After serving as a faithful employee to the Jin family for years, Yoon Hyun Woo (Song Joong Ki) is framed for embezzlement and executed by someone in the family. When he dies, he is reborn in the past as the youngest grandchild in the Jin family, Jin Do Joon. When Yoon realizes he was betrayed, he plans to take revenge against the entire family, overthrow the original CEO of Soonyang, Jin Yang Chul (Lee Sung Min), and take complete control of the conglomerate. With knowledge of the past events, and his years working with the Jin family, he manoeuvres and schemes exceedingly well while developing a close relationship with his new grandfather, Yang Chul.
Reborn Rich was a not-so-thinly veiled critique of conglomerates in South Korea, mainly the passing down management rights to family members rather than the people that may be better for the job and corruption. The entire Jin family and most of their close employees were utterly repulsive. The constant scheming and backstabbing were evident from the get-go and got worse throughout the series. Sometimes you think they may have succeeded, and you don’t know what will happen until the next episode.
It is fun to see Yoon get his revenge, bit by bit, even when it seems like he’s been set back. Yoon grew up in poverty, so his former life made him drastically different from the Jin family. Throughout his time as Do Joon, he attempted to prevent some events from occurring, but there was only so much that could be controlled.
One of the best parts of this series was the chemistry between Song Joong Ki and Lee Sung Min; the love/hate relationship between the money-hungry CEO and grandson was the most compelling thing about the series. Some scenes were heart-breaking towards the end, one being a scene in an elevator where Yoon covers up for an accident.
I only really have one gripe, and it was an underwhelming romance storyline between Do Joon and the public prosecutor called “Soonyang Group Grim Reaper,” Seo Min Young (Shin Hyun Bin). You know it’s coming from the first episode when Yoon meets Seo, then it continues throughout. I felt it was unnecessary, and I was glad it wasn’t a massive part of the series.
While waiting for the last two episodes to release over the holiday weekend, I crossed my fingers and toes that the series wouldn’t figuratively crap the bed at the last second. When I pulled up the IMDB page, I was not reassured, as a few people were ranting about how the final episode ruined the show. I’m afraid I disagree with that takeaway; the ending was great. The last episode was one of my favourites of the series because everything came full circle.
This television series ended up becoming my favourite from 2022. It was a compelling revenge story, with twists and great chemistry between the two leads. It stayed consistent throughout sixteen episodes and had a satisfying ending. I recommend it to anyone that likes k-dramas and revenge stories against the rich.
I’m a Data Analyst, from the land of Matthew McConaughey. I’m an avid movie-goer and love seeing films in theaters. My most recent favorite films are Good Time, Only Lovers Left Alive, TENET, and England is Mine. When I’m not at the movies, I’m either reading or watching obscene amount of true crime and historical documentaries.
