Following all the brawling and posturing of the first few episodes, the show slowed down and began playing around with the one novel plot device in its toolbox: a gangland love quadrangle.
The Worst of Evil: Ji Chang-wook, Wi Ha-joon in Disney+ gangster saga
The Worst of Evil: Ji Chang-wook, Wi Ha-joon in Disney+ gangster saga
This messy romantic web involves Jun-mo’s cop wife Yu Eui-jeong (Im Se-mi) and Chinese-Korean drug manufacturer Lee Hae-ryeon (Bibi).
Eui-jeong happens to be Gi-cheol’s first love from their teenage years and he is very keen to rekindle that spark when he accidentally meets the cop couple together – they pretend to be childhood acquaintances. Jun-mo has to grit his teeth and watch Gi-cheol woo Eui-jeong, lest his undercover ruse be revealed.
Also imperative in what is an ambitious international sting operation is making sure that the Gangnam Union successfully concludes a major meth deal involving Chinese suppliers and Japanese buyers.
That means wooing Hae-ryeon, whose father supplied the drugs, and since she only has eyes for Jun-mo he has to pretend to fall in love with her.
This quadrangle reaches its emotional pinnacle during a tense sit-down in a fancy restaurant where Jun-mo and Gi-cheol take a back seat while Eui-jeong and Hae-ryeon trade barbs with one another.
During the show’s more lackadaisically paced midsection, the focus is squarely on the complexities of these emotional entanglements and the slow-moving drug deal between the international parties, which involves lots of sit-downs in hotels where not much happens.
Meanwhile, a couple of Gi-cheol’s fellow gang members squabble among themselves, some still not trusting Jun-mo, but the gangster side of the show is toned down until things heat up again during this week’s three-episode finale.
The romantic gangster/cop premise is an interesting one, filled with tense and intriguing possibilities, and serves the dual function of extending the usual crime drama story and trying to engage TV audiences, which skew more heavily female.
Alas, the show handles the romantic side of things less confidently than the macho gangland ingredients. However, despite the shortcomings of the midseason lull, the emotional entanglements help to up the ante by the time we step firmly back into the crime saga before the show’s close.
10 of the best new Korean drama series to look out for in October 2023
10 of the best new Korean drama series to look out for in October 2023
When cops go undercover to infiltrate gangs in on-screen stories, they begin turning into gangsters themselves, their thug comrades’ behaviour rubbing off on them. This usually manifests itself in one of two ways.
They are either seduced by the criminal underworld to the point that they start coveting power for themselves, as they eye a move away from the force, as in the Korean film New World, or they go too far in their attempts to get the mission done.
Jun-mo falls in the latter category. He becomes increasingly violent, something Eui-jeong witnesses first-hand when he butchers opponents during an attack on the Gangnam Union while she’s in the building – an attack foreshadowed at the beginning of the series.
She looks on in horror as Jun-mo’s boxy white suit and handsome face are covered in Carrie levels of blood.
Jun-mo’s evolving fashion is a clever indicator of his deteriorating mental state. By the time he reaches his lowest point – and advocates the use of violence on the family members of a rival – he’s wearing a garish red pinstripe suit, in a desperate attempt to keep the deal on track.
Jun-mo does exhibit some signs of becoming too swept up in the criminal underworld. While he doesn’t consider becoming a gangster, he does build a real rapport with Gi-cheol, which comes back to haunt him after he allows the gang leader to escape the climactic sting operation.
Meanwhile, her dad’s gnarly-looking gang back in China, whom the show frequently cut to, never made an appearance in Korea, robbing us of what could have been a brutal showdown.
The Worst of Evil was a little too romantic to live up to its title, but despite a few lulls and missteps, it picked itself up for a punchy and reasonably satisfying conclusion.
The Worst of Evil is streaming on Disney+.
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Khushi Patel is a science fiction author who lives in Austin, Texas. She has published three novels, and her work has been praised for its originality and imagination. Khushi is a graduate of Rice University, and she has worked as a software engineer. She is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, and her books have been nominated for several awards.
