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Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Korean drama "Start-Up": Episode eight recap

 


 Air Dates: October 17th until December 6th on tvN... Saturday and Sunday nights at 9:00 pm
tvN is a cable network so the ratings for it will be a bit lower, for this show it was 4.22% which was about 1.31 million viewers.
Subs were done by Sallyuchi.

Main Cast: 

Bae Suzy as Seo Dal-Mi.... 27 year old(?) woman who soon will have dreams of beginning her own startup company but in what is currently unknown. She's lived with her grandmother for the past fourteen years since her father died and has helped her out at her two food cafes. She's the younger sister of the next character and they had gone fourteen years without seeing each other until episode one. Upon entering the SANDBOX program she was appointed their CEO.

Kang Ha-Na as Won In-Jae.... The reason for their different last names is that In-Jae lived with her mother after she got divorced from the father. The mother remarried a wealthy man, she's been living off and on in America for fourteen years. In-Jae was the CEO of the successful Morning Nature company which she began with money from her stepfather, she quit at at the end of episode two and now is enrolled at SANDBOX.

Nam Joo-Hyuk as Nam Do-San.... Main leader of SAMSAN Tech which struggled so badly but has a chance to be successful now that him and his two partners are at SANDBOX. He's 29 in age yet has never had a girlfriend though that could change as he's gaga over Dal-Mi.

Kim Sun-Ho as Han Ji-Pyeong.... Grew up in an orphanage but at sixteen was kicked out for being too old(?), he then lived with Dal-Mi's grandmother until attending college in Seoul. When he lived with the grandmother be pretended to be Do-San as he wrote Dal-Mi letters to comfort her after the divorce. He's now a senior manager at SH Venture Capital and also a mentor for SANDBOX and he'll be watching over SAMSAN Tech.

Kim Hae-Sook as Choi Won-Deok... The grandmother of the top two characters but hasn't seen In-Jae in fifteen years. She's raised Dal-Mi since she was thirteen and they still live together, Choi used to run a cafe but now owns a small corn dog truck. She was also responsible for Ji-Pyeong being successful as she let him stay with her when he left the orphanage. During epiosde seven we learned she's going blind and Do-San now wants to create a program to help the vision impaired.

The characters who aren't major ones but are important, actually the two SAMSAN partners roles are really increasing with each episode.

Eom Hyo-Seop as Won Doo-Jong.... In-Dae's stepfather who is quite wealthy. He gave her the funds to begin her own company and still owns 72% of the stock. However he let her run the company so it would become successful, then his son would take over. That happened but by episode seven Won realized his mistake and wants his stepdaughter back.

Moon Dong-Hyeoko as Won Sang-Su.... In-Dae's inept stepbrother, he was her secretary at Nature Morning and his father installed him as CEO for the Korean branch.

Kim Do-Wan as Kim Yong-San.... A partner of Do-San's at SAMSAN Tech.

Yoo Su-Bin as Lee Chul-San.... Another partner at SAMSAN Tech.

 Stephanie Lee as Jung Sa-Ha.... Was recruited by Dal-Mi to join the SAMSAN Tech team in episode five and what a snobby woman she is but Chul-San think's she's 'perfect'.

Kim Won-Hae as Nam Seong-Hwan.... Do-San's father who invested much $$ into his son's venture but never saw any return from the investment

Kim Hee-Jung as Park Geum-Jung.... Do-San's mother.

Song Seon-Mi as Cha A-Hyun.... Mother of Dal-Mi and In-Jae.

Kim Min-Seok as Park Dong-Chun.... Ji-Pyeong's underling at SH Venture who in episode five also became a special assistant to Yoon at SANDBOX.

Cho Tae-Kwan as Alex Kown.... Had been living in America but has moved to Korea to be the CEO for the '2STO' tech company's Korean branch. He's also become a mentor at SANDBOX, he wanted to be teamed with Do-San but it didn't pan out.

Seo Yi-Sook as Yoon Sun-Hak.... Director of SANDBOX and she briefly knew Dal-Mi's father as the company she ran fourteen years ago was going to invest in his startup.

SANDBOX is an organization that will be a very important part of the story. It helps up and coming startup teams and individuals realize their dreams. They have their own set of buildings where those accepted can have rent free offices, get tutoring on many business subeects and meet very many influential people plus much other help.

NoonGil.... the project the SAMSAN team began working on in this episode.

Recaps for the prior episodes







 Above is a new feature which I'll include in dramas like this one where there's ongoing storylines. The rating dropped from almost 4.8% for episode seven to 4.22 % for this one. But the total viewers was almost the same as so many people view dramas on Sunday versus any other night of the week. Have never been able to get these pair of recaps done by Tuesday which was my goal, could have has these done by then but that would mean no other posts could have been done of Tuesday. As mentioned in the last recap so many new developments were added to the story but hardly any were resolved in the previous episode so hope that doesn't make this one too long.

 The last show ended with the first mini romantic scene between Dal-Mi and Do-San sharing quite a few kisses on the roof of the Morning Group's building. What's very odd to me is that no mention of that scene was referred to in this episode, don't think it's something either wants to forget but still find it hard to believe nothing has come of that or at least not yet. SMASAN Tech has finally come up with a very unique AI design for their SANDBOX project which will be the basis for most of this episode, will start off with one small detail describing a mini computer box.





 Right above is a small computer box named Yeong-Sil. It's on the market and is expensive though
Ji-Pyeong has one in his home. It understands the human voice and can speak when you ask it something. But it's mainly factual stuff the object can only answer such as what's the definition of words or phrases, math problems and various other things but isn't as advanced as a regular computer. This device will become a key part of SAMSAN Tech's project and thought I'd have this at the top instead of discussing it over and over.

 As I said in the beginning the previous show ended with that kissing scene between Dal-Mi and 
Do-San though nothing was mentioned about it in this show. That scene was after Do-San smashed Won's glass nameplate at his Morning Group office, he has CCTV footage of the incident and has reported it to the police who will be talking to Do-San later on. In that last episode four of the SAMSAN Tech team gave a presentation to the other team about a project they developed, all were very good but none appeared to be the magical one. The fifth person to give a presentation in the episode was Do-San though we didn't see that scene until this episode. The inspiration behind his idea was Dal-Mi's grandmother Choi who is slowly losing her eyesight. They had a long chat in the last show which really touched Do-San's heart, he thought we take such things for granted and his goal is to help vision impaired people.

 NoonGil is the name of Do-San's proposed project, once his teammates heard the details they were behind it 100% and it may be one that is really needed worldwide. Besides his talk with Choi he also took some inspiration behind an idea his partner Yong-San came up with which was what if seeing eye dogs could talk? That way they could tell the person they're guiding how far to a crosswalk, who the person in front of them is, how much money is in their hand and countless other things. So Do-San carried that a step further and combined two devices, one was the above Yeong-Sil which can speak but not see. The other was his own team's creation which was an AI device that could identify objects and describe them, such as a twenty year old angry woman, where a bus was going and once again a countless amount of things but this device couldn't speak.

 So when you put the two of them together you have a hand held device about the size of a phone that can relate what is going on to a person who can't see. What a brilliant creation it was, even Choi thought so as she used it to help her read her Bible which she hadn't ben able to do for ages. Just came to mind but haven't seen her working at her corn dog truck, does Choi still operate it? Brilliant creation it definitely is but it'll also be a project that will require a lot of funds to create and they better hurry as a few other companies have begun attempts at developing them. Dal-Mi brought the project to their mentor Ji-Pyeong for advice, mainly where to get more funding. He agreed that the project is an excellent one and it will be popular but there are a few drawbacks to developing it. One of course was the funds to begin the project which leads into the second problem. To Ji-Pyeong, even though NoonGil may be extremely popular, how will it create a profit? That's what investors will be looking for and though it may sound a tad cruel Ji-Pyeong did mention to Dal-Mi that vision impaired people won't be able to see ads and such on the device, how could investors make their money back?






 All solid questions and Dal-Mi had done some initial work on it's potential income. NoonGil will be a service that users will pay for and not the actual device. Dal-Mi estimated an average user would be online for five hours a day and in an above screenshots broke it all down to Ji-Pyeong. That was fine and dandy but it still didn't solve the question of where profits will come from. The program will be an expensive one to use to so oddly the more users who operate it the higher the cost of running the program will be and that's something that hadn't occurred to Dal-mi. But Ji-Pyeong was impressed with how the team has been doing though he wouldn't admit it. But he did prove that to Dal-Mi who had slipped that Orb onto his finger, that small creation will turn blue when someone is very pleased and in total agreement with something, guess what color the Orb turned to while Ji-Pyeong was wearing it?

 Though the pair did have a minor spat in the previous show and Ji-Pyeong has been growing more jealous of Do-San by the day he really wants the team to succeed. Ji-Pyeong has prepared a list of 25 potential investors for Dal-Mi to check out, the companies are ones that need to improve their image or have a CPR(startup fund) account that needs to be spent. So for the next few days or perhaps a week that's what Dal-Mi was doing though she was having zero success. The same can't be said for the other four members of the SAMSAN Tech team who had been working on the development of NoonGil and are making solid progress but of course this is a project that may take years to perfect. But the team will need something to demonstrate to potential investors and have come up with an app that shows the potential NoonGil will have for those with impaired vision. The team was all set for it to become the talk of the town but that was far from the case as after a few days less than ten free apps had been downloaded. 

 That semi failure has made Dal-Mi a bit glad though she has to keep why a secret, as mentioned above the more downloads that take place the higher cost it will be for the team and especially with no money being made off each download. But soon NoonGil did become a minor rage on the Internet and the blame or success was because of Nam who we've seen on occasion but have skipped over him. He's
Do-San's cousin and what an irritating man he is, the others at SAMSAN Tech have always avoided him at all costs. What Nam did was to notify the ex pitcher Park Chan-Ho about Do-San's company. That person was once a real baseball player who I do recall a bit. As a teen Do-San had won a math competition and Park was the award presenter, Nam's message to the ex-pitcher told him about the current success of Do-San and soon Park was all over the Internet raving about NoonGil.







 DAU above refers to Daily Average Users and as you can see it went from having less than ten downloads to 10,000 after Park pitched the program which meant Dal-Mi needs to get an investor ASAP. She had zero success with the first 24 names but came close once. There was a woman named Lee who was impressed by the program but had to dash to a meeting in the remote town of Gapyeong.. Dal-Mi went along for the ride but failed to make a sale as Lee just didn't have the funds but would have invested if she had. Lee did know Ji-Pyeong well enough to contact him and let him know that
Dal-Mi was stranded in the faraway town. Ji-Pyeong ended up driving way out there where he did run into Dal-Mi with the excuse he was there to have lunch(!), Dal-Mi didn't buy that lame excuse and is growing much more curious about Ji-Pyeong's intentions.

 Sadly the person I'm not going to talk about that much in this post is In-Jae and I'm still in awe at how attractive she is, will have a post coming up for Han-Na in a few days. Her SANDBOX team is still working on that bank project discussed in the previous recap and she's also still being pursued by her stepfather Won to return as a CEO at the Morning Group company but she's still refusing. Even her mother has asked about that return to In-Jae as Won and and her are separated, he's cut off the mother's credit cards unless she can persuade In-Jae to return. That may never happen and though In-Jae's mother is in dire need of money she's glad her daughter won't grovel back to the man. One person however will grovel to this dastardly Won man and that's Do-San in what may be the most important scene to date. In that last episode Do-San smashed Won's glass nameplate and the incident was taped by the office CCTV. Won has pressed charges and as you can see above did need to report to the police station but how serious of a charge can smashing a nameplate be?

 Dal-Mi's list of potential investors have all said no to her proposal but there is one name left, it's a company she'd rather pass on but had to give it a try. Of course the company is the Morning Group led by Won, he's a hard person to meet with but to Dal-Mi's mild surprise her sister In-Jae was able to escort her into his waiting room at SANDBOX where he was going to give a speech. To Dal-Mi's amazement and also fury who should be on his knees in front of Won but Do-San!!!! That was Won's requirement for him to drop the charges and we were all shocked he would stoop to such a level just to please such a devilish person. Won then told Dal-Mi that it may be best for her to join Do-San, that's when she went into action and the thanks have to go to Ji-Pyeong. We didn't know it at the time but when the pair had met up with Won and his son at their company office in the last recap Dal-Mi had secretly recorded everything. That had been suggested by Ji-Pyeong who knew of Won's unscrupulous ways. So during this confrontation she told Do-San to get off his knees and proceeded to play the recording which could be so harmful to Won and his son.

 On the recording Won had said many scandalous things such as how he's been using startups for their ideas, projects and free labor along with a few other comments that could destroy his reputation. There's only one option for Won according to Dal-Mi, announce to the crowd at this SANDBOX event that they would become SAMSAN Tech's sponsor or she would pass the recording on to the media which could destroy Won's Morning Group company. There was a group of about seven at this confrontation and Won was backed into a corner where there was no escape so he relented and did agree to Dal-Mi's 'blackmail' but isn't that what he's been doing to others over the years? So that phrase 'Isn't payback a bitch?' was so appropriate for this moment.

 In-Jae was there and was mum for the entire showdown but you could see on her face how surprised she was that her younger sister could pull off a scheme like that and she's mightily impressed. So shortly after Won announced at his SANDBOX event that the ream they would be sponsoring for this year would be SAMSAN Tech and their brilliant vision impaired program. Dal-Mi and her team may be smiling now but of course we know Won won't let her forget about humiliating him. In the final scene Dal-Mi had been working at home and was going through some papers that Ji-Pyeong had made some comments on. His handwriting looked so familiar to Dal-Mi and can't believe she hadn't noticed that before. Dal-Mi has saved all of those letters Ji-Pyeong had sent to her during the years of 2005/06, when she took one out to compare the handwriting they were naturally the same. So Dal-Mi after much wondering may have found out what Ji-Pyeong's connection to her past is and that should be a major focus in the next show(s).







 It doesn't happen often when I can keep up with a Korean drama on a weekly basis but this makes two in a row. This is the halfway point and will be changing when the posts will be done. May not seem like it would take a long time but these recaps do and they've been preventing me from viewing too many other shows. So will take next week off and come back with the four recaps the following week. Then will will take the week after that off and will start on the final four episodes after December 6th which is when the series ends. Will make those two weeks of recap writing a bit anxious for me but will free up time to have some Japanese drama recaps and can do three in the time it takes me to do one of these.


































































 

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