Ji Chang-wook, the star of the romantic comedy series Backstreet Rookie, played the wayward Yoon Gyeo-rye, a newly released prisoner, in the uplifting hospice drama If You Wish Upon Me, which first appeared to be a redemption narrative.
After being freed, Gyeo-rye finds a sack of cash and starts to run away from the thieves trying to steal it. This route takes him to the Woori Hospice, where Gyeo-rye ends up volunteering with Kang Tae-sik (Sung Dong-il) and his Team Genie group.
He gradually forms relationships with the dying patients whose last desires Team Genie strives to fulfill as well as the tenacious Nurse Seo (Choi Soo-young of the K-pop girl group Girls’ Generation).
Gyeo-repeated rye’s stays in prison and various reformatory facilities are well known, and he is evidently troubled by his history when he expresses a desire to commit suicide by jumping into the water in the first episode. But as the show progresses, it is harder to tell if what we are seeing is indeed a tale of redemption.
Gyeo-rye doesn’t really act like a gangster, except for wearing flashy clothes and being a wasteful spender.
Over time, it becomes clear that much of his behavior is a disturbed young guy acting macho while hiding immense emotional agony.
This kind of character has been presented to us before, so we can roughly predict his changes of heart. To gradually reveal to the viewer what makes him tick, the authors use the well-known technique of flashbacks.
