Beyond Evil (괴물) Drama Review
A review of the 2021 Korean drama Beyond Evil (괴물).
I’m going to preface this by saying I had no idea this was such a well-known drama already before watching this. I stumbled upon it on Netflix one breezy Friday morning and pressed play, then was amazed to see that the two male leads right off the bat were played by Shin Ha-kyun and Yeo Jin-gu.
Immediately I thought that was a power combo made by the heavens. And, if this isn’t a spoiler, they truly are a match made in heaven.
I devoured this drama pretty quickly in between my Bengali classes, work, and leisure time, and wow do I have thoughts! I see why this is a contender so far for one of the best dramas of the year.
And my bias against romance dramas might play a small part in this, but I also do absolutely love a crime drama that plays around with your psychology and inner thoughts.
Let’s break down what I thought about this drama.
Content / Writing
This drama is set around a small town in Gyeonggi-do in which there were serial killings. Our two main characters are Lee Dong-sik (played by Shin Ha-kyun), an older policeman who was demoted from his original detective position, and Han Joo-won (Yeo Jin-gu), who is the son of the incoming police commissioner in Seoul and is high-ranking despite his young age.
Lee Dong-sik is the twin brother of one of the girls who was murdered in the original serial killings twenty years before the start of the drama, and was the main suspect.
Now, with the arrival of Han Joo-won, things seem to become abnormal again and girls are going missing. Both our main characters have major demons going on in their heads and their pasts, which complicates the story even more.
This is a true police drama, and I absolutely loved that it had little to no romance incorporated in it.
I hate when romance is needlessly thrown into things, and this was a drama I felt satisfied with. We get our twists, and while it is quite slow in the beginning, it slowly all begins to make sense and it’s so, so satisfying.
The ambiance in this show also is really great. The shadows that climbed the character’s faces, the way they interacted with each other and the scenery was too quiet around, and the music itself were all great characteristics that added to the cinematic atmosphere of the drama.
Characters
At the beginning of this drama, you really hate both of the main characters to be honest. Shin Ha-kyun is insanely good at playing characters who seem a bit unstable at the surface, but are actually extremely complicated when you look deeper at them as a person.
Our lead played by Yeo Jin-gu seems like a stuck-up asshole, but as we venture further into the narrative and more things begin to be revealed to us as viewers, we see how this is isn’t exactly the case.
Something that really, really stuck out to me was how small-town all of this was. At one point, as the butcher shop is being investigated as a possible scene of a crime, the owner throws eggs and Joo-won.
It is then something along the lines of “You may be an outsider, but you’ve riled up the people who are stuck here.” Joo-won is rich and an outsider, and as a detective with his own particular motives in coming here, has stirred up the normalcy in an already abnormal small town.
The acting was insanely good because the dynamic between Shin Ha-kyun’s and Yeo Jin-gu’s characters was seriously good.
You could tell they were only tolerating each other at first because of the fact they were placed as partners, but as the story evolves and becomes more twisted, we can see how this relationship, too, begins to twist and develop. I really liked the casting of the main leads because of this.
Overall Thoughts
The title Beyond Evil is very appropriate; the Korean title of Monster is equally appropiate. This isn’t a drama where you want to find out who exactly did all of this.
It’s a show where you’re forced to look at all of the characters beyond what they’ve done and understand the psychological impacts behind what is going on. Shin Ha-kyun’s character, for example, is literally traumatized by what happened in his past.
We’re forced to focus away from the driving forces of the plot and the mystery to solve why the characters are acting the way they are and especially to each other.
It’s brilliant, I think, at the end of the day, making this a must-watch Korean drama. I think this honestly might be one of the best dramas of 2021, to be quite frank. It’s worth trying to watch.
