The Worst of Evil (2023)

The alternate ending i wanted

After everything completed junmo divorce his wife and left the police job and went to hong kong to free of everything. There he meets bibi coincidentally and a conversation happens that goes like this....
Bibi: are you here to arrest me..?
Junmo: (takes out the cigarette and lights) i stopped working for police.
Bibi: although you betrayed everyone...i believe you.so why did u leave...i thought the department will give you promotion and you will be happy with your wife
Junmo: the job made me lose a lot of things and wife...haa i think i lost her when i started going undercover.
Bibi: so why did you come to me..?
Junmo: to say thank you and sorry...thank you for loving me even after knowing me...sorry for betraying you...
Bibi: so since you said what you want ...do you leave...
Junmo: i was planning to leave after see you live happily but even you have everything and being free ypu are not happy...why?
Bibi: you want to make me happy....then be with me. I am not a stupid person i know even after everything, you tried to protect me and jincheol. Will you continue to be my side and protect me...?
Junmo: if i want to leave will you let me go..?
Bibi: i would but i don't want to
Junmo:(smiling ) looks like i don't have any choice. Lets repent what we did and enjoy what we can.

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Mission is the worst of evil

This is one of the best noir dramas ever I have watched till now ,cast, acting, cinematography,plot and fights are phenomenal..every episode is highlight ....
Reasons to watch this drama
Reason 1 :- story and nerve wrenching tension in between episodes
Reason 2 :-ji chang wook ,wi ha Joon ,Bibi and imsemi acting..here I have to give more credits to chang wook ...god he is insane his acting is on top notch
Reason 3 :- becoming evil man to be part of evil team to win over the evil practices ...
4th reason:- the bloody fight scene in episode 9,chang wook shown his 15yrs acting career in this fight ,his eyes while fighting, god!!his eyes are insane i gone crazy ...
Reason 5 :- illegal relationships though the chemistry is on fire
Reason 6 :- u r not going to get out that drama mood for 1 week
Reason 7 :-this is one of the realistic drama with real ending..all the characters have grey traits by proving no human is perfect..

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A good gangsters vs cops dramas in an old Hong Kong movie style.

This is typically the type of story you used to find in old Hong Kong crime movies with men and brothers fighting each other in a story of cops, crime syndicate, mafias, and undercover operations. It was usually very romanticized, violent, and dark and in the ends, the outcome left no one unhurt. This drama totally follows this path.

1/ STORY
The story is rather simple. A cop accepts to do an undercover operation for a very personal reason. This leads him into a world of gangsters where bad guys also have their values and laws which make them not so bad and good guys are not always so good but have deviant behaviors and make questionable choices. He navigates in this and meets a local boss, and they develop an understanding and a friendly bond throughout time. The problem is that two women enters the scene, and they will make the two men question themselves, who they are and who and what they want and love. The result in the end is a terrible outcome for everyone.

2/ WHAT I LIKED
- The bonding between the two male leads and the bromance despite an uneasy personal situation in connection with the FL.
- The individual character development of the ML and of the SML. As I said, they are very romanticized but there is a clear beginning, a transition and an ending that is well told.
- The action and violence. I would have liked a little more of them.
- The ML and SFL. Their interplay was endearing. Cop guy and gangster girl trying to handle each other.


3 /WHAT I DID NOT LIKE
- The schemes were not so well made. I questioned some events that looked a little bit too simple or unrealistic.
- A little too much of "Who has the bigger balls". But I guess that's inevitable in a gangster's vs cops story.
- The last 3 eps were a bit underwhelming with some plot holes and far-fetched events that make them look rushed and inconsistent.

4/ CHARACTER - ACTORS
- Joo Mo: a simple and dutiful guy who becomes a gangster to bust a drug ring but he makes encounters that change him, his values and vision of thing and make him question his job. I liked the character and JCW was good portraying him.
- Ki Chul: simple guy with big dreams but a romantic who will question himself and try to change things for the best or the worst? Endearing despite his bad actions. WHJ was convincing too.
- Eui Jung: Some say she is useless in the drama. On the contrary. What she does or do not do triggers most of the tragic events. She is the main cause of everything. Im Se Mi. Second time I see here after True Beauty. Totally different. Good acting.
- Lee Hae Ryeon: the crazy and fun character who reveals herself not as hardened as expected. Superb job from the actress.
- Hwang Min Gu: The brute cop. Too much screen time for him and his antics. But his demise was fun.
Not a lot of noticeable characters beside these.

5/ OST: I enjoyed it bit nothing memorable.

6/ REWATCH VALUE: Probably rewatchable but a little too dark.

7/OVERALL
It is darker and sadder and more violent that expected. The schemes and counter schemes kind of drag the plot at times but overall, it is a good story. I would say the mafia and crime thing is not the most impressing or the most important. It is the personal situation and development of each of the main characters. From their point of view, it is a tragedy. A well told one. I totally recommend this drama. 9/10 . I do not give 10 because of the few telling flaws of the last eps but It is a good drama.

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Outstanding

The Worst of Evil is an outstanding Kdrama, and not just in the noir genre. It is a fascinating story with captivating characters, stellar acting, great action sequences, THAT KISS, a touch of classic tragedy and a real departure from simplistic black-and-white storytelling. Very few of the characters in this drama are actually good, some are very very bad, and most of them fall somewhere in between.

The intriguing plot revolves around our policeman hero who goes undercover, partially to impress his wife’s family who think she married the wrong guy, and ends up working for his wife’s ex-boyfriend who is now a gangster and decidedly not a good person - though we forget that pretty quickly thanks to his charisma. The wife, anxious to help, gets involved with her ex, while our hero catches the fancy of a drug lord’s daughter, and is torn between real affection for the girl and loyalty to his wife. This is where the element of a classic tragedy comes into play. The wife only gets involved to help her husband, who only got involved in the first place to get her family off her back, and in a bitter case of irony, that is what destroys their marriage in the end.

The characters are so well written that I found myself rooting for the bad guys on numerous occasions. When their bag of drugs is stolen, my first thought was Oh No! before catching myself. These people make a living off the misery of others, but we don’t really care, do we, since many of the “bad” characters are really charming or have redeeming qualities. The drug lord’s daughter easily could have been a cliched figure, but she is ultimately just a girl unloved by her father, who’s a constant threat in the background, with her bodyguard / replacement father figure the only person she trusts until she meets our hero. And while not all if the gangsters are really bad, many of the “good guys" are not good at all. There is so much corruption and blind ambition displayed by some of the policemen that it is clear that the line between good and evil blurred a long time ago.

I can highly recommend this show to anyone who enjoys the crime & mystery genre, great storytelling, or just something very far removed from the bubbly secretary and chaebol heir type of stories (though I quite enjoy these stories too). My one and only point of criticism was actually the wife’s character. Not that she hooked up with her ex, because she had a good reason. No, I thought she is way too passive during the big fight, especially as a trained policewoman. Generally speaking, nothing riles me up more than the female character just standing by while her boyfriend gets beaten up, or falling over in a dead swoon as he comes to her rescue. This is a recurring theme in Kdramas, Hollywood movies, fairytales and just about everywhere else, and it’s bloody annoying. Other than that, this drama was a perfect 10.

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JCW back with an action packed neo-noir series

The story, acting, cast, bgms, cinematography, action choreography were awesome. They delivered more than what I had expected. Would like to see JCW in action and romcom series more often.
The story thread goes something like this: Set in Seoul in the 1990s, a former DJ starts selling a new powerful drug nicknamed "Gangnam Crystal" in city nightclubs after mastering a gangster organization. Since the police know little about the origin of such drugs, in order to crack down on this rampant drug trafficking organization, rural police officer Park Jun Mu is assigned to sneak into the organization, only to discover that his wife, Yoo Eui Jung , also a detective, has volunteered to participate in this dangerous mission and seems to have an unspeakable past with the heinous underground drug king. Park Jun Mu in this drug-related mission, not only does he wholeheartedly fight the drug cartel, but also works hard to protect his wife's safety at all times.

Well, overall this was a gem of a find

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INCREDIBLE Story, Acting, Production; Sure to Be Re-Made by Production Crews Across the World.

The spoiler is at the end and marked.

I concur with everything written by Shinnosuke_Lee, including the evaluation of the ending.

This was an INCREDIBLE show in all the ways that reviewer mentioned. Loved it all. They all were incredible performances. I double-foot stomp BIBI's performance. It was great and a needed breath of fresh air in the overall cast of characters. The story really is stellar with constant twists and edge of your seat drama. (When the violence got too much for me (as an older viewer), I just turned off the audio and/or covered my eyes.) The cinematography, the editing, etc. were phenomenal. I expect this to be remade a number of times by various artists across the world, because the story holds up so well and can be set in many parts of the globe. What more would you want in a cops-robbers/love story? I am surprised that the rating overall on MDL is not higher.

(I did have an issue with the Disney digitization which gave a slight green cast to the footage. This emphasizes the film noir effect, but I don't like it. I was a video editor, so most people, other than folks like me, will likely not be bothered by it.)

SPOILER:
I note that some reviewers think that the drug boss's motivation is money/success. I concur only in that he believes that this will win the love/respect of his childhood sweetheart, which is his ultimate goal--the same goal as that of the ML, which is to win the love/respect of his wife. (A reviewer compared the drug boss to Jay Gatsby in the novel "The Great Gatsby" and I concur.) The FL has "the face that launched a thousand ships," as they say of Helen of Troy. And I think that the FL lead was able to feel empathy (NOT love) for the drug boss, just as the ML was able to feel empathy for the Chinese drug negotiator--but the true love remained between the ML and FL, as evidenced by her continued pleads for him to be pulled from the operation.

Regarding the ending, IMHO the ML again sacrificed himself and his marriage for both the FL and drug boss, with whom he had developed a strong relationship. The drug boss had an "honorable" death and the FL didn't have to take the blame for his death. Therefore, the ML remained true to his character of protecting those that he loved, he didn't "turn evil." If the FL realizes this in time, then perhaps there may be a way for them to get back together.

Regarding the title of the drama, I wonder if the writer is trying to say that the worst evil is often the things we do for love. Did both men destroy themselves to gain the love of a woman? (Back to Helen of Troy) It is true that people do terrible things to protect their loved ones or to protect/foster the God they love or to avenge those that they love. Food for thought.

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Where the line between good and evil disappears

What made this series different for me was not its story, but rather what was happening beneath the surface of the narrative and within the characters. Joon Mo, as a good man and also as a good police officer, had seemingly correct beliefs that formed the foundation of his existence and life, and these beliefs drove Joon Mo towards striving to preserve and strengthen goodness and defeat and destroy evil. Now Joon Mo has been called to fight the "worst of evil." It is a fight that aligns with his ideals and validates and reinforces them. So he enters the Ki Chul gang. At first, everything he sees is nothing but ugliness and corruption, something that serves as confirmation of his hatred for Ki Chul and his people and the necessity of their destruction. At this moment, Ki Chul is exactly the devil to Joon Mo؛ Thus, his beliefs are reaffirmed and become stronger. Until his love get a foothold in this story, and this event is a prelude to a new chapter full of turmoil and confusion within Joon Mo's inner world. Initially, Ki Chul's connection with Joon Mo's wife frightens and angers Joon Mo, increasing his hatred towards Ki Chul. But on the other hand,Ki Chul's sincere and pure love for Joon Mo's wife reveals something about Ki Chul to Joon Mo. "Ki Chul also has heart." Gradually, this aspect of Ki Chul becomes more vivid and apparent to Joon Mo. He loves all his gang members like his own brothers, he is loyal to them and he does everything in his power for their happiness. He has photos of his gang members in his office, photos that resemble more family or friendly pictures depicting relationships filled with love and affection rather than a group photo of gang members. Ki Chul is trustworthy, and that's why he easily trusts others. He loves Joon Mo like a brother from the bottom of his heart, and Ki Chul doesn't just keep Joon Mo by his side for his own protection; Joon Mo's life is valuable to Ki Chul, and Ki Chul tries to keep Joon Mo away from danger even if keeping Joon Mo away from danger is dangerous for Ki Chul himself. Like Joon Mo, he too had a difficult childhood, but unlike Joon Mo, he didn't have a helping hand to pull him out of that quagmire. Ki Chul was like someone who had fallen into a dark, terrifying, and seemingly unsolvable maze for years and had been waiting for the smallest ray of light to show him the path to freedom.Joon Mo and his wife were that ray of light for Ki Chul, which gave Ki Chul the good news of liberation and gave new life to his hope. The hope that he, too, could be good, be loved, and experience a normal life filled with love, security, and peace of mind. Perhaps Ki Chul knew that this light wasn't real, but with all his being, he wanted to believe in this beautiful lie, so he denied anything that questioned its truth and correctness.
During his mission, the closer Joon Mo got to Ki Chul, the clearer he saw the beauty within him. Hae Ryeon was also like Ki Chul, hiding a pure soul beneath a tainted exterior. The truth within Ki Chul and Hae Ryeon was what shook the rooted beliefs and ideals of Joon Mo. Should he act according to his own beliefs and destroy this group of demons, or should he accept the truth he has encountered and join forces with Ki Chul and Hae Ryeon? The truth that told him, the demons that you wished to destroy, have a more beautiful inside than the demonic angels around you. Joon Mo's inner self is filled with turmoil and conflict. He finds himself at a crossroad where every direction he looks, there is nothing but pain waiting for him. If he remains faithful to his beliefs, he must bury the truth he has discovered within himself and accept a lie that would result in the destruction of the angels who have been dressed as demons by the cruelties of life. But if he chooses to embrace the truth, nothing of Joon Mo will remain. This ideal within his being requires him to rebuild his existence from scratch and accept that everything he has believed and acted upon so far has been meaningless, purposeless, and wrong. Furthermore, he unknowingly initiated a game where victory and defeat come at the cost of life, and now that he has fallen to its depths, he cannot abandon it halfway or return to before its inception. Therefore, the only thing he can do is try to play the game in the most beautiful way possible. And that's exactly what he did.
He presented the most beautiful game of his life. He fulfilled his mission correctly, but at the same time, he removed Ki Chul and Hae Ryeon from the game and gave them an opportunity for a normal and better life (the very thing Ki Chul had wished for). However, Ki Chul made his last wrong decision.
Perhaps, as Joon Mo said, all the decisions Ki Chul had made until that moment were also wrong.
Kie Chul's comeback scene is Joon Mo's greatest moment of desperation. He understands that nothing can be set right anymore, and there is no correct decision. He must only seek the best decision. Ki Chul has turned back, and now the only things that await him are either death or a life where death is a wish. It is an eternal life in prison, where dying is the sentence of freedom. Ki Chul and Eui Jung are both devout Christians, and suicide, have a force of curse for them. Ki Chul wants to burn Eui Jung in the fire of his eternal curse by ending his life. A curse that not only consumes Eui Jung's world but also burns Ki Chul's afterlife. Joon Mo decides to shoulder the burden of guilt for Ki Chul and Eui Jung alone and free them from this eternal torment. In that moment, he chooses to protect them at the cost of losing his spouse and comrade. Now Eui Jung can blame Joon Mo instead of blaming herself for Ki Chul's death and she can hate Joon Mo instead of hating herself. What ultimately remains are deep and precious friendships. The friendship between Ki Chul and Eui Jung, symbolized by the bouquet of flowers accompanying the cross necklace on his grave, and the friendship between Ki Chul and Joon Mo, symbolized by a cigarette that was divided between Joon Mo and Ki Chul. Joon Mo's ring ultimately came off his finger, but his watch never came off his wrist.

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One of the masterpiece series of korean dramas

It's one of a masterpiece. The plot and the main lead actors acting is the strength of the drama. The main male lead actor, ji chung wook just nailed it, his acting was at It's peak! One of his look with bloodshed was terrifying. And fight scenes are awsome. There is a fight scene were thr other gang attack 2nd lead's gang, then the two main lead actors fights back as their last fight..it was hell like fight. Brotherhood genre is the mai strength to the plot. But there is a scene which felt awkward, which is the main actress and 2nd lead's kiss scene. It felt like awkward, also the main lead's (ji chung wook) and other mafia girl's kiss scene. They were essential for the drama, they can't exclude it. But it really felt awkward watching it. Because they have already married to eachother(ji chung wook and main actress). In the end It's emotional. But i think that's better. It's like a happy ending kind of a feel.. Really that's the better end for the main leads.

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excellent men, women a disaster

SPOILER WARNING UNTIL THE LAST SCENE

SPOILERS

SPOILERS



The series is really good and deserves a second viewing (I always only watch them once anyway). However, be prepared for a lot of violence, sometimes even exaggerated. The actors are all very good. The male characters were masterfully drawn, all of them, unlike the female ones who are a disaster. There are very few flaws in the plot (including the disappearance of his father into thin air). Very little waste of time and unnecessary turns to lengthen the broth. Emotionally it is engaging, even if for those who have already seen the films from which it draws inspiration, they are emotions already experienced at a different qualitative level [“Donnie Brasco” by Mike Newell from 1997, with Johnny Depp and Al Pacino; “Infernal Affairs” by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak from 2002, with Tony Leung and Eric Tsang; “The Departed” by Martin Scorsese from 2006, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson]. In any case, let's say that the theme of betrayed trust and the bad guy who trusts the good guy, who is instead deceiving him, is conveyed very well, or rather doubled by the fact that Eui Jeong also comes into play. So a round of applause to the directors, the screenwriter and the actors.

I really compliment the utent DramaAjumma on the parallel between Gi Cheul and Jay Gatsby, which I totally approve of. She were also very astute in observing that the same woman (Eui Jeong/Daisy Fay) is the driving force behind both men's ambition to achieve high social position. As well as the user @oppa_, who noted that Hae Ryun had very well noticed that there was tension between Jun Mo and Eui Jeong, but this crumb of the story was dropped without giving it any follow-up. Actually, Gi Cheul had noticed it for a moment too.

However, there are wrong elements in the series, even if we leave aside the imaginative way in which an undercover investigation was made, with the absurd involvement of the wife etc. I think Seok Do Hyung's murder scene was rendered in a botched and unbelievable way. A seasoned cop who can be disarmed and fooled so easily? And Jun Mo, why the hell did not he just arrest Seo, given the situation? Seo gave him the gun and he, instead of taking it and shooting him, left it in his hand. Another inconceivable scene is when Jun Mo arrests Gi Cheul, insults him heavily (for no apparent reason) and then incredibly allows him to escape. After working for months, risking his life and taking other's life, precisely for the purpose of arresting Gi Cheul, he lets him go, also putting his wife in danger.

I was extremely impressed by Choi Jeong Bae (the actor Lim Seong Jae is phenomenal). He was right about everything and he was the one who was pushed into the corner the most until he was removed, even though he was probably the most faithful. He is the only one who understood from the beginning that Jun Mo and Eui Jeong both had something wrong; if Gi Cheul had listened to his intuition about them from the beginning, he wouldn't have lost everything. Although Jeong Bae stole from Gi Cheul, his loyalty was far greater than everyone else's, so he is another character who has great ambivalence. Honestly, it is not clear to me why Seo massacres him. He is also the one who finally realizes that Gi Cheul is trying to screw the whole team and abandon the drug dealing. I did not quite understand whether the drugs sold by Jeong bae were stolen from Gi Cheul or the Japanese, in which case he would be the cause of all Gi Cheul's troubles with the Japanese. I was a little perplexed in the scene where he punctures the tire... it is not clear whether he is involved or not in what happens that evening, maybe it is a plot hole.

The forgettable part of the series are the two female characters: the girl is ridiculous and an unlikely drug trafficker, the wife is a vapid deadcat. The actress Im Se Mi must have worked hard to act so expressionlessly, to comply with a script completely devoid of romantic emotions. The female roles and relationships in the three couples had to be left to a female hand. The choice not to show the slightest intimacy between any of them makes any emotion impermissible; where was the smile and joy of being together, typical of lovers? Nothing justifies Jun Mo risking the entire operation to warn Hae Ryun that the Chinese police were about to raid his hideout and leaving her free to continue her crime somewhere else. There is not a single scene from which we understand that Hae Ryun is so in love with him that she betrays her father and gives up her business that allows her to lead the life of a billionaire. The two characters never exchange a look of real complicity or affection. The same goes for Eui Jeong's alleged falling in love, instead she has shown herself to be constantly worried about the safety of her husband: we have never seen Eui Jeong happy in Gi Cheul's arms. Should dating her husband and putting the necklace in plain sight suggest that she is in love with Gi Cheul? Even at the last moment, when she kneels next to the dying Gi Cheul, she does nothing different than anyone with any knowledge of the wounded man would have done.

So it is all assumed, without the effort of any scene in the script showing how the feelings of these four people are growing; everything is taken for granted, including the fact that Jun Mo "understood" that his wife actually no longer loved him, as the ending suggests.

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A Nostalgic Journey with a Thrilling Korean Twist

When I first started watching this drama, I had no expectations. After countless fluffy romcoms, I was craving something different. I'm thrilled with my pick because this series brilliantly blends the best elements of Hong Kong gangster movies from the '80s to the 2000s within a unique Korean K-drama framework.

Set in the '90s, the show brings a wave of nostalgia. The era's charm comes alive with slightly oversized suits, chunky Mercedes S-Class cars, and the iconic Motorola StarTAC flip phones. It's just delightful.

This drama borrows a lot from Hong Kong gangster films. The main characters remind me of those in the 2002 film "Internal Affairs," where the protagonist pretends to be a gangster while actually working undercover as a cop. But the series takes that inspiration and makes it its own, with a distinctive style and story that keeps you hooked from start to finish.

Ji Chang Wook totally shines in this series. He nails the double agent character, making you feel every emotion and frustration he goes through. His fight scenes are spot-on, though some are so intense and violent that I had to look away.

The rest of the cast is great too, but I was especially impressed with Bibi. I'd never seen her work or even heard of her before this. I was shocked to find out she's actually a rapper, singer, and songwriter. Her portrayal of the daughter of a Mainland China gangster was so convincing it's hard to believe she's not a full-time actress.

With only 12 episodes, the drama moves at a good pace without any unnecessary fillers. I highly recommend it to anyone into crime thrillers or just looking for a change like I was.

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