'Run On' Episode 1: Shin Se-kyung as Mi-joo floors with monologue against sexist professor in standout intro
'Run On' episode 1 starts with a 'bang'- the kind that a gun would make were it real. For those of you who are yet to check the premiere episode of 'Run On', featuring Im Siwan ('Misaeng') and Shin Se-kyung ('Rookie Historian Goo Hye-ryung') in lead roles as Ki Seon-gyeom and Mi-joo, this show will see the female lead obsess over fake guns because unlike the US, she cannot own a real one as that would be illegal in South Korea.
So the first time that Mi-joo meets Seon-gyeom, he ends up catching sight of the fake gun and even uses that to help her get away from a toxic ex-boyfriend.
The monologue that we are impressed with as much as the fans are, is featured right before Mi-joo meets Seon-gyeom. She works as a translator in the film industry where she writes subtitles for movies headed for foreign audiences. Her dream is to work on translating the interview of a director called Han, as that would serve as a stepping stone for her career. However, the one who stands in her path is a sexist professor who believes that Mi-joo uses her good looks to get things from people. He doesn't give her credit for her talent, or hard work, and when the two of them meet at a team dinner after working together on a movie, he comments on the same yet again.
He is drunk enough to throw soju in Mi-joo's face and that is the last straw. She has had it with this old man trying to manipulate her and steal the jobs that come her way, and she is also not sober. So she begins by asking her professor to apologize to her. It doesn't work and that is when she gives a monologue that leaves everyone at the dinner, the audience and the writer of this review stunned.
It goes, "What does my pretty face have to do with my translations? Do the movies that you watch show the face of the translator on screen? That's never been the case for me." She continues to question him further and asks, "Pretty face are good to look at? Do you even know what you're saying? A comment like this in this day and age. You must be from a different era professor. Are you from the Joseon era (medieval times)? Are you a time traveler? Who is your King then? Sejong? Cheoljong?" At this point, a few of the team members who were shocked speechless unfreeze and try to stop her, but Mi-joo's not willing to let go. In fact, she points out to her former professor that she is no longer his student but an adult who is a part of a society that has promised her civil rights and ends with, "Is being a woman reason enough for you to insult me with sexist comments?" After she ends this monologue, we expect to see the professor burst in a rage but what we get instead is a manchild complaining about how she insulted his manhood when she said that he couldn't get "it up" and points towards his groin in the funniest comeback ever.
It takes a minute to understand that this is all a misunderstanding about a conversation that Mi-joo probably had with her professor, but the way he lashes out at her -- partly childish, partly a rotten man -- is a caricature of a man in authority that all of us have seen some time. So here's cheers to her brilliant comeback.
In the meantime, we have Seon-gyeom, a track athlete who is on the path to success that is paved by his rich parents and the effort and hard work that he puts in his training. Unlike men his age, Seon-gyeom has no interest in what the outside world has to say, and neither does he seek any of it out by going to social media or the Internet. This has resulted in him being ignorant about a lot of things including millennial slang, pop culture references among other things. However, he is not ignorant about one of his team members struggling with being bullied. He doesn't turn a blind eye and instead tells his teammate to record evidence of the violence that is being committed against him. His sense of righteousness on a scale of 1 to 10 falls, we feel at 7 because in the same episode, he also tries to help a random woman who bumped into him get rid of her ex-boyfriend by using a fake gun that he had found in her bag.
This when the bag had slipped and fallen to the ground spilling the contents of the same. This woman happens to be none other Mi-joo and 'bang!' there begins a brand new romance. It is too early to peg this drama great, but we are willing to stick around and find out how this feisty woman and an athlete who seems to be disconnected from the outside world begin to bond.
'Run On' will air on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9 pm KST on JTBC and can be streamed on Netflix in the US.