LEE JOON GI
A GLOBAL ACTOR
OF
THE HIGHEST ORDER
IN
FLOWER OF EVIL
A GLOBAL MASTERPIECE
2020
|
Lee Joon Gi, the leading actor of Flower of Evil, 2020’s most
fascinating masterpiece, has beguiled the world audience. The astounding
critical success of the 16-episode TVN drama since its broadcast has made it
the international drama of all time. Masterfully directed by international
award-winning director, Kim Cheol Kyu and written by talented scriptwriter, Yoo
Yung Hee, the drama seethes with energy, suspense and drama. Flower of Evil
never loses its fascination from the beginning till the end with its
thrilling and dramatic scenes. What makes the drama mandatory viewing is
Lee’s tour de force performance which has amazed and touched global hearts in
equal measure. The drama has been lauded by international critics and global
viewers.
The casting of the international multihyphenate heartthrob
(Actor-Martial Arts Expert-Singer-Dancer-Model) as the lead, in what may be Lee
Joon Gi’s finest performance to date, has elevated the drama to a global
level. At the heart of the drama is Do Hyun Soo, a troubled social outcast
and the son of a serial killer. Lee Joon Gi’s Do Hyun Soo is quietly chilling
as the repressed but unpredictable crime suspect who had been wrongly misdiagnosed
as suffering from ASPD when young. Do Hyun Soo disappears from the public radar after assuming the identity of the comatose son of Baek Man Woo, the director of a university hospital. As the fake Baek Hee Sung, he attracts the attention and won the heart of Cha Ji Won, the future homicide detective whom he would marry and live with for 14 years. Lee Joon Gi holds the audience’s attention from the beginning till the end. The viewers, who are by stages terrified, intrigued and captivated by the enigmatic leading character, would not have felt vested in the drama without a strong central performance from Lee. It is a truly astonishing and awesome performance from one-of-a-kind actor, a real treasure, who has breathed life into the character, Do Hyun Soo, one of Lee’s most unforgettable characters. Lee’s kaleidoscopic portrayal of Do Hyun Soo’s emotions, might be seen as a cross between cold, serious, sorrowful and sometimes, vibrant, and at other times, violent, fractured or childlike. Do Hyun Soo could be cold like an iceberg with repressed feelings.
  When he married Cha Ji Won, he thaws.
If under stress, Do Hyun Soo might quiver and have anxiety
tremors, such as in the suspenseful and thrilling Episode 7 when his wife
tries to bring out the real Do Hyun Soo in him in the terrifying basement of
his childhood home.
But, he could be unpredictable when pushed to the limit. He
explodes like a volcano three times in the drama in Episode 5, Episode 11 and
Episode 15.
But, what is most astonishing in his portrayal of Do Hyun Soo is
that the attractive and tough man, reduced to a childlike state, falls into
the arms of his wife and whimpers like a little puppy. That happens in
Episode 11.
    Even worse, he suffers from paranoid delusions; he keeps seeing
Do Min Seok, his psychopath father, at certain times in his early life.
The spectre of his father disappears from his life during his
happy marriage with Cha Ji Won. But, when the psychopathic Baek Hee Sung triumphantly discloses that he had killed his wife, he goes berserk. His father’s spectre comes back to haunt him. At the climactic scene at the cliff when he straddles Baek Hee Sung, Do Hyun Soo wavers between reality and unreality. When Cha Ji Won screams at him not to kill the evil man, he is unsure about whether his wife is real or not. When he obediently heads towards the waiting arms of his loving wife, he totters like a toddler towards his mother.
ICONIC SCENE 1
Of Lee Joon Gi’s iconic scenes in Flower of Evil, it is beyond a shadow of a doubt that the climactic scene at the edge of the precipitous cliffs near Do Hyun Soo’s childhood home in Episode 15, is the most awesome, heart-stopping and heart-wrenching. In that episode, Lee Joon Gi, as Do Hyun
Soo, demonstrates the whole spectrum of emotions in just one scene, the final
showdown with the psychopathic Baek Hee Sung portrayed by Kim Ji Hoon. Determination. Coolness. Calmness. Collectedness. Amusement. Scorn. Haughtiness. Confidence. Complacency. Mockery. Disbelief. Surprise. Dismay Helplessness. Shock. Confusion. Anxiety. Suspicion. Hopefulness. Fear. Horror. Anguish. Pain and Agony. Depression. Anger. Rage. Madness. A loss of humanity. Delusion. Childlike simplicity. The conflict started at the basement of Do Hyun Soo’s childhood home leading to a chase and ending at the edge of a nearby cliff. Do Hyun Soo had become the hunter and the psychopathic hunter had become the prey. The scene shows the drastic
transformation of Do Hyun Soo from a man into a beast. DO HYUN SOO A PORTRAIT OF A 'PSYCHOPATH' IN THE FINAL SHOWDOWN IN FLOWER OF EVIL
After successfully subduing Baek Hee Sung with the Hound Dog brand leash and tying him to a chair, the cool, calm and collected Do Hyun Soo smirked at the former. Jung Mi Sook was a witness to the fearful encounter. It was astonishing that Do Hyun Soo chose his father’s modus operandi to catch his victim. Like father, like son. However, Do Hyun Soo managed to remain logical. ‘Now, I finally get it. I get how you made me fall for your trap.’
Do Hyun Soo seemed amused by Baek Hee Sung who had successfully implicated him in the murder of the Baek Family maid. He was scornful and
arrogant. Haughty was the word used by Baek. He was warned not to be too
haughty.
Do Hyun Soo was confident; he was going to send him to prison. But before that, he was going to play with his food and toy with his emotions. Appearing complacent and self-satisfied like a
Cheshire cat, he mocked at the lowlife. He
declared that he would not lose his temper at Baek’s deliberate provocation.
‘Don’t try too hard. You can’t do anything to provoke me.’ But, he spoke too soon. He demanded for Baek’s phone. To his surprise and disbelief, while rummaging through Baek’s pocket, he found not just the handphone but his wife’s lanyard with her police identification card.
He was simultaneously shocked and confused to learn that Baek
had trespassed into his beloved home and touched his prized possessions with
his murderous hands.
When Baek disclosed that he had killed Cha Ji Won, his wife, the revelation raised his hackles. He was angry and anxious at the same time. Should he believe the pathological liar?
His anger turned to rage and then, dismay. He felt helpless.
The tables had turned on him. Although distressed by the dreadful turn of events, he was suspicious of Baek’s words. Tense and fearful, he phoned the police for confirmation concerning Ji Won’s condition. He remained hopeful. He must have felt the tension in his body grow. When the police revealed that she was dead, he was horrified and agonised.
The tears welled up in his eyes. Excruciating pain seared his heart. Nothing could describe his anguish and the sudden fit of
depression. An agonised, desperate cry escaped his lips. His shoulders
slumped and he collapsed on the floor. He was a mental and nervous wreck.
When he picked himself up, he was choking with burning anger. His
body trembled; in fact, he quaked. In Episode 16, Do Hyun Soo mentioned that he was like Hephaestus (his Roman counterpart, Vulcan) the Greek god of metalworking who built his workshop in the bowels of the volcano, Mt Etna. The burning rage of Do Hyun Soo, likened to the fiery volcano, suddenly erupted.
Mt Etna His face seethed with savage anger. His rage could not be
suppressed. The fact was, his rage had melded with madness. Having been provoked beyond control, he was determined to kill Baek hee Sung, not with his bare hands but a knife. It was not going to be an easy and fast death for Baek Hee Sung; the journey to perdition would be a slow, lingering one. The punishment that he envisaged was a cruel one that resembled Lingchi, the terrifying Chinese ‘Death by a Thousand Cuts’. In the Chinese torture, a knife was used to methodically slice portions (flesh) of the body over an extended period of time; it included the amputation of limbs and the dismembering of the corpse.
Do Hyun Soo was totally transformed; he was lunatic. Rage quaked and rippled through him so fiercely that his whole body trembled. Even Baek Hee Sung shook with fear. Do Hyun Soo had seemingly turned into a murderous psychopath. The audience could feel his fast disappearing humanity. In fact, it had already leached out of him. Their hair must have stood on end. Shudder. As if in a trance, he instructed Jung Mi Sook to report to the
police that he, Do Hyun Soo, had killed someone.
In fact, he was going to slaughter and butcher Baek Hee Sung. ‘Tell them that I cut off his hands and feet while he was still
alive.'
‘And I sliced up his face so much that he couldn’t be
identified. Even after that, he wouldn’t die and crawled on the floor. So, I
killed him … Over and over.’
Do Hyun Soo was creepy and petrifying. The beast must have frightened the living daylights out of the audience.
Do Hyun Soo’s silhouette in the basement added to his
terrifying persona. The dark image conjured up a ghoulish spectre - an image
that was devoid of humanity. The viewers’ blood must have run cold. Like a broken tape recorder and in a cracked voice wracked with unbearable pain, he cried, 'That I killed him ... again and again.'
The grisly and gruesome end that awaited Baek Hee Sung was unspeakable. The loathing and repugnance in Do Hyun Soo’s voice was
unmistakably clear. Powered by the venom of his maniacal words, he, like an enraged bull, lurched at Baek Hee Sung. Berserk. He seemed to have run amok. Do Hyun Soo behaved like one ‘possessed’. Baek kicked at him. The two were thrown apart. Baek and the
chair overturned and he was able to wrestle himself free of the ropes that
had trapped him. When Do Hyun Soo was held back and immobilised by Jung Mi Sook, the few precious
moments allowed Baek to flee the scene.
In this part of the scene, Flower of Evil evokes horror through verbal and visual imagery, and excellent acting, without resorting to gore. Do Hyun Soo, the psychopath, followed the trail of Baek Hee Sung. He soon caught up with the murderer. As promised, Do Hyun Soo not only stabbed his arm and leg violently
but also viciously twisted his blade in Baek’s leg.
Do Hyun Soo cruelly egged the crippled Baek to crawl away, and
the petrified man did as he was told. The demented hunter soon lost sight of the other man who was now in terror of his life. His soulless eyes searched the woods. As he looked around, the camera rotated 360° in the hilly wooded terrain.
Although disoriented and mentally frail, Do Hyun Soo was able
to catch up with Baek.
The spectre of Do Min Seok, his father had appeared and led him
to the cliffs where Baek had headed to.
 The cliff scene is stupendous and full of meaning. The drama
shows us the meeting of the river with the sea.
The river is a metaphor for life itself. The source of the
river, a small stream, depicts the beginning of life. Its meeting with the
sea symbolises the end of life. The river begins at its source and ends at
its meeting with the sea. The river, a symbol of inevitability, swirl and
surge and push forward to its final destination. Do Hyun Soo caught up with Baek Hee Sung. With the sudden, strong sweep of his leg, the enraged man toppled the latter. Baek Hee Sung could not physically challenge the enraged metal craftsman. The hunter straddled his prey at the very edge of the cliff.
Do Hyun Soo’s intention was crystal clear. He was going to kill the evil man. Was he turning out to be a beast as well? Perhaps, he was not totally insane because he instinctively looked
up at the sky as if aware of the presence of God. Wasn't he reminded of the words, ‘Thou Shall Not Kill’?
He raised his hand with the knife in the air. The morning light
brushed his knife and it glinted menacingly.
Tears welled up in his eyes. It was shocking that Do Hyun Soo cried before he struck the fatal blow that would definitely kill the injured Baek Hee Sung. The metal craftsman must have felt conflicted. His wife had died and he wanted to take revenge on the murderer. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. He might be nearly insane, but was he aware of his intended deed? Perhaps he was. How could he then take away another life, though that particular life was abominable? The tears in his eyes threatened to fall. Finally, the scalding tears trickled down his cheeks.
Do Hyun
Soo weeps Like a bolt from the blue, his wife’s voice rang out in the
still air. His arm froze in mid-air. The unstable man was shocked. When she ordered him to discard his knife and approach her, he asked in astonishment, 'Is that really you, Ji Won?'
The spectre of his father remained in his line of vision. The illusion of his deceased
father was a sign that he might have lost touch with reality. His pain
and anguish had given way to momentary insanity.
‘I see dead people, so it's hard to believe that you're real,’ Do Hyun Soo wailed helplessly.
His raw cries make him seem pathetic. His detective wife cajoled him, ‘Come here and hold me.’
When the evil Baek Hee Sung laughed, realization dawned on him that his wife was
real and he decided to obey her.
As Do Hyun Soo walked towards Cha Ji Won, his wife, the scene
of him tottering towards her evokes the image of a toddler who was wobbling
unsteadily but trustingly towards his mother’s waiting arms. The scene ends with the death of Baek Hee Sung, who was shot by Ho Choon, the young detective. The river finally meets the sea.
It is clear that Lee Joon Gi had
gained weight for certain scenes in Flower of Evil.
Although Lee Joon Gi has well-toned muscles, he appropriately lost weight for the crucial cliff scene that evokes a mentally, emotionally and psychologically ill person. In just one scene, the final showdown scene between Do Hyun Soo and Baek Hee Sung, Lee Joon Gi's face registers a whole spectrum of emotions and undergoes the transformation of a person into a beast. Do Hyun Soo's brush with madness has brought out a real but scary part of the metal craftsman. The tremors in Lee Joon Gi's voice, the miniscule facial twitches particularly, around his eyes and cheeks, and the wobble of his mouth, the quivers in his facial muscles and all the subtle nuances in his face, voice and body make Lee Joon Gi an amazing actor, an actor of the first order. The iconic scene set against the
bleak wilderness of the cliffs is spellbinding, so is the performance of the
actor. |
