'Chairman Kang' Kwon Hae-sung Turns From Well-Meaning Helper Into Dangerous Variable, Shaking Up the Power Dynamic

In JTBC’s Saturday-Sunday drama 'New Employee Chairman Kang,' the character Min Seok-do, shaped by actor Kwon Hae-sung, is injecting a new layer of tension into the story. At first, Min seemed like a man who had made a wrongful choice in order to protect the wife he loved. But the abrupt change he shows after the death of Chairman Kang, played by Son Hyun-joo, suggests that he is not merely a victim of circumstance. Instead, he appears to be another central axis holding the key to the incident.

Episode 9, which aired on June 27, revealed a completely different side of Min Seok-do, a neurosurgeon at Hangang University Hospital and the husband of Kang Jae-kyung, played by Jeon Hye-jin. After the death of Chairman Kang Yong-ho, Min no longer looked like the man who had been wavering between guilt and fear. In this episode, he exposed desire and a sharp sense of reality, showing a face that felt distinctly different from the one viewers had seen before.

What makes Min Seok-do especially compelling is that he was not introduced as a straightforward villain. At Kang Jae-kyung’s request, he took the dangerous step of administering sleeping pills to Chairman Kang. Yet the starting point of that choice was not a naked craving for power. It came from his wish to protect someone he loved.

A defining moment came in the previous episode, when his mother-in-law Sun-hee caught him at the scene. In tears, Min pleaded, “If I don’t do it, someone else will,” and added, “I can’t watch that person fall apart anymore.” The scene laid bare his complicated psychology. He was committing a crime, but in his own mind he was not the attacker. He saw himself as a protector. That contradiction is what prevents the character from being reduced to a simple good-versus-evil framework.

Chairman Kang’s death, however, became the event that shook Min Seok-do’s inner world completely. As Chairman Kang’s attending physician, Min was closer than anyone to the truth of the death. He maintained his composure during the official briefing, but the actions he showed afterward were unexpected.

The scene in which he submits his resignation to the hospital, lays out luxury clothes and watches, and says, “I think I’ll try living as the husband of Chairwoman Choi Sung from now on,” symbolically captures his transformation. In the past, Min was tormented by guilt and afraid of the consequences of his own choice. Now, he appears ready to accept the rules of the dangerous world he has entered.

This shift is intriguing because it does not read as simple moral collapse. Min Seok-do has not suddenly become a man blinded by ambition. Rather, his behavior can be read as the decision of someone who has already stepped into the world of power and is now choosing a way to survive inside it. The process by which an act that began with good intentions eventually merges with larger desire touches one of the most realistic parts of human psychology.

Kwon Hae-sung expresses that subtle change with precision. Earlier, he conveyed guilt through anxious eyes and a trembling expression. In recent episodes, he shows Min’s transformation through a cold face that hides emotion and a more calculating attitude. Although it is the same character, Kwon creates a wholly different atmosphere as the situation changes, making Min Seok-do’s inner shift feel persuasive.

Among the major figures in 'New Employee Chairman Kang,' Min Seok-do now occupies one of the most interesting positions. If Kang Jae-kyung is a character torn between ambition and family, Min is the person who bears the consequences of that choice and changes because of them. He was once someone’s helper, but he has also emerged as a potential variable capable of moving the incident itself.

In drama, conflicts over chaebol power and family are often framed as a confrontation between those who desire power and those who try to stop them. Min Seok-do blurs that boundary. He is both victim and perpetrator, a man who tried to protect the person he loved and yet is ultimately becoming part of the power structure.

As the question of “who becomes the real winner” grows larger after Chairman Kang’s death, Min Seok-do’s next moves are expected to become an important key to the story’s future direction. Whether he has truly chosen power, or whether he is concealing another truth, remains unknown.

In the end, the Min Seok-do created by Kwon Hae-sung is not a simple twist character. He is a figure who reveals the complex desires of a person wavering between good and evil, and he has become a central force that heightens the tension of the power drama within 'New Employee Chairman Kang.' Viewers are increasingly curious whether the second life he begins after Chairman Kang’s death is betrayal, survival, or the opening act of an even larger reversal.