City Hunter Hero's Journey

City Hunter, a Korean drama created in the summer of 2011, has a jaw-dropping rating of 9.4 on asianwiki, and is a tremendous example of the Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey is an archetype that was studied by different scholars such as Joseph Campbell. Campbell noticed a recurring pattern throughout various types of books, television shows, dramas, movies, etc. The City Hunter includes Lee Yoon-Sung, the protagonist; Lee Jin-Pyo, the adopted father and the lone survivor; and the five antagonists also known as The Council of Five. The Council of Five execute their troop of twenty-one men to conceal dark evidence. They did not know that Jin-Pyo survives and continues with his life; however, Jin-Pyo constantly recalls seeing the five members

shooting their men in the waters of Nampo after they were returning from an accomplished mission.
The drama starts off with Lee Yoon-Sung running from hooligans after saving a thick hairless man, Shik-Joong, who was a chef in a poor canteen at that time. Shik-Joong is so grateful that he continues to stay loyal to Lee Yoon-Sung and begins assisting him becoming one of his Supernatural Aids. Shik-Joong takes care of Yoon-Sung acting as his mother: cooking for him, cleaning for him, and doing small chores around the house. In episode nine, Shik-Joong is using Yoon-Sung’s credit card, buying kitchen utensils and food products for Yoon. A major moment when Shik-Joong abetted Lee was during episode seven, Shik-Joong risks his life and confronts a business man’s son hoping to reveal his bluff to the whole world without being killed. Yoon-Sung later meets Sae-Hee, a veterinarian who becomes another Supernatural Aid. In episode eight, Yoon-Sung gets shot by a bodyguard and flees over to Sae-Hee’s vet shop, while frantically searching for gauze pads and removing his bullet. In that moment, Sae-Hee arrives and chooses to keep the secret of him being the City Hunter by stitching his wound up instead of calling the police.
Right after Lee Yoon-Sung encounters Shik-Joong, Jin-Pyo explains to Yoon-Sung how his biological father was killed, and The Council of Five is at fault. This is the Call to Adventure because Yoon believes that this is a threat to their government and such politicians should not exist in the community. He describes to Shik-Joong in episode two, “I would’ve let them go, but these people are a stain on our Blue House.”
Although Lee Yoon-Sung does not have a Refusal to the Call, Yoon-Sung has never been out of the region of Thailand where Jin-Pyo, his father, sold drugs, making everyone else in Korea an alien to Yoon-Sung. To overcome this hardship, young Yoon-Sung had unknowingly already begun training diligently toward the very beginning of his life. Attending M.I.T (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) was another way Yoon-Sung Crosses the First Threshold because by going to college, he interacted more and made his past more ordinary. Thus, making him more normal in the world he was soon going in.
After studying at M.I.T, Lee Yoon-Sung reaches South Korea and from there on his Road of Trials inaugurate. In the very beginning, around episode three Yoon-Sung is caught attempting to expose a member’s phony identity. Yoon-Sung has to escape and reveal the video of the member in time for every news channel in the conference room to record. This is a challenge for him that he has to overcome in order to come to the end of the mission. Another trial Yoon-Sung has to surmount in the later episodes is searching for the identities of the other four targets, which was anonymous. Uncovering them before his adopted father did was important; if he did not his father would end up assassinating the targets rather than turning them in. Yoon-Sung didn’t want his only family member to become a criminal and end up in jail far away from him. The last and the most essential trial he has to go through is protecting his beloved, Kim Na-Na. Because of Yoon-Sung, her life is repeatedly threatened. Every time he leaps into danger, risking his life to protect Na-Na, forgetting about his own personal goal.
Yoon-Sung, instead of killing the members as ordered by Jin-Pyo, packs them in a box with evidence and ships them to the Korean police. Jin-Pyo gets enraged with his act. Their partnership then converts to rivalry. Jin-Pyo and Yoon-Sung reconcile towards the end when Jin-Pyo takes the blame for being the City Hunter only to let Yoon-Sung live a normal life that he has always longed for making this scene the Rescue from Without. The Atonement with the Father happens when Yoon-Sung has a better understanding of his father’s love after he takes the blame of being the City Hunter.
When mobsters almost shoot Na-Na in episode six, Yoon-Sung has an Expansion of Consciousness. Yoon-Sung assumes that avoiding loved ones is the best way to defend them. When gangsters kidnap Na-Na, Yoon-Sung all of a sudden becomes aware that this is not the case. Staying near cherished ones is the only true way to protect them. Yoon-Sung has an Expansion of Consciousness when he discovers that there is no benefit in taking revenge when Jin-Pyo dies.
Lee Yoon-Sung’s Ultimate Boon occurs when he recognizes his true biological father, who turns out to be the current president and a member of The Council of Five. For the boon, instead of acquiring something materialistic he gains knowledge of his past. Yoon-Sung then knows either he has to turn his father in, kill him, or simply watch him being killed by Jin-Pyo. When Jin-Pyo shoots the president, Yoon-Sung jumps in to save his father's life. Yoon-Sung is all of a sudden aware that there is no true way to win when taking revenge because he saves one father’s life, but out of grief his adopted father kills himself.
Packing his clothes, Lee Yoon-Sung Refuses to Return or live in Korea at all during episode twenty. Yoon-Sung declares, “I don’t want to live in such a place where my sins are reminded constantly. I want to leave and never come back.” From there on, he moves and decides to reside in the states with his family. Lee Yoon-Sung's experience about revenge makes him a Master of Two Worlds because many people want to take revenge, but he knows the consequences of it. This information benefits him and others around him because later when they yearn for revenge they will reconsider the effects.
In the end, City Hunter makes an impeccable Hero’s Journey illustration.

The show portrays every step of the Hero’s Journey meticulously. Shik-Joong and Sae-Hee are terrific examples of Supernatural Aid since they support Yoon-Sung throughout the show. Jin-Pyo tells Yoon-Sung about his father’s past and so The Call to Adventure is provoked. Yoon-Sung also not being able to fit in easily in a way is a Refusal to the Call because it makes him disparate from the rest of the world. Training diligently and attending M.I.T is how Yoon-Sung crosses his first threshold of being different. The Road of Trials would be the various obstacles Lee Yoon-Sung has to go through. Jin-Pyo and Lee Yoon-Sung becoming opponents and then conciliating, makes it a superlative example of Atonement with the Father in the Hero’s Journey. Keeping loved ones close is Lee Yoon-Sung’s Expansion of Consciousness because it teaches him about realism. The Ultimate Boon of this t.v. show would be the information he conquers about his biological father because he becomes aware that revenge is the wrong path to take. Yoon-Sung moving to the U.S.A is the Refusal of the Return since he does not go back home but moves farther away. There is no doubt that Tsukasa Hojo, writer and director of City Hunter, followed the Hero’s Journey to make it an admirable entertainment

piece.