither is clean, just different shades of grey.

As the villain, I really like Hwang. He's so slimy! 

Can't wait for episode 4 tonight 

14 hours ago, the_sweetroad said:

That's too bad . Sometimes random YouTube videos won't post for me - there's an error message that an Emoji has been used. But other YT videos post just fine. With Twitter, I just copy and paste the link. Maybe report the problems to the moderators and see if they have any advice? I for one would love to see more of your tweets here!

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

[Shimmery-summer]

What is the role of female prosecutor, btw they didn't tell how she moved from prosecution to army. Constant flashbacks into past are annoying. Female prosecutor is a very annoying character, dunno why writers wrote her so bad, so firstly she fabricates evidence in such a pathetic way that she is cornered from every side, all that happens to her mom later on is her fault and she has the guts to tell eun young, anyone on eun young's side, even if his nephew or any family member is my enemy and Eun young doesn't react. Then towards the end of episode her outburst before nephew was so ridiculous, he is talking about law and she is judging his character. This isn't eun young's fight in the first place.

 

Anyways, financial parts were very hard. Firstly, why she agrees to fabricate evidence, that was a false case from start why she agreed to it when her mom's business was clean. Didn't understand how chairmna villain dropped the stock price of that company owner, how short selling stocks drops the stock price, the whole part was complicated. How the securities firm was manipulating etc. Then eun youngs meeting with that old lady from debt market, the stack of books he offers her first, what were they and what was the deal he offered on eates that she turns down, then the phone call he makes what was the rate he was asking, it would have been good if writers explained them well.

 

Eun young standing on terrace wall was very unnecessary scene, it's so dangerous.

[backstreetboysfan]

Here are the ratings for Episode 3! .

 

 

“Payback” Ratings Rise For 3rd Episode + “The Forbidden Marriage” Climbs Back Up

On January 13, Lee Sun Gyun and Moon Chae Won‘s new revenge drama “Payback” saw its ratings climb back up for its third episode. According to Nielsen Korea, the latest broadcast of “Payback” returned to an average nationwide rating of 8.7 percent, matching the show’s personal record from its first episode last week.

 

https://www.soompi.com/article/1562861wpp/payback-ratings-rise-for-3rd-episode-the-forbidden-marriage-climbs-back-up

 

[widala]

On 1/12/2023 at 4:14 AM, sadiesmith said:

Did my ears trick me or is the song "A Million Roses" (a nod to My Mister perhaps) playing in the restaurant scene where Tae Chun's mom gets drunk? When he puts her in bed in her drunk condition, does she call out "Sung Tae?" Isn't this the name of the leader of the thugs? Is there a relationsip to be revealed later? I wonder how much more she will come into play later in the drama.

 

It is One Million Roses!

Eun Yong's sis/Tae Chun's mom sang it again on Ep 3

 

Wondering why they choose that particular song...a nod to My Ahjussi like you said maybe...

Funny thing is I noticed that Payback screenwriter's name is Kim Won Seok, similar to My Ahjussi PD's name altho they're different person. Just a fun fact 

 

 

 

[sweetroad]

46 minutes ago, widala said:

It is One Million Roses!

 

Yes! It was way clearer in episode 3! How neat that they brought in that song to Payback.

 

@widala Did you happen to watch the drama Behind Every Star? More specifically, episode 5 where Park Ho San and Oh Na Ra were guest stars? They were hilarious together, and kept referencing My Mister. I posted about it on the MM thread - it was a fun episode to watch.

 

 

9 hours ago, Shimmery-summer said:

Constant flashbacks into past are annoying.

 

The flashbacks are a little disorienting for me, too. Sometimes I wish they told the story in a more linear fashion, but maybe they didn't want to take up a whole 2 - 3 episodes with backstory. I wonder if they'll continue with all the flashbacks and continue to fill in a lot of the details, or if we've gotten most of what we'll get. In a way, I'm glad we have just enough to see how the characters were back then, and then a lot of present-day scenes to keep things moving.

 

 

Thoughts on ep 3:

 

- Park Jun Kyung pleading with Eun Yong to stay in Korea was so heartbreaking! And then for him to miss her email, after he'd asked her to contact him with any bad news.

 

- Jang Tae Chun's mom has alcoholic dementia by age 40! I didn't see that coming, that in the present-day she wouldn't be mentally present for her son or her brother.

 

- Jang Tae Chun, like his uncle, was a fighter when he was young. It was gratifying to see him stand up for his mom and give that teacher what he deserved. I can't believe that teacher beat him up like that. He belongs in jail.

 

- Myung In Joo is a monster. Once that distressed CEO showed up in MIJ's office to borrow money I knew he was a goner . It will be nice to see MIJ get justice done to him for his inhumanity and greed. That poor CEO. @Shimmery-summer This article on short-selling, along with a couple of examples at the end, was a bit helpful (just a bit, as I tend to glaze over with financial intricacies): https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/shortselling.asp

 

- Beyond LSK being styled like Brad Pitt (in my eyes), while watching episode 3 I felt even more like there was an Ocean's 11 vibe going on. There were some short and snappy conversations, LSK sitting coolly and watching the people around him (like when his nephew and PJK were talking in his amazing penthouse), and a lot of "smooth" cinematography.

[widala]

Thoughts on Episode 4

 

Spoiler

- I don't like how Eun Yong survive from death is pure luck.

If Jinho wasn't the who's in charge of EY kidnapping or he didn't care about EY taking care of his grandma, EY would be dead, buried in the middle of nowhere.

The whole time, I was hoping EY already made a deal with Jinho or something but no. That's kind of disappointing.

 

- EY is too reckless and too confident about the power of his money when he doesn't have what's more important. Connections.

He's practically a foreigner who doesn't know anyone in SK except Hong Hanna. 

 

- NOT ENOUGH MOON CHAE WON!

She was supposed to be a main role but it feels like some supporting roles has more screen time than her.

I hope we get more of her in later episodes.

 

- Not enough Eun Yong and Park Joon Kyung scenes together.

And no, I'm not trying to push my ship agenda  I just really like their dynamics. She's reserved and quiet, he's all fun and laughter... They kinda balance each other.

The ramyeon scene is pretty sad bc PJK seems to be out of place and lonely... I really wish EY include her in.

 

But overall, I enjoyed ep 4.

The action is cool.

The cooking scene is adorable.

 

That's it for now, maybe I'll add something later...

 

 

5 hours ago, the_sweetroad said:

Did you happen to watch the drama Behind Every Star? More specifically, episode 5 where Park Ho San and Oh Na Ra were guest stars? They were hilarious together, and kept referencing My Mister. I posted about it on the MM thread - it was a fun episode to watch.

 

Yes! Really love that episode! 

 

[sadiesmith]

Finally had time to watch episode 2 and 3 with my husband in one sitting. I wasn't sure how much he would like this, because when we agree to watch a show together, we usually don't lean towards law and revenge stories. But to my surprise, all the stock market and financial shenanigans actually got him engaged (it's definitely how well they style LSK in present day). Now we have momentum to continue with the rest of the drama.  

 

I was a little disappointed the "epic" umbrella scene was so short. She didn't even say anything before the cut to the scene in her house.

 

11 hours ago, widala said:

Wondering why they choose that particular song...

 

I knew it! I can't help but think that the theme of giving love without hate will be part of older sister's journey. I hope there is a happy ending for her.

 

19 hours ago, Shimmery-summer said:

Eun young standing on terrace wall was very unnecessary scene, it's so dangerous.

 

Agreed it was very dangerous, but it is a clever way to show how much risks Eun Yong is willing to take and how unafraid he is. Did LSK do that stunt for real?

[lila21]

5 hours ago, sadiesmith said:

Agreed it was very dangerous, but it is a clever way to show how much risks Eun Yong is willing to take and how unafraid he is. Did LSK do that stunt for real?

exactly..that was expressing what he wanted to communicate more than words as for the stunt, I wonder if he was standing really at the ledge of a high building or that was just camera manipulation

[backstreetboysfan]

Here are the ratings for Episode 4! .

 

 

“Crash Course In Romance” Premieres To No. 1 Ratings; “Agency” And “Payback” Hit New All-Time Highs

 

while Lee Sun Gyun and Moon Chae Won‘s “Payback” was the most-watched miniseries of the entire week with an average nationwide rating of 9.6 percent.

 

https://www.soompi.com/article/1562929wpp/crash-course-in-romance-premieres-to-no-1-ratings-agency-and-payback-hit-new-all-time-highs

[Nomorelisa]

7 hours ago, lila21 said:

exactly..that was expressing what he wanted to communicate more than words as for the stunt, I wonder if he was standing really at the ledge of a high building or that was just camera manipulation

Yes, from our PoV, it looks so real.  I doubt they did the stunt for real as it looks kinda dangerous.

[lila21]

On 1/13/2023 at 9:34 PM, Shimmery-summer said:

how short selling stocks drops the stock price, the whole part was complicated. How the securities firm was manipulating etc.

it is like casino owners in charge of the game. They buy loads of stock when the stock is cheap and therefore make the price of the stock go higher which attracts buyers and as people start buying the price goes higher but who is selling (shorting) the stock to the buyers, it is the one who bought loads of the stock in the first place and at a certain point when the casino has shorted or sold their supply of stock at a higher price  than they bought it, the supply dwindles and as people notice the casino selling the supply the price starts going down and the people who kept buying the stock as it went higher are now holding a bunch of stocks priced lower than they bought it. The market buying and selling is rigged. The people who bought the stock at a high price and now priced lower are forced to sell their stock at a lower price as the price is dropping and who buys the stock back, the casino.

[sadiesmith]

Watched episode 4 and really enjoyed all the action sequences. But I also realized I can't keep up with all the details unless I go back and watch again. We're introduced to even more characters, one of them being Hwang Ki-seok's wife. Judging from her reaction to being told Eun Yong is back in the country, I suspect something did happen between the two back in the days. The flaskbacks aren't going away, are they? I had to laugh at Eun Yong "shipping" his nephew with PJK.

 

For others like me who get easily confused, this guy has written a pretty thorough recap of every episode (more thorough than on Dramabeans): https://www.thereviewgeek.com/payback-s1e4review/

 

The Episode Review

Payback delivers a brilliant episode, one full of twists and turns along with a whole plethora of reveals and chess-like moves across the black and white board of justice. For every step forward that Eun-yong and his team are making, it seems Myung is already aware of it and is moving to get an early checkmate.

 

Chess analogies aside, Payback is really starting to heat up and this chapter is a great example of how to balance political scheming with exciting action and character development. I mentioned before that episode 3 didn’t have much of that but episode 4 certainly remedies any issues.

 

From start to finish this is an absolutely solid hour of drama and the ending hints that next week’s double bill is going to be just as good. Roll on episode 5!

[sweetroad]

1 hour ago, sadiesmith said:

Judging from her reaction at being told Eun Yong is back in the country, I suspect something did happen between the two back in the days.

 

On the relationship chart, wasn't their relationship line something like "Heart flutters in the past?"

 

1 hour ago, sadiesmith said:

For others like me who get easily confused, this guy has written a pretty thorough recap of every episode (more thorough than on Dramabeans): https://www.thereviewgeek.com/payback-s1e4review/

 

Very helpful!

 

 

My initial thoughts/ questions from Episode 4:

 

- That elevator fight scene was pretty awesome!

 

- Eun Yong was buried alive?! I couldn't believe it. Good thing Jin Ho had the guts to save him and risk the Chairman's wrath. It was smart of Eun Yong to get Jin Ho in an accident as it saved Jin Ho's butt plus his own.

 

- So Eun Yong basically betrayed the lady from the market (Dongdaemun) by showing Chairman Oh the stock manipulation document and telling Chairman Oh that he got it from Dongdaemun. That's too bad. It was painful to see Ms Kim get tortured by Chairman Myung with the iron, and she also had her stocks transferred over to Jin Ho.

 

- It looks like Chairman Myung is playing a double game. On the one hand he appears to support Chairman Oh but on the other hand he's working to delist GMI Bank, Chairman Oh's company. Or do you guys think Chairman Oh knows that GMI is getting delisted?

 

- The scene between Chairman Oh and Chairman Myung was a bit confusing/ eye-opening. Were we supposed to believe that Chairman Oh is actually the head honcho, and that Chairman Myung is serving him? I had always thought Chairman Oh was one of Myung's pawns in high places.

 

- Agree that we need more scenes with MCW, and more scenes with MCW and LSK together.

 

- Now that an Oceans 11 vibe has lodged in my mind, I'm seeing it everywhere. The dress shirts with sheen. The cool, suave poses.

 

 

 

(How did Eun Yong's cheek recover so quickly? )

 

[Shimmery-summer]

10 hours ago, lila21 said:

it is like casino owners in charge of the game. They buy loads of stock when the stock is cheap and therefore make the price of the stock go higher which attracts buyers and as people start buying the price goes higher but who is selling (shorting) the stock to the buyers, it is the one who bought loads of the stock in the first place and at a certain point when the casino has shorted or sold their supply of stock at a higher price  than they bought it, the supply dwindles and, the price of the stock goes down.  The people who kept buying the stock as it went higher are now holding a bunch of stocks priced lower than they bought it. The market buying and selling is rigged. The people who bought the stock at a high price and now priced lower are forced to sell their stock at a lower price as the price is dropping and who buys the stock back, the casino.

Thank you dear for an educational response, but this was a different thing I wanted to ask, so here chairman doesn't own stocks, they are a collateral, right? But he places them on market for short selling, so I know he could do this but the ceo who gave them the stocks, can he not find out who is putting his stocks out in market and that they are available on short selling terms, and in the first place when chairman myung's man at securities firm made those stocks available in market how did that bring down the price so drastically just because lot of stocks were available for sale. Something like this. I will try reading up more,dramas should show these thungs a bit more clearly because othetwise it feels like you are watching a drama just for watching but not understanding what is happening. I like the show but wish they talk financial parts more clearly.

[andy78]

Moon Chae Won ...i just love her!!!i think i'll start watching this drama...if she is one of the characters i know this drama will be a good one...i hope i'm right!!!

[Shimmery-summer]

Ok so finished ep 4 and would share the thoughts later but when he serves her khorkhog ( a mongolian dish) he says in Mongolia they search for wild rats to make this dish and she spits out meat. It was weird to hear this so I searched and all I found was this dish being made with lamb or beef, so what was the point of mentioning wild rats? And no, no need to defend as a joke. Unless I am missing this context this is downright disgusting.

[sadiesmith]

10 hours ago, the_sweetroad said:

- So Eun Yong basically betrayed the lady from the market (Dongdaemun) by showing Chairman Oh the stock manipulation document and telling Chairman Oh that he got it from Dongdaemun. That's too bad. It was painful to see Ms Kim get tortured by Chairman Myung with the iron, and she also had her stocks transferred over to Jin Ho.

 

Yes, and I wonder if he would have a major regret later in the show. That was quite careless of him. 

 

I'll have to watch Oceans 11 now.   

 

1 hour ago, andy78 said:

Moon Chae Won ...i just love her!!!i think i'll start watching this drama...if she is one of the characters i know this drama will be a good one...i hope i'm right!!!

 

I hope you join in the watch. It's been a fun watch for me so far.

[widala]

Found this post that kinda speak my mind.

Rough translation:

So if he didn't save him (EY) then the drama will be over?

(EY) work for Myung for so long but didn't learn anything 

 

I hope the writer will write EY smarter and more prepared in the future...

 

It irked me sometimes that villains are often written very compelling who would use anything at their disposal to win, while heroes often relying too much on pure luck. 

 

[sweetroad]

5 hours ago, widala said:

I hope the writer will write EY smarter and more prepared in the future...

 

It irked me sometimes that villains are often written very compelling who would use anything at their disposal to win, while heroes often relying too much on pure luck. 

 

 

I agree, sometimes the villains seem so clever and powerful, and for the good guys it's much more uncertain whether they'll survive! In the case of this episode, I see things just slightly differently - it's because there's a goodness in Eun Yong that he paid for Jin Ho's grandmother's hospital bills and helped take care of her while Jin Ho was in jail. In that way Eun Yong is different from Chairman Myung, who would simply put his own people in jail and screw them over (like he screwed over Eun Yong before EY left Korea). Jin Ho, being honorable in some things, saved Eun Yong as we saw. It was lucky that Jin Ho was in charge of disposing of Eun Yong, but I'm glad Eun Yong had shown kindness to JH that JH wanted to repay.

 

And I think it was pretty clever of a disoriented, drugged-up Eun Yong to take the wheel and cause an accident. Though, after thinking about it that was also pretty gray for me - what if he had actually killed Jin Ho?

 

But I do agree that hopefully EY will be more prepared in the future for Chairman Myung's schemes, and I also hope he won't again resort to betraying people that he buys off. Eun Yong is more of a morally ambivalent character than I had anticipated.

 

6 hours ago, sadiesmith said:

I'll have to watch Oceans 11 now.   

 

You haven't seen it?! It's so good! I still like Ocean's 11 the best out of the trilogy - it's a fun caper heist movie with lots of well-dressed people saying funny things. The heist isn't too hard to follow, either. And one entertaining detail is that Brad Pitt's character is eating in almost every scene that he's in.

 

[lila21]

12 hours ago, Shimmery-summer said:

so I know he could do this but the ceo who gave them the stocks, can he not find out who is putting his stocks out in market and that they are available on short selling terms, and in the first place when chairman myung's man at securities firm made those stocks available in market how did that bring down the price so drastically just because lot of stocks were available for sale. Something like this.

all the casino had to do was create news that the casino has sold out the stocks because it was overpriced and the product or the stock did not merit that price and as the news that the big businesses or the casino is selling out the price goes down and masses who bought the stock stars selling and if the stock is really a good product the casino buys it back for a lower price like rinse and repeat... that is why the stock price don't go up in a straight line. I think the CEO later on understood what was going on when Myung showed him the money that was earned from the stock manipulation.