The Legend of Kitchen Soldier: Episode 1 (First Impressions)
by lovepark
A young man escapes from the daily grind of life by enlisting in the army and ends up in the kitchen as their new cook. As he experiences the world through a video games lens, he accepts this new quest to become the legendary kitchen soldier and slowly levels up as he obtains new skills and recipes along the way.
Editor’s note: This is a first impressions post only.
EPISODE 1
Life has always been a battle filled with enemies for the show’s titular hero KANG SUNG-JAE (Park Ji-hoon), and now his world may turn into a literal battlefield as he enlists to serve his mandatory military service. After acing boot camp and earning the title “best trainee,” Sung-jae arrives at 4th company Ganglim Post, and Sergeant Major PARK JAE-YOUNG (Yoon Kyung-ho) is ecstatic that such a promising new recruit got sent their way. That is until Sung-jae takes his psychological evaluation and gets marked as S-class: extremely high risk of depression and gaming addiction.
Suddenly, the weird glitches Sung-jae experiences (a crow that blinks out of existence, an omniscient narrator who gives him quests, and a HUD that displays his stats and information) all make sense in light of these results. Despite his repeated claims that he is fine, clearly Sung-jae is struggling after his father’s sudden death two months ago, and outpost commander First Lieutenant JO YE-RIN (Han Dong-hee) tells him to come to her before doing anything rash.
With his smiley pin attached to his chest — indicating his mental health status — Sung-jae’s first official tour of the company begins at the mess hall where the cook, Sergeant YOON DONG-HYUN (Lee Hong-nae), has concocted a nearly-inedible array of dishes. Besides his questionable cooking skills, Dong-hyun seems like a decent person as he saves Sung-jae from bully Corporal KIM GWAN-CHUL (Kang Ha-kyung), but no amount of goodwill can compensate for his borderline poisonous food. Every bite feels like a shot to the chest, and to our imaginative hero, it transports him to a lake of soup where Dong-hyun maniacally laughs like a game mini-boss.
After lunch, Sung-jae meets with the company commander Captain HWANG SEOK-HO (special appearance by Lee Sang-yi) who recommends him to join the kitchen staff since his mom owns a food truck. Faulty logic aside, Sergeant Major Park mentions to the captain why that may be a terrible idea (he’s already worried about Sung-jae being around live ammunition but now the captain wants to give him access to knives, too) but our easily distracted hero tunes out the conversation as his attention is drawn to a new game path opening up for him: the legendary kitchen soldier. However, any illusions of grandeur are swiftly kicked out the door as Dong-hyun huffs at his new assistant and hides him away in the messy storeroom to organize the supplies.
Meanwhile, Sergeant Major Park calls to complain about the new recruit which sets off a chain reaction of events that begins with a surprise inspection from Captain LEE MIN-GU (Han Min). He immediately zeroes in on the mess hall, and Dong-hyun gets reprimanded for his lack of cleanliness and health code violations. The real disaster zone is the storeroom, but when Captain Lee walks in, the place is spotless. Using a new skill called “chef’s eye,” Sung-jae managed to organize everything in a short period of time, and even the persnickety captain can’t find a single error to nitpick.
Though Sung-jae gets through the day without any huge blunders, those around him still find his behavior unnerving. They call him a ticking landmine, and Private TAK MUN-IK (Im Ji-ho) lives up to his nickname TMI by warning Dong-hyun to be careful around Sung-jae since he only has 100 days left before his discharge. Thus, the next day, Dong-hyun makes sure to keep Sung-jae out of the kitchen for breakfast and has him clean the floors with a toothbrush, instead.
Today’s menu is seaweed soup with an assortment of yummy side dishes, except Dong-hyun used the wrong soy sauce for the soup and didn’t follow any of the correct steps while cooking. Even the sausage is charred to a black crisp, and the whole battalion takes one bite and is thrust onto a battlefield. In the face of a common enemy, their differences and animosity disappear as they try to fight back against their attacker, but Dong-hyun and his terrible sausages rain down on them like bullets. One by one they fall while reenacting typical war movie tropes, and across the field, Dong-hyun fires away with Sung-jae as his right-hand man.
As the lower ranking soldiers fight for their lives in the mess hall, the two captains accompany their battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel BAEK CHUN-IK (Jung Woong-in), on a hike. Flattering their commander with empty praises, they tell him not to worry about the “incident” which reminds the commander about the report he got about the 4th company. He suggests dropping by the mess hall right now to inspect the food in person, and Captain Hwang sends an SOS to Lieutenant Jo about the situation.
Reluctantly, the outpost commander returns to work and finds Sung-jae cleaning up the kitchen alone since Dong-hyun left to unwind after the tussle at breakfast (Gwan-chul asked if Dong-hyun even tastes his food, and his question hurt the cook’s feelings). As she examines the food and deems it unfit for consumption, Sung-jae speaks up and volunteers to make a new batch of seaweed soup. He just so happened to unlock a new recipe and even found sea urchin roe in the fridge he can use.
By the time the battalion commander arrives, Sung-jae has finished his soup which looks absolutely delicious (and expensive). From the look on Captain Hwang’s face, the sea urchin was probably his secret stash, but he lies that the locals sometimes donate ingredients to the base. As the commander takes a sip of the soup, he immediately goes for another spoonful, but then chokes. He falls to the ground clutching his throat and the others gather around him even more red in the face from screaming. As Sung-jae stares at the scene unfolding before him, he thinks, “I’m screwed.”
The Legend of Kitchen Soldier is off to a solid start, living up to the hype of its buzz-worthy cast. Park Ji-hoon seems to have mastered the downtrodden yet quietly powerful, and imbues Sung-jae with the same energy he’s slowly becoming known for. As described in the show, Sung-jae feels like a landmine that could blow at any moment, but that also means without external pressure, he won’t explode. By depicting his hallucinations (psychosis?) in a familiar gaming package, he comes across as a typical webtoon protagonist, but rather than embrace this fantastical element as something that is simply fun, the show consistently cuts to outside perspectives that reveal the jarring nature of his behavior. The show never forgets to remind the audience that Sung-jae is in a precarious mental state but instead of villainizing him or turning him into a joke, it strikes an interesting balance of whimsy and concern. The show as a whole is basically a balancing act, and at least from its first episode, The Legend of Kitchen Soldier managed to capture both heart and humor with its silly jokes and imaginative scenarios.
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