Chicken Nugget is a newly released Korean comedy drama on Netflix, starring some of the most well-known actors in the industry. The ten-part series is a satire on society that is too self-centered and devoid of knowledge of what unconditional love is. The series introduced us to Baek-joong, an intern working in a company called “More than Machines,” owned by Choi Sun-man. Apart from the central protagonist of the story, Baek-joong, the series has a cast of interesting characters with dynamic arcs. One of them is Choi Sun-man, who had to suffer a great deal of pain when his daughter, Min-Ah, turned into a chicken nugget after entering a weird purple-colored machine in their factory. Let’s talk about Sun-man’s journey to know if he’d get the chance to reunite with his daughter in this life.
Spoilers Ahead
How did Min-Ah turn into a chicken nugget?
Choi Sun-man was a widower who raised his little daughter Min-Ah all by himself. His entire world revolved around Min-Ah, who was the apple of his eye. One fine morning in his office, when Sun-man decided to have lunch with his daughter, Min-Ah came to meet him with a box full of chicken nuggets in her hands. However, while Sun-Man was out of the office for a while, something went terribly wrong. Baek-Joong had a big crush on Min-Ah, so he didn’t have his lunch alone just so he could enjoy chicken nuggets with his crush, but Min-Ah couldn’t help her curiosity and got distracted by the purple-colored machine kept in their office. Min-ah entered the machine, and out of nowhere, a switch appeared. As Min-Ah pressed the button, she magically turned into a chicken nugget in front of Baek-joong, who was left utterly confused. Baek-Joong explained the situation to Sun-man, who was initially confused as well, but he had this odd sense that the chicken nugget really was Min-Ah.
As it would be a bizarre thing to tell anyone, Sun-man chose not to talk about it and asked Baek-Joong to talk about the situation. The two of them started their own investigation and found that this machine was actually invented by an award-winning scientist, Professor Yoo, who had gone missing a few years ago. Sun-Man sought help from the authorities, but he didn’t tell them the whole chicken nugget thing because he didn’t want anyone to take advantage of this situation and bring harm to his daughter. Sun-man, with the help of Baek-joong, preserved the chicken nugget in a box to separate it from other regular nuggets, but Professor Yoo’s psycho nephew, Tae-man, set his sights on the machine as well as the nugget Sun-man had been protecting all along. One day, when Sun-man and Baek-Joong were out, Tae-man sneakily entered the office and stole the machine as well as Min-Ah, who was in her chicken nugget form. Sun-man couldn’t sit quietly, as he didn’t care about anything else but his daughter, who meant the world to him. The two of them set out on their mission to find Tae-man’s haven and confronted him to get their chicken nuggets back.
What happened to Sun-Man?
In the meantime, the owner of the chicken nugget restaurant, Baek-jung, came forward to demand the machines, which were rightfully theirs. Actually, Baek-jung and his coworkers were aliens from a different planet on their tour to Earth, where they’d opened a restaurant after tasting these delicious chicken nuggets. For almost 200 years, they had dwelt on this planet and had only seen selfish human beings who knew to curse very fluently. As Baek-jung convinced Sun-man that they were indeed members of a nonhuman species from a different planet and that he was the only one who could fix the whole situation, Sun-man agreed to help them get their machines back. Sun-man only wanted his daughter back at any cost, so he put his faith in Baek-jung, and teaming up with Baek-joong, he helped the aliens take over the machines by defeating Yoo and his nephew.
However, Baek-jung would have to return to their home planet to bring everything back in order; otherwise, Min-Ah would always remain a chicken nugget. It was a hard decision for Sun-Man to give up his daughter, so he initially cried out, refusing to hand the nugget over to the alien. However, Baek-jung promised him that he would return to earth after fifty years, which was equivalent to one day on their home planet. Knowing that Min-Ah could have a chance to get back to her original form, Sun-man decided to take the risk for the sake of Min-Ah. He wanted her to live, so even though he had done his best to keep her safe all along, he agreed to let her go. He took the bet, believing that he would have to be alive fifty years later to meet her daughter, so he decided to take care of himself. If he had to live more than 100 years, he would have to leave this city and live the life of a saint. Choi Sun-man abandoned his company and handed it over to Mr. Kim, his employee, knowing that a disciplined and hardworking Kim would be the ideal one to take this company to a different level. He also encouraged Baek-Joong to pursue his dreams, even though he wasn’t particularly into music. In a way, Sun-man was very grateful to Baek-Joong and recognized his humanity and ingenuity, so he gave him the boost that he needed in his life to kickstart his career. Fifty years passed, and Kim didn’t let his boss down, as after Sun-man left his company and went away in the mountains, Kim, with the help of Tae-man, advanced his machine technologies and made it a globally known enterprise.
However, things ended very tragically with Sun-man, who couldn’t get the opportunity to meet with Min-Ah in this life. When Baek-Joong became a globally famous singer, with millions of fans all around the world, one day Baek-jung, the alien leader, appeared in his mansion as he had promised fifty years ago, but Min-Ah wasn’t yet back in her human form. So Baek-jung gave the celebrity singer two choices. One, he could press a button and go back in time to the day when everything went wrong with Min-Ah, or he could just deal with the fact that he could never have Min-Ah back in his life the way he wanted. Baek-Joong took a step back, and first of all, he made a call to Sun-man, who was jumping from one mountain to another at the age of 106 years. As Sun-man learned that Min-Ah was back, he came to visit Baek-Joong right away, but tragically, the old man lost his life on the way. Baek-Joong was devastated not only because Min-Ah was still a chicken nugget but also because he realized that Sun-man couldn’t get a chance to reunite with his daughter. Therefore, he decided to abandon his celebrated career and pressed the button so that Sun-Man could see his daughter again. The button was pressed, and all of their memories were erased. Finally, in the very ending of Chicken Nugget, we saw Min-Ah on that exact day, when she turned into a nugget and stepped inside her father’s office, and Sun-man was more than happy to see her. Everything went back to the way it was, but there was the machine still in there inside the office, which suggested that the same incident of Min-Ah turning into a chicken nugget might happen again.
