In Divorce Attorney Shin, Chun-seok needs Sung-han’s help to prevent his divorce, and Sung-han takes his case, even though he knows that Yeong-ju has sent him. Chun-seok is played by Choi Jae-Sup.
One day, a client shows up at Sung-han’s office, asking to speak with Sung-han personally. Sung-han agrees to meet him without an appointment, as the man has traveled quite a lot just to see him.
The man is Ma Chun-seok, and he wants Sung-han to prevent his divorce. When Sung-han asks him what made him travel so far just to get an attorney, he hands him Yeong-ju’s card, and Sung-han realizes that she is planning something.
Chun-seok’s relationship with his wife
Chun-seok is a farmer from Haenam. He tells Sung-han that he went to Vietnam years ago because his mother begged him to go. There, he met Dinh Thi Hoa for the first time, and he knew instantly that he had to take her to Korea with him.
Dinh Thi Hoa’s family was extremely poor. She lived with her widowed mother and her siblings. Chun-seok felt like he could support her family if he worked harder. He then started working twice as hard to provide for them.
He married Dinh Thi Hoa, who was much younger than him, and had a son with her named Yeong-gwang at the age of 50. However, his family did not live happily ever after as he had expected.
Allegations against Chun-seok
The people around Chun-seok despised him for marrying Dinh Thi Hoa, as they believed that he had bought a poor, young woman. Now, Dinh Thi Hoa wants to divorce him. She claims that he hit her and broke her arm.
According to her, when she told Chun-seok that she wants to divorce him and go back to Vietnam with their son, he got angry and broke things in a drunken state. A neighbor had to intervene and come to her rescue.
The next day, she went back to tell him that she has had enough of him drinking and beating her, which made him even more furious. He picked up a bat and attacked her with it. She broke her left arm while trying to defend herself.
However, Chun-seok claims that when she told him that she is divorcing him, he promised her that he would change, though he did not know where he went wrong. She did not listen, which resulted in him getting angry and breaking things.
The next day, when Dinh Thi Hoa came, people did not see him hitting her, but he still got arrested. Dinh Thi Hoa was taken to a women’s shelter, where she is now living with their son.
Chun-seok had grown up around domestic abuse, and he had sworn that he would never be like his father. He tells Sung-han that due to that, he has never abused anyone.
Sung-han comes to the conclusion that Chun-seok would not even hurt a person to defend himself. He notices that the man cannot lift his right hand, which makes it impossible for him to hit his wife with it.
Chun-seok’s honor
Chun-seok showed up at the women’s shelter with a shovel to take Dinh Thi Hoa and Yeong-gwang home, but he was stopped by security. Yeong-ju sent him away, but not without asking him to meet Sung-han for help and to give him her card.
Despite knowing that Yeong-ju is planning something, Sung-han takes Chun-seok’s case because he believes in his innocence. He promises Chun-seok that he will get his honor back.
However, it is not that easy, as Chun-seok is forced to choose between his honor and his mother’s well-being. Sung-han doubts whether Yeong-gwang is Chun-seok’s son or not. Chun-seok does not know the answer to that question, but he is his son on paper.
Chun-seok’s mother loves Yeong-gwang, and if she comes to know that he is not her grandson, she will be devastated. On the other hand, Chun-seok needs to clear his name because people now believe that he bought a foreign woman and abused her.
Some look at Chun-seok as if he is a monster, while others think he is a good person who was trying to save someone from a monster, but Sung-han believes that he is the man who is suffering and dying.
Eventually, he decides to take Sung-han’s advice and reclaim his honor. Sung-han then questions Dinh Thi Hoa about Yeong-gwang’s father and demands a paternity test in court.
The test will reveal that Chun-seok is not Yeong-gwang’s father. Although this will break his mother’s heart, it will help him prove that he is not a monster.
Also Read: Hyeong-geun’s divorce in Divorce Attorney Shin explained