e r r o r

First, for perspective: the manhwa has 95 episodes in the main story as well as 14 side story episodes. The show has 10 episodes ranging from about 1-1.5 hours. The manhwa is very much Sun's story, and we therefore don't get much if any backstory about other characters. This brings us to the biggest additions to the story.

ADDITIONS: In the manhwa, we don't get any backstory for Sky. He is just a sweet, enthusiastic actor with a fear of cameras. Likewise, Kajorn is just a zany manager. Sun ofc does build relationships with Sky and Kajorn, but it's not the same found family feeling. Sun never even tells them that his brother is dead. This is a change I love.

The whole storyline with Jay's mother is an addition. If she's ever mentioned in the manhwa at all, it's so minor that I can't remember it even after having reread around the start of the show and doing some more skimming for this post. We don't get much on Jay's family throughout, aside from the fact that Jo is his uncle on his father's side. We get more at the end, but it could be a show spoiler so I'm not going to get into that. I don't really think it was necessary to add the mom stuff to explain Jay's connection to Dream, but I enjoyed what we got.

Kongkiat is also an addition. In the manhwa, the president of Dream adores Jay and wants him to take over after him. There are both pro-president and anti-president shareholders and board members. Ofc the antis are against Jay. Again, I don't really mind the addition of Kongkiat, though I think he was under-utilized if they were going to add him at all.

I couldn't figure out a better way to structure this, so here are some big changes you need to be aware of before we go on.

PLOT CHANGES:

Jay DID NOT blindside Sun with the dinner with Songpol. In the manhwa, Sun was there when Sunny invited Jay to meet his backer. Jay extended the invite to Sun right then and there. SUN KNEW ABOUT THE DINNER! I hate this change. More on that later.

Jay left for America BEFORE the dinner and arrived back the day of the dinner. He tells Sun where he is going before he leaves. He is NOT in America anywhere near the time of Sun's stabbing.

The entire scene with Two-Oh going to meet Sunny, Songpol, and other investors that culminated in the parking garage confrontation between Sun and Sunny NEVER HAPPENED in the manhwa. Also Sunny NEVER killed anyone. More importantly imo, Sunny NEVER warned Sun. I also really dislike this addition for the changes it makes to both Sun and Sunny as characters. Also more on that later.

Sky was NOT the one who was kidnapped in the manhwa. After realizing that Uncle can fight (which happened earlier and in a different way), Sun asks him to shadow Sky to make sure that nothing bad happens to him. On the day that Sun was stabbed, Jay calls and tells him to come over. On his way, he gets a call from Two-Oh's phone, but it's Songpol's head guard (the one who almost ran Sun over). They've figured out that Two-Oh is a spy, and they've holding him hostage. The guard tells Sun to come alone and be there in 20 minutes, so Sun goes.

(on a lighter note, Pakin shows up when he takes Sun's pictures, and then one more time near the end. In the side stories, it's mentioned that he ended up being arrested after his his nude photos were reported, and the implication is that Jay set him up because he was so jealous that he was sniffing around Sun lol. Ofc no one is complaining that we got to see Boss on our screens more.)

Before I move on to deeper character stuff, I think it'd be helpful to have a bare bones timeline of ep. 9 events as they appear in the manhwa so you can see how much has been rearranged.

MANHWA TIMELINE:

Ep. 66: Sunny invites Jay to meet Songpol. Sun agrees to go too.

Ep. 67: Sun visits Two-Oh is in the hospital.

Ep. 69: Jay and Sun are together. Jay gets a call that the dinner will be in a week.

Ep. 71: Jay tells Sun that he has to go to the states for a few days. He goes straight from the airport to the dinner and is a few minutes late.

Ep. 73-74: The dinner. Songpol does say the needle in the eye thing to Sun, but does not address him again once Jay arrives. He does NOT threaten Sun or the people around Jay.

Ep. 83: Jay calls Sun and tells him to come over and watch the rough edit of the movie Sun and Sky just filmed.

Ep 84: On the way to Jay's, Sun receives a call from Songpol's head guard using Two-Oh's phone. They're holding Two-Oh hostage. Sun buys a knife from a street vendor and goes to rescue him.

Ep. 85: Sun manages to fight everyone off, carry Two-Oh outside, and get him to a car before being stabbed by the head thug. He tries to answer Jay's phone call but loses consciousness.

Maybe less brief than I thought it'd be, but see how much was switched around?? I don't understand why they did this. It's undermining Jay's established character to first have him set Sun up to meet Songpol without his knowledge, and then to disappear after Songpol threatened Sun. It doesn't make sense for his character at all!!! Jay would never put Sun in harm's way, especially not just for the reason that he wanted Sun to see who Sunny had in his corner. He's been feeding Sun information constantly, so why would he withold this?? He's also been helping with Sun's revenge the whole time, and therefore must have known about Songpol's connection to Sunny, so I'm not sure why he'd be trying to draw a line now.

Jay obsessively hunted Sun down for 5 years. Sure he assigned Uncle as extra protection, but Jay clearly believes that doing things himself is the best way. He researches extensively. He reads entire scripts. He is always prepared. There's no way he'd just leave Sun at the climax when the danger is highest. I think this was such a senseless change to make. Were they trying to heighten the drama of whether Sun would be saved in time? Idk, but clearly very few people liked it.

This brings me to other character-affecting changes, specifically to Sun and Sunny.

CHARACTER-AFFECTING CHANGES:

I really disliked the whole scene with Two-Oh going to the gathering... and everything that happened during and after lol.

First of all, it makes no sense for Sun to follow him there. He was waiting on a text with incriminating photos/videos, so why would he need to be there in person? I get that they softened Sun compared to the manhwa, and maybe we're supposed to think that he cares about Two-Oh enough that he'd follow him into danger, but but he's not stupid. In the manhwa, he expressly tells Two-Oh that he's just using him to help with his own revenge plans.

Even if Sun isn't that cold in the show, I just don't believe that he would take that risk knowing his background. It's also interesting that they made this change that makes it seem like Sun cares about Two-Oh, but they didn't seem to think that the audience would believe it enough for Two-Oh to still be the one kidnapped in the end. Or maybe they just knew it'd be more emotional if it was Sky? Either way, I don't agree with the idea that Sun would go there.

(Also, we saw him beat a group of guys while in a bunny mascot costume, so I don't see how he'd be immediately overpowered by Sunny's thugs.)

In the webtoon, there's no explicit depiction of Songpol torturing the rookies/trainees. We know that he's a complete sadist who frequently rapes and tortures the men that are lured to him, but we only see some aftermath. I don't necessarily mind the choice to have him waterboard the actor, though it was obviously horrific. The choices that I do find confusing involve Sunny in these scenes.

I cannot stress enough how UNSYMPATHETIC Sunny is in the manhwa. He has not grown at all in these 5 years, and he continues being horrible straight through the side stories. He's still the same person who told the man with the knife where a little boy was to save his own skin, except now he's using young men to bolster and improve his position. That is also what we've seen of him in the show up through episode 9. He may be disgusted by Songpol's actions, but it's not enough to stop him from providing victims to him.

The Sunny from the manhwa would never even dream of giving Sun any sort of warning, so it felt jarring. Actually, that whole conversation (which doesn't exist in the manhwa) felt disjointed. Sun says that Sunny is the sort of person who doesn't feel anything, even if someone dies. Then, a few sentences later, he asks if Sunny took his name because he felt guilty for what he'd done to him. ??? You just said he wasn't capable of that.

All that being said, I felt it was a confusing choice to have Sunny kill someone. Especially if the reason was to pressure him to get Sun and Sky for Songpol. He’s been recruiting trainees for him this whole time. Why would he need the push of having “broken one of [Songpol’s] toys” to get him to go after them? He already hates Sky due to his connection with Kajorn, and of course he wants to get rid of Sun to protect himself. 

I suppose after being "forced" to actually get his hands dirty, Sunny may have felt just a smidge of humanity and felt the need to warn Sun (even though he's already agreed to get him and Sky for Songpol to victimize), but to me it felt like a strange choice overall.

This has gotten *so* long, so I'm not going to get into the differences in the actual stabbing scene or anything else. I did love the fight scene, and Min did an incredible job. To reiterate: everyone is doing an incredible job. I just think it's a shame that some of the decisions made for this episode messed with the characters that they built up so well in the first 8 and 1/3 episodes.