Demon Seo
The Baekdudaegan Ecological Education Museum in Seoul features a slideshow of images and videos from Mount Jiri, which is said to be the border between life and death. The mountain has been mentioned in various ancient texts and is also said to be the origin of the Korean word for “life.”
Kang Hyun-jo is a rookie ranger who arrives at the Jirisan National Park Haedong Ranger Station in 2018 to find the place abuzz with the beginning of a search and rescue mission. He’s immediately instructed to shadow senior ranger, Jung Gu-yeong.
The head of the station declares that the golden time to find Seung-hun is 30 hours, which means they only have seven hours left. This isn’t helped by the incoming typhoon that is moving faster than expected.
Seo Yi-gang is one of the rangers descending to the bottom of a cliff face in order to rescue a ranger who has fallen unconscious. When they get to the bottom, Seo Yi-gang quickly rappels down to the unconscious ranger and clips him to her before cutting them both loose and out of harm’s way. ..
After introducing herself to Hyun-jo with the nickname “Demon Seo”, Gu-yeong tells him that if he falls behind she will abandon him.
As they search for Seung-hun, Hyun-jo realises they have been checking suicide points and asks despairingly if they’ve been looking for a dead child. This draws Yi-gang’s anger, and she is resolute in her conviction that they will find Seung-hun before he perishes.
As the weather declines, teams start pulling out of the search to find refuge. At the same time, Seung-hun’s grandmother arrives at Haedong Station full of teary apologies.
Hyun-jo and Yi-gang take a shortcut through a lightning zone. The path is steep, and Hyun-jo falls most of the way, but there is some hope when they find Seung-hun’s backpack containing a family photo taken at a wildflower habitat on Mount Jiri. The only problem is that the habitat is three hours away and the typhoon is closing in. Yi-gang wants to push on, but the Chief arrives at Haedong Station and orders everyone back, stressing the importance of their safety.
As Hyun-jo starts to follow Yi-gang back, he has a vision of a series of images from somewhere on the mountain. One of these is of a small arrangement of rocks and sticks. Before he can act on this, he is hit across the head by a falling branch and loses consciousness.
Hyun-jo wakes up at Haedong Station after 32 hours of searching for Seung-hun. Despite this, Hyun-jo is certain that Seung-hun is alive and went through all their collected evidence to make this determination. However, Yi-gang sees Hyun-jo’s claims as baseless and insists on continuing the search. Meanwhile, Hyun-jo comforted Yi-gang as she broke down while informing Seung-hun’s grandmother that the search has been paused. ..
Yi-gang heads out to the wildflower habitat, disregarding instructions from Hyun-jo. Hyun-jo follows her and convinces her to let him help. ..
Dae-jin is at the station when he hears about the missing people. He and a few others try to find out what happened. They tell him that Yi-gang and Hyun-jo are gone, along with their gear. Their grandmother tells him about her own experience.
Dae-jin radios Yi-gang and tells her that the apology message that was thought to be Seung-hun’s last text to his grandmother was actually only one in a batch of texts that didn’t send when Seung-hun entered a cellular dead-zone. The texts point away from suicide and show that Seung-hun is alive since he must have moved into a reception area. The rangers at the station haven’t been able to call his mobile, and they think his battery is dead.
A support team is sent to help but they’ll take at least three hours, leaving Seung-hun’s life up to Yi-gang and Hyun-jo. They split up and comb through the reception area but do not find Seung-hun. Hyun-jo thinks back to his vision and tries to see if Yi-gang recognises any of the things he saw. He eventually pieces his fragmented descriptions together as Sangsuri Rock, but it is outside of the reception area. Hyun-jo persuades Yi-gang to take them there anyway and follows the clues in his vision to find Seung-hun who is unresponsive. They rush him down the mountain and are met halfway by the support team. The mission is a success.
A training session between Yi-gang and Hyun-jo is lighthearted as she shows him the ropes. They head back to the place where they found Seung-hun. There, cultural researcher Kim Sol photographs the arrangement of rocks and sticks from Hyun-jo’s vision. Hyun-jo and Sol agree that the mountain has an energy that can’t be explained, and Hyun-jo cites the fact that Seung-hun’s texts sent from within a cellular dead zone as further proof. ..
Sol explains that the rock arrangement was a type of code used by the partisans to communicate their location when they fell behind or were out of contact range. Hyun-jo decides that he and Yi-gang should use the method during their missions.
Yi Gang is curious about how Hyun-jo knew Seung-hun’s location. Hyun-jo tells her he simply saw it, and that it wasn’t the first time he’d had visions of lost hikers from Mount Jiri. Yi-gang brushes him off as irrational.
In 2020, Dae-jin is closing the Yiseokjae missing person case. A rookie asks what will happen to the missing hiker and is met with grim silence. Gu-yeong asks when they’ll get a new team member, and Dae-jin informs him that someone will be arriving today. ..
Yi-gang, a new arrival at the apartment complex, is wheelchair-bound and causes tension between Gu-yeong and Dae-jin. The rookie is also dismissed by the two men. ..
Yi-gang asks Dae-jin about the Yiseokjae case. When Dae-jin tries to ask her why she has returned, she deflects by asking if the search team covered Gaeam Falls. At her insistence, Dae-jin sends Gu-yeong and the rookie to the falls. ..
The rookie questions Gu-yeong about Yi-gang and he reveals that she was stranded with someone else after going up the mountain during heavy snow. When they reach the falls, they discover the skeletal remains of the missing hiker.
The detective is suspicious of Yi-gang and her story. She brings up the website of the volunteer fire department and shows them pictures from the search. She zooms in to show them a small arrangement of rocks and sticks similar to the one found with Seung-hun. Only, this arrangement is a signal that only she and Hyun-jo used for lost hikers. She brings up more examples of the same phenomenon in pictures from other searches and can say exactly where the missing hikers were found based on the rock arrangements.
Yi-gang is convinced that she’s being sent signals from Hyun-jo, and so she follows the logic and decides it must be Hyun-jo in the hospital. We then flashback to December 2019, when Hyun-jo was in a coma.
The Episode Review
Episode 1 of Jirisan was a bit of a letdown. It didn’t quite live up to the hype that surrounded it and felt like it was more of a filler episode than anything else. However, the dual timelines and mystery elements are what make this drama so intriguing and will keep you hooked until the end. If you’re looking for an exciting 15th anniversary special, then Jirisan is definitely worth watching.
The search and rescue mission was a great way to start the episode and establish the role of the rangers. We also got a slight window into the relationship dynamics and personalities of the team. However, this did take more of a backseat than would have been preferable. Hopefully, we get more of a chance to become attached to them.
The setting in this story is very important. The focus is on Mount Jiri and the rangers who are working there. We get a lot of shots of beautiful views, but sometimes the visuals can be jarring. The sound can also be a little too clean, which makes it difficult to process while watching an obviously chaotic natural environment.
Despite its shortcomings, Episode 1 really picked up in the last 20 or so minutes when it leaned into the mystery-thriller elements of its story, so hopefully we only see that momentum build over the show’s run.
