Reborn Rich (literal title, The Youngest Son of a Conglomerate or The Chaebol's Youngest Son; Korean: 재벌집 막내아들) is a Fantasy Period Piece Drama centered on Revenge and business with a dash of Romance, based on the web novel with the same name by San Kyeong.
The story is about Yoon Hyun-Woo, (played by Song Joong-ki), the poor, yet hardworking and loyal, longtime employee of the Soonyang Conglomerate, the largest corporation in Korea. His job is akin to that of a servant as he takes care of the family that owns the company personally even though he's a secretary. One day, he's betrayed by the Soonyang family who murder him overseas to cover up a tax evasion scheme by making it look like suicide. The next thing Hyun-Woo knows is that he's in the body of the family's youngest grandson Jin Do-Joon as he went back in time as a child to the 1980s. With his new life and identity, he uses his knowledge of (now) future events and wisdom to plot his revenge against the Soonyang Group family and take over the company. In doing so, he now has to overthrow the ruthless and money-hungry CEO of Sunyang Group, his grandfather Jin Yang-Cheol.
Will his revenge succeed and things go as Do-Joon plans? Can Do-Joon change the past?
It aired from November 18 to December 25, 2022, and was the country's most watched K-drama in 2022. It's available for streaming on TVING, Netflix, and Disney+ in South Korea.
Beware of unmarked spoilers!
Tropes for the series:
- Alliterative Title: Reborn Rich, the English title, whereas the original Korean title averts this.
- Anger Born of Worry: Min-Yeong becomes angry at Do-Joon when she watches the news and sees that he was in a car accident. She immediately visits him at the hospital furious at him for making her worry like this, but he cuts her off by hugging her closely.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Everyone in the Soonyang family, except Do-Joon, is morally corrupt and obsessed with inheriting their father's powerful corporate they'd sell each other out for it and Yang-Cheol's supposedly loving wife even goes as far as trying to kill him and Do-Joon to prevent him from giving Do-Joon the financial holding company. When their father/grandfather's health is at risk, they're all worried about the succession of the company and fight within themselves while faking concern for him. They also mistreat Do-Joon's family because his father is from another mother and he pursued films and arts against his father's (Yang-Cheol) wishes. There's their murderous hatred for Do-Joon, too.
- Black Sheep: Do-Joon's father, Yoon-Ki, is the only son who didn't pursue a career in business like his other brothers and sister, instead moving towards art and entertainment, and marrying someone from the same industry, all against his father's wishes. He and his family are the only non-villainous members of the Soonyang family, as they are far from the Succession Crisis the other members of the family are participating in.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Do-Joon is shocked and enraged by Kyung-Min's, and in turn Soonyang Group's, betrayal of him, after devoting 13 years of his life to the company they both work under and after acting as a personal servant for them sometimes, he was easily shot just because he discovered tax evasion papers. This act as a motivation to get revenge on them.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Do-Joon is intelligent, responsible, ambitious, and is involved with the family's business and politics, whereas his older brother Hyeong-Joon is naive, carefree, and dreams of becoming an Idol Singer and is far removed from the family's conflict and business.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: After Yang-Cheol reaches the conclusion that his grandson Seong-Jun caused him and Do-Joon to get in a car "accident" just so Yang-Cheol won't hand the company to Do-Joon, his already deteriorating health worsens and he has a psychotic break because of it. Though it turns out it's his wife who planned this.
- Identical Stranger: Hyun-Woo looks exactly like the deceased grandson of Yang-Cheol at his 40s.
- Reincarnation: Hyun-Woo, who comes from a working-class family, gets reincarnated into the youngest grandson of the wealthy founder of the Soonyang group Yang-cheol, Do-Joon, where Hyun-Woo used to work at, after he gets killed. He was dead in the present, but Hyeon-Woo gets reincarnated as a boy in the past where he was still alive, but he has the mind and knowledge of a 40-year-old. However, Hyun-Woo thinks he wasn't reborn but just given a chance to repent for his past actions.
- Retroactive Precognition:
- Hyun-Woo (as Do-Joon) has knowledge of everything that is happening and going to happen ever since he went back in time and exploits this by getting closer to his grandfather and becoming his favorite family member after his grandfather ignored Do-Joon's family and they became estranged from him.
- He saved his grandfather from riding on an airplane that was gonna get bombed by North Korean agents and from now onwards his grandfather listens to his business advice.
- Do-Joon informs Min-Yeong that Seo Taiji, a member of the boy band Seo Taiji and Boys', will come back again in 2000, which she didn't believe as it took four years for that to happen.Min-Yeong: You told me that, looking like you knew everything just like now.
- Do-Joon advises his father who works in the entertainment industry to invest in the movie Titanic because it'd be very successful and that's exactly what happens.
- Sanity Slippage: Yang-Cheol gets diagnosed with a terminal brain illness that causes delirium and forgetfulness among other symptoms. He goes from being completely sane to losing his sanity little by little, and it reaches the point where he mistakenly believes that his innocent youngest grandson is trying to harm him like his other family members actually did when his grandson was the one staying by his side during his illness.
- Shout-Out:
- BTS is alluded to when Do-Joon, his older brother, and their father are discussing how difficult it is for non-English international films to win in the Academy Award, and Do-Joon's brother showcases how impossible the feat is by adding, "If that day comes, a Korean song might even reach Billboard’s Top 100." And BTS was the first Korean act to top Billboard's charts in reality, which is why Do-Joon gives his brother a knowing look.
- This includes an implied reference to Korean movie Parasite, which won four awards in 2020.
- A Titanic (1997) poster appears in the series as Do-Joon and his father are discussing the movie, and Do-Joon, knowing the movie will become massively successful, recommends the movie to his father to invest in, much to his father's surprise.
- Min-Yeong is a big fan of Kpop band Seo Taiji And Boys and is disappointed when thy disband but Do-Joon promises her that member Seo Taiji will comeback after four years, which is what he did in real life too.
- BTS is alluded to when Do-Joon, his older brother, and their father are discussing how difficult it is for non-English international films to win in the Academy Award, and Do-Joon's brother showcases how impossible the feat is by adding, "If that day comes, a Korean song might even reach Billboard’s Top 100." And BTS was the first Korean act to top Billboard's charts in reality, which is why Do-Joon gives his brother a knowing look.
- Spooky Photographs: In the intro of the show, the characters' hanged photographs move in that their facial expressions, particularly their mouths, change to smile or the opposite.
- Succession Crisis: The plot has the children and even grandchildren fight over who will inherit their (grand)father's conglomerate. They're willing to sell each other out for it. Then, their father, Young-Cheol, and Do-joon almost get killed in an intentional car accident because their father is favoring his grandson Do-joon, it turns out that it's his wife is the one who planned the murder because she didn't want her step-grandson to inherit the company even if it might've killed her husband. When Young-cheol finds out it was a murder attempt, he suffers a psychotic break and gets really frightened that his own family would do this to him over the company.
- Thicker Than Water: Inverted and this is the message that the show wants to send that sometimes real family isn't the one who's tied by blood. Even though Do-Joon is planning to crush "his grandfather" Yang-Cheol as the owner of Soonyang Group and take over his company, Do-Joon isn't part of the family, but he displays concern much more than his own blood family. Even Yang-Cheol's wife played a hand in harming him just so Do-Joon won't inherit the company. This knowledge causes Yang-Cheol to lose it completely and favor Do-Joon than his other family members.
- Video Wills: Do-Joon, Yang-Cheol's youngest grandson, receives a USB containing a recording of Yang-Cheol's old will after his grandpa's death. Do-Joon watches the footage and learns that he revised his will where he initially would've given Soonyang Group to him. He says in the video that Do-Joon would "do anything to survive". When the cameraman asks him "What is Do-Joon to you?" He takes a long pause and answers with 'Do-Joon" is my grandson. The one who takes after me the most. My grandson" with a very happy laugh. Do-Joon is reduced to tears at this.
- Unwitting Pawn: Inverted, as Do-Joon makes it clear to Min-Yeong, a prosecutor who was dubbed as the "Soonyang Group Grim Reaper" in the present, he's using her and the prosecution to reveal and combat the corruption in Soonyang Group since he's planning to join the "war of succession" according to her and she goes along.
- Work Info Title: The English title explains the premise in short, the protagonist gets reincarnated again but as a wealthy person, implying that he was poor in his previous life. While the original translated Korean title makes it clear that the story is about Hyun-Woo after he becomes the youngest grandson of a conglomerate.
