Korean Drama Ideea

Mine would be a revenge one:

My ML is a very successful guy with a pretty fiancee who gets betrayed by his best friend who is jealous of him and tries to take everything from him.

Both of them are bankers, our male lead comes from a poor background but always managed to come first in everything, while our second lead aka the villain comes from a chaebol family and was always the second in all after our ML. ( both of them + the female lead friends since childhood, will expand on it later ).

Due to a gambling addiction our villain embezzles a huge amount of money from the bank  at which he works, but with the help of his father who has ties with a lot of high ranking officials, his brother who is a corrupt prosecutor, he gets away with it and sees an opportunity to frame his best friend.

With the help of a corrupt Policeman our ML gets  arrested, trialed ( ofc lead prosecutor is our villains brother )  found guilty due all the false evidence against him and betrayed by his defense lawyer who is actually our villains pawn, he gets 20 years in prison ( might modify on it later need to look what is the punishment for embezzlement in SK ). 

Due to fear that the truth will come out they decide to get rid of our ML by making everyone think he killed himself jumping off a bridge while trying to escape being transported to prison ( Green Rose reference ) body never recovered.
 

To make him suffer more our villain decides is better to let him live and be tormented by why and who did this to him ( he still doesn`t know why and who framed him ), so next step is sending him to a secret prison ( for high ranking gangsters and other important former officials ) to spend the remainder of his days there.

This is it for today gonna continue tomorrow

The occupations of the characters are different but this kdrama idea reads like a spoof of Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas . With revenge stories, it's a very tall order when one tries to imitate or take parts from one of the greatest revenge story ever. Goodbye mr black also tried it, they faltered and failed to ever deliver an acceptable or deeply rooted narrative. 

I might suggest to pick a few narrative from Monte Cristo but not almost all narrative points. 

That said, i wanna about the plot holes i see i  this narrative....

What are the of the protagonist and antagonist. To embezzle so much money and frame another of such crime, they would be working in the bank for a long time. No matter how good a prosecutor one is, one cant just drop all charges on embezzlement of large sums solely on a young banker. 

 They would have to be both managers, and such would be in their 40s. Even if the the ML is pretty good, he would still need to be a manager for years before becoming a manager. Same with the anatgonist. So maybe they will be in their 30s, at least.

If they are that age, why has the protagonist married his GF. They would have to be in a relationship for more than 10 years.? Does the guy not think he is not ready? Even in his position as a manager. Does the girl not believe in marriage? Or is the girl younger than them... 

Why would the antagonist not kill him out right and torment him? What are the deep grudges of the antagonist against him to just imprison her rather than kill him  and cut the connection to the embezzlement and false charges. Would the father of the antagonist allow a thing that could potentially get back to him, and end his career. Would he allow his son his satisfaction of tormenting the ML with the possibility of alive person against his crimes?

What is this prison? Why are they housing this gangster and high officials? Is there an organization that is keeping this prison? What the purpose? Tormenting gangster and previous officials? Why? Fpr torture , for what? Money? Probably hidden wealth of these gangsters/officials. So they are torturing them everyday?  How can he then be mentored?

But they even get small time gangsters there? Why would any organization spend money and resources to a prison building? Its a money hole. I think the villains would rather kill their enemies, and pay the subordinates of their enemies for infornation rather have a secret prison to house them.

maybe they should already be married or have the wedding right after he gets the promotion

• Waiting for 15 years before marriage is not unheard of, but waiting that long is quite a feat. Would the parents allow their child to wait that long, if the ML is capable and dependable, i think the parenta of the girl would probably push for it when they wete in their 20s. Mid 20s or maybe at 29.
• The disapprpving parents i see in the case where the guy and girl are of different social class. Say, the FL is a chaebol and the ML is a son of the chauffer. I can see the long  tumutulous proving period of the couple to get approval. 
• What promotion is he getting, managerial position or executive .. this would surely dictate your age.

jealousy might not be enough, if you hate someone so much all these years why stay friends with him, i need something to trigger our villain, maybe the promotion and a wedding right after? lets not forget our antagonist fell in love at first sight with the fl but she had eyes only for our male lead.

• Why would the promotion and wedding suddenty trigger him to torture the ML. Usually the antagonist would be triggered to just kill the guy. Easy and clean. And He be busy trying to get the girl, the promotion and cleaning up lose ends of the. The torture feels like an overkill that is not rooted in the issues the antagonist has against the ML.

Lets say you have someone that is very rich and you are after his money and can`t afford to kill him until you find the money, or someone who you can`t afford to kill because he knows a lot of secrets about some high ranking government members, lets say a prison for people you can`t kill because you need something from them, and yes you torment them daily until they break.

• In this scenario you need a high powered and high oiled organization to make a prisomn place like this. This is a more difficult issue to tackle than the plot holes of the ML, the angst of the antagonist and etc. This is not just a secret prison  issue. Im this one you need to organize a system, origin, backdrop and common goal of people.
• It needs to work like their own form of organization that is working in the darkness of law and order. High ranking officials need to be in on it, they would have membership, and working for a common goal and thought proess. And this needs to be undetected. So they have to be better than yakuza or the mob or gang... 
• And building this type of backdrop is .... i dont know how to explain... i mean it will be difficult. 
• More than the antagonist, this would be more of the big bad, than the frenemy of the ML. 
• If the ML will go for revenge, thia organizatoion would be hia enemy rather than an individual. 
• I say keep it simple, rather than make a secret prison. Just have him killed, and then maybe that mentor find him. 

Yes it is partially inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo with a modern twist  ( for me the greatest revenge story of all time ) and couple of other revenge k-dramas.

• Goodbye Mrblack tried that. Inspired by Monte Cristo and woth modern twist It didnt work. JDrama Count of monte cristo Haku was nearer to the novel. I think it faired better, sadly not enough to be awesome.
• Nirvana in fire is probably the nearest to Monte Cristo, and NIF is one  the best revenge drama. The best revenge drama like Minte cristo ia the best revenge novel

Anyway regarding korean law on embezzlemenr, its 5 years for 500billion won an above. A and there is a 10 year imprisonment for unfair trade. 

Anyway check this link up 

Sorry again my english is not that good:)

I think Korea could make a good live action of Akatsuki no Yona (manga)