The final scene of DP2 (excluding the cookie video) was neither a ‘brilliant reversal’ nor a ‘unfortunate sacrifice’. ‘Ahn Joon-ho (Jung Hae-in)’ recalled the people he had met so far on the bus on his way back to the base, and the three-digit military life above his head hinted at a story that would continue in the future.
something that does not change over time“I started my military life as a soldier in the 103rd Division. At that time, I was beaten every day from morning to night, and Wonsan was bombarded with toothpaste lids (a command to bend over and put my head on the ground with my hands behind my back), and my plate was bent while eating lunch. I was beaten. Why did I become a noncommissioned officer?”
There was a moment of silence, and then his story resumed.
“I thought it wouldn’t fit if I became a noncommissioned officer. But (actually), the senior sergeant slaps a joint (shin) and the sergeant throws a fight (a slang term for slapping the cheek in the dialect of ear-slapping) at the BOQ (single officer dormitory). If more I did more, not less. At that time, I felt like I was going to get a mental illness. So, is it all my fault?”
Sergeant Beom-goo Park (played by Seong-kyun Kim) said something like this to sergeant Min-woo Oh (played by Seok-yong Jeong), who was interrogating him. Although it is a story based on his own experience, the victim will remain as a scar for the rest of his life. He cries out against the pressure from the upper part of the military to cover up the incidents of human life caused by absurdity with the abnormal behavior of individual soldiers or negligent management by the person in charge.
As such, DP2 is a dramatization, that is, a made-up story, but still shows ‘what could happen’ somewhere. In particular , DP2 reminds us of ‘we must not forget’ by showing ‘Cho Seok-bong (Cho Hyeon-cheol)’ from the previous work from the intro (introductory part). Even if we struggle to fight bullying and absurdity, only the victims and perpetrators change, and power and violence between classes still exist. In fact, in DP2 , ‘Hwang Jang-soo (Shin Seung-ho)’ is discharged from the military, and ‘Kim Il-seok (Kim Bum-soo)’, who is in his place, expresses a vicious cycle that never ends through ruthless violence and abuse of power.
Starting with Corporal Huh Gi-young (Park Se-joon), who appears as a trooper in the military police investigation department, becoming a victim of violence, in DP2 , ‘Anyone can be a victim or an assailant’ conveys the message, ‘them’ who stood by ‘them’. It creates a calming wave for us.
I’m not a better brother than my older brother…DP2 , which returned after a year or so , still delivers a depressing resonance, but it is difficult to erase the feeling of ‘complicated’ compared to the previous work in terms of composition.Although the story of Private Kim Ruri continued its natural development, there was a story related to the ‘GP ( Guard Post )’, which has nothing to do with deserters, while Ahn Joon-ho, who escaped the scene in a 17-to-1 fight, died for a year. The scene of being overpowered by ‘Park Seong-woo (played by Go Kyung-pyo)먹튀검증‘, who has grown up through exercise, acts as an element that harms DP2 ‘s immersion. Ahn Joon-ho’s deviation can’t erase the feeling of regret in terms of probability to the extent that it feels like it’s consumed to show the last court scene more dramatically.
Nevertheless, DP2 was still enough to shed light on the pain and dark bare face of the present era in which we live. Private First Class Kim Ruri, who committed a mass shooting after being brutalized, clearly reminds us that she is both a ‘victim’ and relatively ‘perpetrator of the victims’ soldiers’. This reminds me of ‘Private Kim’s massacre’ and ‘Sergeant Lim’s massacre’ that occurred in 2005 and 2014, respectively.
Here, the episode of Corporal Jang Seong-min (played by Bae Na-ra), a long-term deserter who was branded as an LGBTQ and bullied, conveys the need to reconsider human rights in the military. ‘Shin Woo-seok (Park Jeong-woo)”s older sister ‘Shin Hye-yeon (Lee Seol)’ works as an administrator at the Military Human Rights Protection Center and cannot forget the pain of losing her younger brother, representing the feelings of the bereaved family today.
Apart from this, the fact that Brigadier Ja-woon Koo (played by Jin-hee Ji) or Warrant Officer Min-woo Oh, who tried to cover up or reduce the incident at the top of the military, are not punished, is perhaps seen as a reality unique to DP2 that reflects reality . DP2 , which started with ‘Episode 7’ rather than ‘Episode 7
of Season 2 ‘ , tells the story of us and their people living in the present. If this never-ending absurdity of power and the psychology of compensation for inherited violence continue, DP3 will come to us again. Together with Hwang Jang-soo, who forgot all the mistakes of the past and smiled, and Jo Seok-bong, who had a scar as deep as his face.