Okay, before you come at me at say I am romanticising a villain, let me start by saying, I am not. In real life drug lords will always be a cancer to the society and he’s still a murderer. But this is simply an appreciation post for the complex character that Choi Mujin is. Had this series had a different orientation and character focus, for example same as Peaky Blinders, I believe a lot of people would root for him like they do with Tommy Shelby.
Set aside the moral issue of the illegal stuff he does, I do think he is a pretty decent character. He was not the kind of villain that is perversely evil or purely driven by greed and bloodlust.
He has a very strong sense of loyalty hence any betrayal really must have cut deep. Props to the actor for being able to show his conflicting emotions upon knowing of the betrayal.
In my opinion, even with the betrayal he still showed mercy to Donghoon despite their apparent one sided brotherhood. It’s a given that death is for the traitor and since the betrayal is personal, the more reason he has to lash out. And yet the way he dealt with Donghoon was more with sadness and disappointment rather than revenge and anger. You can see the pain in his eyes when he shot him. Remember when Taeju said Mujin likes to torture his victims and watch life slowly drain from them, but with Donghoon he simply walked away as if he couldn’t bear seeing him. If he wanted to torture Donghoon, he could have also then and there killed Jiwoo and made him watch (considering how desperate Donghoon was to protect her daughter).
He also did not seek to extend his pain and anger over the betrayal to Jiwoo. It was Jiwoo who seek him out. He drove her out telling her to live a normal life. And let’s not forget that he did save her from those fake informants, which goes to show he was monitoring her after seeing how distressed she was over her father’s death. It’s debatable, I couldn’t say he did it out of concern (afterall she’s the daughter of the traitor) but I also do not think it was ever his original plan to use her. In the end, I think it was an opportunity that presented itself. It's also obvious that she'll ended up dying in the street by her recklessness if he didn't take her in.
I don’t think it was a sick game of his to use and discard Jiwoo. I believe Jiwoo was simply placed as a mole to spy about the police activity and not really to personally kill the captain, otherwise since the beginning, Mujin could have said it was the captain who killed her dad. He did care for her in his own capacity. Remember how he tried to take her out of the operations and retire her to the beach house, him personally looking and picking a suitable home for her as if he was her dad. He was willing to sacrifice an ‘ace card’ he had with the police in order to keep her safe. Also there was that time when he rushed to save her even with the risk of getting caught and involved.
When Taeju came to kill her was also not a direct order from Mujin. It was Taeju who was taking the matters in his own hand, perhaps seeing how now both father and daughter have flipped on them and Mujin despite his seeming indifference was emotionally disrupted.
It’s really rather complex. I feel like Mujin was just going with the flow of events. If the truth do not come to light, he truly do care and will protect Jiwoo. On the other hand, him giving her that knife and telling her to kill her father’s murderer is like saying ‘if things turn the other way and when the time comes, I’m willing to face death by your hands’. It seems like he still couldn’t reconcile his feeling over killing Donghoon, does his(Donghoon) betrayal justifies him using his daughter? or is this guilt of killing a person he thought of as a brother that is making him soft with his daughter?
You can tell in the end when things all went south that he was in no way desperately attempting to stay alive and hold on to his empire or even kill Jiwoo, choosing to ignore all other options and even leaving only a single bullet as if to say ‘I gave you my dagger, I thought you how to fight, maybe all of those is for this moment, let’s see how it ends’.
There are also some other scenes that shows character, like when he asked the elder store owner to buy him cigarettes so she doesn’t get caught in the carnage that was about to happen. And how he mourned for Taeju, looking back how he favored Donghoon more over him. It must have been so upsetting, the people he gave his 100% trust ends up betraying him. And that person he actually began doubting was the one who was the most loyal to him. No wonder in the end he lost the will to stay alive.
Again this is just a brain dump. I am not justifying the things he did or saying they are in any way right. In any moral ground, he’s still considered a bad guy. All my long post is saying is that it is not hard to emphatize with him and understand why he did what he did.
