keeping awake

LOCO OVER SUDOKU

Instead of doing my assignment for my class in German
tomorrow, I've been solving previous Sudokus in Manila Bulletin.

I got interested in Sudoku only last Wednesday. And since
then, I've been hooked :) As my officemate Em already answers the
Sudoku in Philippine Daily Inquirer, I solve the ones in Manila
Bulletin.

RESURRECTION

One more thing that has been keeping me busy and awake until
2-3 am this week was watching the Korean series, Resurrection. It
starred Eom Tae Woong, who played the character of Xander in Sassy
Girl Chun Hyang and Han Ji-min, who
was a nurse friend of Jang Geum in Jewel in the Palace.

I've just finished watching the last (24th) CD today. The
story and actors were really good. And it's a pity that it wasn't
shown on TV here. Below is a synopsis from spcnet.tv. For the full
review, go to http://www.spcnet.tv/reviews/review.php?rID=1179.

sayong
01-19-07 11:55pm

====================
Resurrection Synopsis

Yoo Kang Hyeok and Yoo Shin Hyeok are the twin sons of a
police officer, Yoo Gun Ha, and his wife, Kim Yi Hwa. Whilst on his
way to investigating a case, Yoo Gun Ha found that the older of his
twin sons, Kang Hyeok, was in the back seat. They met at an accident
which killed Gun Ha but Kang Hyeok managed to get out of the car.
Injured, bleeding and not remembering anything prior to the accident,
Kang Hyeok was adopted (with great reluctance, initially) by gambler
Suh Jae So, who has a daughter of his own, of about the same age. Kang
Hyeok could not remember anything, not even his own name and hence was
given the name of Suh Ha Eun, the reverse of Jae So's daughter's name,
Suh Eun Ha. The two became very close and have always known that they
love each other beyond the platonic.

Despite their less than comfortable circumstances, Suh Ha
Eun grows up to be a happy, cheerful and optimistic person, buoyed by
Eun Ha's constant love and support.

Fast forward 20 years and Suh Ha Eun is now a police
officer. The end of the world as Ha Eun knows it began with the
apparent suicide of an underworld figure, Im Dae Sik. Ha Eun and his
superior officer in the Serious Crime Unit, Kyung Ki Do, do not
believe that it was a suicide and because Im Dae Sik is a name the
latter remember from a 20-year old case involving his own senior, an
officer whom he had a lot of affection and respect for, Yoo Gun Ha. At
that particular juncture he does not know that Ha Eun is actually one
of the twin sons of Gun Ha and neither did Ha Eun know that his
immediate superior is a junior of his late father.

In the meantime, a well-connected underworld figure, Choi
Dong Chan (played with gleeful villainy by Kim Kyu Chul) got wind of
the investigation and he put pressure on the police chief to terminate
the investigation and close the file as another suicide case. Choi
Dong Chan (CDC) is worried because Im Dae Sik is connected to him and
he does not want to be implicated if the investigation goes any
deeper. However, the two persisted. CDC succeeded in framing Ha Eun on
trumped-up drug and corruption charges. Because the 'proof' seems
iron-clad and knowing that the Chief of Police is in the pockets of
CDC, Ha Eun decided to go on the run, and prove his innocence on his
own. In the meantime, Ki Do managed to put the pieces together and
realized that Im Dae Sik is indeed tied up to the 20-year old case and
that Hae Eun is actually the elder twin son of his senior. On his way
to meet Ha Eun to impart the news, he was knifed by CDC's man and was
seriously injured. Before he slumped into a coma, he told Hae Eun that
his real name is Yoo Kang Hyeok.

Suh Hae Eun by now is aware of his history and managed to
trace that Yoo Shin Hyeok is his younger brother. He found out that
his mother has remarried and has a daughter. Shin Hyeok is now the
vice President of Buling Corporation, working with their step father,
President Lee Jung Kil. Through a series of manoeuvres, they arranged
to meet in the town of Kangling, at a spot only they and Officer Kim
Su Cheol know. Officer Kim was forced to betray Hae Eun's location
when CDC and his cohorts threatened to kill his mother and family
should he disagree. This betrayal resulted in the death of Shin Yeok,
whom they thought was Hae Eun/Kang Hyeok, not knowing that the two
have made contact and were meeting up. The death of Shin Hyeok after
such a brief reunion was extremely devastating to Hae Eun and in the
aftermath of the tragedy, decided on a plot of revenge which
necessitated him assuming the identity of his dead twin brother and
returning to the family and the company as Yoo Shin Hyeok. He tried to
find out as much as possible about the life of Shin Hyeok by breaking
in into his computer, and reading into his database of the people
surrounding him and also his diary.

Okay, at this point you have to suspend disbelief a little
that Hae Eun can actually fool so many people, including his own
mother, by passing himself as Shin Yeok. He has never met Shin Yeok
before this, and does not even know what the man was like. Shin Hyeok
was apparently cold, dispassionate and not a very popular person. Hae
Eun is almost the exact opposite. The major bulk of the story focuses
on how and what Hae Eun does in executing his revenge on those he
believed were responsible for the death of his father and brother.

Hae Eun identified Senator Lee Tae Joon and also president
of J&C Corp, President Jung, as the sponsors and protectors of CDC.
Senator Lee is actually the father of Lee Gang Ju, a crime reporter to
be betrothed to Shin Hyeok. She was against the betrothal but Shin
Hyeok had liked her. Lee Gang Ju is a pretty, bright and persistent
reporter who coincidentally got involved in investigating the death of
Im Dae Sik.

Senator Lee and President Jung are friends but their
friendship is based more on convenience and sponsorship, on the
marriage of politics and business, rather than on genuine liking for
each other. President Jung is garrulous and short-tempered whereas
Senator Lee is calm, cool-headed but no less unscrupulous.

One of the first things Hae Eun did as Shin Hyeok was
terminate the betrothal, much to the disappointments of both parents.

President Jung's son, Jung Jin Woo, is the Vice President of
his company. J&C and Buling are business rivals of sorts even though
it is acknowledged that J&C is the bigger and more powerful of the
two. Jung Jin Woo and Yoo Shin Hyeok have always regarded themselves
as adversaries.

Eun Ha had, in the meantime, secured a job with Buling Corp
and was shocked to meet Shin Hyeok, the spitting image of the man she
loved and was mourning deeply for, Ha Eun. She had enormous difficulty
in reconciling her dead love with this man whose image and mannerisms
constantly reminded her of him. Ha Eun was not able to hide himself
very well either whenever he faces Eun Ha, and almost gave himself
away several times. Over the course of time, he inadvertently left
many clues here and there that left question marks on the people he
loves including Eun Ha, his mother, his good friend Officer Kim, his
personal secretary and eventually his step father.

Through his newfound power and position, Ha Eun sets his
planned vendetta in motion. He recruited a multi-skilled and
multi-talented and popcorn munching private eye Chang Hong Myeong to
do most of the investigative work as well as setting up sting
operations to unhinge both the Senator and President Jung. Both of
them managed to locate Senator Lee's illegitimate son, Park Ki Soo,
who makes a living as a con man. In the sting, Park Ki Soo pretends to
be a Korean-American (named Steven Lee), an investor in an off-shore
oil exploration off the coast of China, luring the Senator to feed on
President Jung's greed to invest into the operation. Using the funds,
both Ha Eun and Chang HM engineered the takeover of the Star Hotel
which President Jung has earmarked to CDC, into the hands of his wife,
to whom he had earlier promised control. The whole idea was to drive
cracks in the alliance of the two men and also to use their own funds
to to destroy themselves.

In all these, people who are closest to Ha Eun became
gradually wise of his true identity, even Lee Tae Joon who is now
developing feelings for him. In putting the pieces together, Ha Eun
and his assistant have always suspected there is a third character in
the whole grand plot that led to the demise of his father and brother
but was not able to identify the person. It was extremely devastating
to Hae Eun when he finally discovered that the person is very close to
home.