Children of Nobody ~ What Happens When the Moon Rises?

“Children of Nobody” (aka “Red Moon, Blue Sun”) is a 2018-2019 Korean drama series, with 32 episodes, categorized as Police procedural, Crime, Mystery, Psychological Thriller, and Suspense; streaming on KOCOWA+.

SUMMARY: A creepy case of children who die and nobody looks for them, linked to a poem titled “Leper”.

♦ A Child is Eaten?

In “Children of Nobody”, Cha Woo Kyung is a child psychologist and counselor. Her life looks perfect. She appears to be happily married, has one young daughter, and is expecting their second child. She was counseling a young boy who fell down the stairs. It looked like he did it deliberately and may have been trying to kill himself.

During his counseling session, he said that his sister had died. Later, his parents called her and said they would not be bringing their son to her for treatment. They insisted the boy was “normal” and he simply had an accident and fell down the stairs. Their tone was almost hostile.

Kang Ji Hun is a detective assigned to a murder case. The victim is a woman who had just been released from prison. She had been charged with killing her own child. The public was not happy about her release, and there were people who showed up to protest as soon as she got out of jail. It appears that she was lured to a place 3 days after her release and murdered. First, she was injected with fentanyl and then set on fire.

Kang Ji Hun believed he had found the killer. It was a doctor who had shown up to protest the woman’s release. He had lost his wife and child, and his mental health deteriorated. He had been fired from his job for stealing fentanyl. Kang Ji Hun did not know it, but his boss had assigned Jeon Soo Yeong to work with him. She was a new recruit and saw that Kang Ji Hun had developed a solid lead on the suspected killer and knew his whereabouts.

The information was displayed on the computer screen. Since she was also working on the case with him, she decided to go and assist him. Jeon Soo Yeong arrived at the scene first, intending to wait for her partner, only she heard a loud commotion and a man screaming.

The suspect was trying to stab himself, and the female detective tried to stop him. By the time Kang Ji Hun arrived, it looked like Jeon Soo Yeong had stabbed the murder suspect. The suspect was dead, and he didn’t know who this woman was, so he handcuffed her and took her to the police station. At the station, his boss told him that she was his assistant. Based on his initial encounter with her, he told his boss he didn’t want her on his team. To which his boss replied: “Tough! She’s on the team, and you better learn to work with her!”

Meanwhile, something awful happened to Cha Woo Kyung. She was driving on the highway, and the truck in front of her swerved and veered into another lane. There was a young child right in front of her, and she couldn’t stop her car in time and hit the little girl. Her husband met her at the police station, and she was desperate to know about the child. The police officer told her that the little boy had died and nobody had come to identify him.

Boy? What boy? Cha Woo Kyung was confused. She told the police officer that she had hit a little girl. It was a little girl wearing a green dress. Since it was on a major highway, there was camera footage. The police officer showed her footage of the accident. The child she hit with her car was definitely a little boy, and he wasn’t wearing anything green. Cha Woo Kyung did not understand. She was 100% certain that she hit a little girl wearing a green dress.

Cha Woo Kyung and Kang Ji Hun do not know each other, but there is a clue that is going to connect them.

• When Kang Ji Hun visited the home of the murder victim, he found a photograph, and on the back of the photo, someone had written a line from a poem.

• Since nobody came to claim the child’s body, Cha Woo Kyung asked if she could go through the child’s belongings. How could it be that nobody was looking for him? She found a drawing. It had been neatly folded and tucked inside the little boy’s shoe. The drawing also had a line from a poem.

On both the photo and the drawing, it was the same line from a poem titled “Leper”. The line read: “when the moon rose over the barley field.”

• In Korean myth and folklore, it was said that if lepers ate a baby’s liver, they would be cured.

If the children belong to nobody, who cares what happens to them?  Maybe the little girl in the green dress knows the answer. 

Main Characters:

• Cha Woo-Kyung (played by Kim Sun-A*)
• Kang Ji-Hun (played by Lee Yi-Kyung, “Café Midnight”, “Face Me”, “Marry My Husband”, “Royal Secret Agent”, “Maids”, “Nine: 9 Times Time Travel”)
• Jeon Soo-Young (played by Nam Gyu-Ri, “My Military Valentine”, “You Are My Spring”, “Kairos”)
• Lee Eun-Ho (played by Cha Hak-Yeon, “Oh My Ghost Clients”, “Castaway Diva”, “Joseon Attorney: A Morality”, “Tomorrow”, “Bad and Crazy”, “Secret Royal Inspector & Joy”, “Mine”, “Tunnel”)

*This is an award-winning actress, only none of her K-dramas have been reviewed on PopGeeks. If you like this actress, you might add these K-dramas to your watch list: “Queen of Masks”, “The Empire”, “The Lady in Dignity”, and “Scent of a Woman”.

Where to Watch

Viewership and Rating:

• IMDb: 7.8 out of 10 stars
• My Drama List: 8.6 out of 10 stars
• Google users shared a public rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars

My personal rating is the same as the Google users.

“Children of Nobody” hit my soft spot. Any movie or series about children immediately grabs my attention, and I have to follow it through to The End. IT’S MANDATORY VIEWING! I had to know the story behind the little girl in the green dress and that cryptic quote from the poem, “The Leper”.

LINKS OF INTEREST:

“The Last Empress” And “Children Of Nobody” Premiere And Face Off For Viewership Ratings | Soompi

K-Drama Review: “Children of Nobody” Explores A Dark Tale Of Child Abuse & Cruises To A Satisfying Ending | Hello KPop

Children of Nobody (TV Series 2018-2019) | The Movie Database (TMDB)

Final Review – Children of Nobody (Red Moon Blue Sun) | The cat that watches TV

Exit Rave: Children of Nobody | Overthinking Kdramas

Korean Drama Review | Children of Nobody | Between Folded Pages

TRAILERS/TEASERS:

KOCOWA TV. (2018). “If You Are Real.. Then I Will Save You” [Children of NobodyㅣTeaser Trailer] [Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=RvKrBGuFsFs.

♦