SBS drama Taxi Driver 3 is getting attention because it looks like it is parodying the real “Dec. 3 martial law” 사건. The show includes a “hamburger meeting” and a plan to declare emergency martial law.
In the last episode (aired on the 10th), a secret group plans something serious. They send South Korean soldiers to the far north near the Military Demarcation Line. Then they plan to kill the soldiers with a bomb and blame North Korea. The leader, Oh Won-sang, wants to use this event to declare emergency martial law.
Kim Do-gi and the Rainbow Transport team find out who Oh Won-sang really is. They are shocked because he is not a soldier. Ahn Go-eun says he was kicked out of the military in shame after a sexual harassment case. Now he is just a civilian living in the countryside and raising “snake chickens.” Park says, surprised, “A civilian is controlling the military?”
Oh Won-sang gets a “date” from a shaman. At his home, he writes a martial law announcement. In it, he says soldiers died because of an enemy attack. Then he says he will declare emergency martial law across the whole country, based on the Constitution (Article 77) and the Martial Law Act (Article 2). He also meets soldiers at a hamburger restaurant.
The article says this story is very similar to a real case. In real life, Noh Sang-won (a former military intelligence commander) was dishonorably discharged in 2018 after being sentenced for sexually assaulting a subordinate. He is accused of gathering an active-duty Army major general and others at a hamburger shop near his home, two days before the Dec. 3, 2024 martial law declaration, to plan an insurrection. The drama copied this in detail. Even the clothes and the name of the drama character look similar to Noh.
In the drama, the Rainbow Transport team stops the plan. At the far north, fireworks explode instead of a bomb. Under the fireworks, many citizens’ cheering light-sticks shine like waves. Kim Do-gi says the plotters will now understand that their “dream” was really a delusion. Jang Sung-cheol looks at the light-sticks and says, “Those people saved us.”
The article also says episode 11 (aired on the 26th last month) had a scene that reminds people of former President Yoon Suk-yeol. In that scene, a detective office has a frame that says, “We will even catch the moon’s shadow floating on the lake.” The article says this seems to make fun of words Yoon used in court. He once said the case felt like “chasing the moon’s shadow on a lake,” and he claimed nothing really happened.
Ratings were high. Nielsen Korea reported the finale had 13.3% nationwide ratings, 13.7% in the Seoul area, and a peak of 16.6%.
Finally, the article says the court hearing for former President Yoon, former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, and former commander Noh happened on the 9th. But because the defense lawyers delayed the process, the final statements and the prosecutor’s sentencing request were moved to the 13th.
