mouse

i really need to put my mind on break after watching mouse. i knew that the drama would be super twisted just like beyond evil, but since i've already subscribed to viu, i thought why not continue watching mouse after beyond evil? so here we go..

title: mouse

cast: lee seung gi, lee hee joon, park ju hyun, kyung soo jin

genre: thriller, crime drama mystery

the drama started with an introduction from professor daniel lee (jo jae yoon), a criminologist and a genetic specialist, a korean but then adopted and raised in UK. he explained about psychopath gene. he concluded that there's a way to text for psychopath gene so they could prevent murder case by psychopath. he then flew back to korea immediately when he heard about serial murder case in korea done by "head hunter". all the victims were found headless, so they named the culprit head hunter. the police department still couldn't catch the suspect, so a special meeting was arranged to discuss about it. he then explained to a bunch of korean government officials about psychopath and ensured them that he had a way to test pregnant women so they could find out whether their fetuses carried psychopathic gene or not so they could terminated the fetuses with psychopathic gene. however, at the last voting, the officials decided not to pass the bill.

daniel then visited his best friend's home and met his best friend, dr. han seo joon (ahn jae wook) a genius neurosurgeon and his wife. we saw a loving side of han seo joon with his pregnant wife and how daniel was grateful that seo joon managed to move on from his late sister, jennifer. on the side, we saw a glimpse of little girl (young "hong ju" /park so yi) that lured a woman (song soo jung/ ha young) and then became a victim of unknown person. the little girl was scared but couldn't do anything. we saw later the little girl visited the victim's family and gave back the belonging of the victim secretly. back to head hunter days, we saw another family of four, father (jung kang hee), mother (seo jung yeon) and two boys. the older one was go moo woon (jo yeon ho) and the little one was go moo chi (song min jae). all four were planning to go to a cabin to stay for a night to celebrate moo chi's birthday. halfway, they asked for a direction from the car driver in front of their bus. however, when they arrived, the cabin was shut down because the water system had some problem, but the kids asked to stay anyway so they did. unfortunately, one by one was chased by unknown person and when the mother barely escaped, she only had enough time to warn his oldest to take care of the youngest and told them to hid as she tried to decoy the unknown person. however, the person managed to kill the father, mother, and almost got to the youngest who hid inside the suitcase when the oldest decided to come out from his hiding so he got injured instead. the police came right away as the cabin's owner couldn't get hold of the father and found the abandoned bus and blood traces. the police found the parents' body and the oldest was in critical condition while the youngest was shocked. park du seok (ahn nae sang), one of the police detective that got obsessed with head hunter forced his way to question the scared young moo chi. moo chi was too afraid at first, but he managed to point to han seo joon's picture on the hospital wall and named him as the culprit that kill his parents and hurt his big brother. the police officer rushed to arrest him, but almost let him go because of insufficient evidence. they did find the headless body inside the snowman in front of his house but they couldn't prove that seo joon was the one that put the body inside. but when he was about to get out of the police station, his wife, sung ji eun (kim jung nan) suddenly came and showed a picture she took that morning that clearly showed that it was seo joon that built the snowman. the mask he put on so far immediately gone when he found that he had no way to avoid the arrest anymore. he claimed that his gene was superior than other human being and he didn't feel any remorse. detective park questioned him about all his victims including his children, but he said he didn't know anything about hyun soo (detective park's daughter).

meanwhile, shocked by the truth that his husband was a psychopathic serial killer, ji eun met with daniel to get the test. the test came back that the fetus inside her womb indeed carried psychopathic gene. and she was in her third trimester, so she was part the age to abort her baby. she met another woman that just found out about her baby's result as well. though both parents were okay, apparently the baby test came back as psychopathic. well, the result wasn't completely conclusive. 99% it would be psychopathic, and 1% it would be a genius. fast forward a bit, we saw a little boy in kindergarten (seo woo jin) brought a rat and put it inside the snake cage and made the snake chased the mouse and made the other children scared, but the little boy only watched quietly. when the mouse attacked the snake and escaped, he chased the mouse only to encounter a mysterious girl (kim soo in) that he should let the mouse go because the mouse's brain was different and it would attack him just like the snake and the little girl stepped on the mouse to kill it.

fast forward a bit, we saw an elementary boy, jung jae hoon (kim kang hoon). he was reported to his teacher because his friends saw him cut open a rabbit belly. he told his teacher that he wanted to check whether the rabbit was pregnant or just fat. the teacher was surprised hearing his answer. she even surprised to see his drawings and got concerned enough to call his parents. however, apparently jae hoon was a stepson and his stepfather hated him. jae hoon then killed his father's fish and dog to get back to his stepfather. he warned his stepbrother, jung jae min (kim dong ha) not to rat him out, but it was jung jae hee (ahn seo yeon), the youngest that had some mental problem that actually ratted him out. didn't know the truth, he pushed jae min into a hole and wanted to leave him there as punishment, but someone pushed him away and then choked him. in between consciousness-unconsciousness, he saw a glimpse of woman similar to ji eun that choke him. next we saw that the entire family was murdered and jae hoon became a suspect. they even put him under lie detector but he was let go because he seemed to say the truth. on his way, he stopped by a church and prayed that he wouldn't become a monster.

then we saw jung ba reum (lee seung gi), rookie police officer almost got hit by detective goo moo chi's car (lee hee jun). yep. the same moo chi from head hunter's case. he was still vengeful and wanted to kill seo jun, but he ended up being a police officer, and still couldn't get into prison. meanwhile his older brother became a pastor and had forgiven seo jun. we saw some of ba reum's friends, the prison guard na chi kook (lee seo jun) and koo dong koo (woo ji hyun). ba reum and dong koo were helping father goo's team to put up a show for the prisoners. several days before, we saw the public uproar because of back to back murder case. a former boxer found tied in a chair and burned to crisp in his gym. then a single mother found dead and then placed in the sewer. both got their middle finger broken. earlier that day, chi kook had declined seo jun's demand for getting him medical thread, but the prison doctor told him to just let him or he would get hurt. chi kook then told ba reum about seo jun and both met eyes by eyes for a few seconds. what happened after was quite shocking. as ba reum was doing his magic show, they were surprised finding chi kook's bleeding body without his uniform in the magic box. his middle finger was broken as well. later they found another body hanging in a vineyard with similar MO. and then a boy that wanted to find his father, kim han kook (kim ha eon) got kidnapped by the same culprit and demanded moo chi to go to sherlock ju's show with reporter choi hong ju (kyung soo jin) and told him the reason why he did all the killings if he wanted to save han kook. the other police officers, especially detective park, were against the idea as something bad would happen. flashback, detective park was telling the press that he would catch head hunter soon but he got his children kidnapped and then found his son killed in a car crash while trying to escape. he couldn't find his daughter up until now. fast forward again, moo chi didn't hear all the warnings and kept going with the plan. i forgot to mention that ba reum had another close friend, oh bong yi (park ju hyun) and her grandmother and both ba reum and dong koo met doctor sung yo han (kwon hwa woon) that helped saving chi kook's life but seemed cold from the outside. 

well, long story short, detective park was right. moo won got killed that night and they didn't manage to find han kook. later they suspected doctor sung yo han, gathering evidence against him, and was about to arrest him when he showed up at ba reum's house. bong yi who was there escaped and found moo chi halfway but ba reum confronted yo han and got his head pounded with hammer by yo han. later moo chi shot yo han and both were in critical condition before yo han died while ba reum managed to get through the brain surgery. since that episode, we saw some weird behaviour from ba reum that got us question, was it really yo han the culprit? or was it ba reum? i forgot to tell you that bong yi's grandmother got killed as well since she found something suspicious in yo han's house while she was doing her illegal housekeeping job. yo han's friend was killed as well.

later we would see that bong yi was a victim of child rape and assault by kang duk soo (jung eun pyo) and still couldn't get through the trauma. after moo chi and ba reum got transferred to the evidence storage together with detective park, they encountered several other serial killing series. from woo hyung chul (song jae hee), the tie knot murderer that ba reum managed to kill but his body vanished without a trace to a cat killing kim byung tae (ji tae yang). even kang duk soo also got killed by ba reum but everyone trying to cover somebody. ba reum also found out that his surgery was done by seo jun and it was a special brain transplant. part of sung yo han's brain was transplanted in his brain and ba reum was sure that his weird memories and behaviour was part of yo han's. we got confuse. was it really yo han's brain that messed up ba reum's? 

anyway, this is long already and 20 episodes is too long to tell here. especially with a lot of twist and turns like mouse's. at the end we could see that both ba reum and yo han were victim in an experiment by the government that wanted the bill to abort psychopathic gene fetuses to pass. in his dying days, ba reum managed to pay for his sins, killing seo jun for moo chi after turning himself in. moo chi and bong yi managed to go forward with their life. choi hong ju was the missing park hyun soo, and she turned herself in for her helping seo jun lured his victim back in the days. we also got another puzzle at the end. there was another brain transplant patient. but was he another psychopath getting a normal brain or the other way around?

what i like:

- quite a solid story with a lot of twists. and by a lot i mean, A LOT. really. but i think they cover everything.

- all actors and actresses were good. some supporting roles were a bit stiff, but it was still acceptable. i don't quite like bong yi's acting a bit, but she was supposed to look offended all the time, so i guess it must be the role.

what i don't like:

- too many twists and characters. it's hard to keep up with lots of twists and names. like how choi hong ju turned up to be the long lost park hyun soo and she was involved in song soo jung's murder. song soo jung was song soo ho's sister and song soo ho was the boxer that got burned. and let's not forget how sung ji eun was almost got killed by the suseong killer and even encountered and prevented woo hyung chul's mother that was trying to strangle young woo hyung chul. later woo hyung chul managed to kill his own mother in front of ji eun's eye. ain't that too much of a twist?

- they blurred the gory detail. i knew that even in CSI that didn't show the whole body, but at least they didn't blur it. so why tried to make it look horrible when at the end they just blurred everything? 

rating: 9/10

binge worthy: oh yes

recommended for: those who like crime/thriller story with lots of twists, bloody scenes and surprising ending. oh and can get through 20 episodes (usually dramas have 16 episodes but this one has 20, so make sure you're patient enough to watch the whole story).

beyond evil

i get it that people knew kdrama usually from their rom com. but they should start watching their crime drama. so far all the crime stories that i've watched are super good. solid story and a lot of surprising twist. i will write two back to back crime drama that i've watched recently and both are good. one of them is this one.

title: beyond evil

cast: shin ha kyun, yeo jin goo

genre: crime drama/police story/ thriller

lee dong sik (shin ha kyun) is a police officer at manjang police station. people knew him as a crazy one, but they all friends with him. he's been living quite in peace when han joo won (yeo jin goo) got transferred to their police station. everyone was wondering why he was transferred there since he's the son of han gi hwan (choi jin ho), the commissioner of police agency- gonnabe. apparently, joo won had a hidden agenda that would turn the whole place upside down.

apparently 20 years ago, back in his high school days, there were several murder cases that went unsolved in munju area. one of the victims was dong sik's twin sister, lee yu yeon (moon joo yeon). another victim was bang ju seon (kim heiora). yoo jae yi (choi sun eun)'s mother was missing as well. back then, dong sik was suspected as the culprit and even arrested before the got released because of his best friend's testimony, park jung je (choi dae hoon). unfortunately, his twin sister's body was never found and the case got cold. however, the police handling the case got promoted to seoul and the person in charge was han gi hwan. 

people started to forget about the case when suddenly there was another body found in an empty land. the victim was found in similar way as the ones from the cold case. they found out that the body was a stranger, not one of the villager. and she was connected to han joo won. apparently she was joo won's informant, but he couldn't disclose it because it wasn't written in formal document. everyone started to be suspicious of joo won but couldn't dare say it out loud because of his father. things were getting heated up when ten severed fingers of kang min jung (kang min ah) found in front of her father's store. her father was kang jin mook (lee gyu hoe). from the outside, he looked imbecile. he was one of the closest person to dong sik because dong sik parents were his foster parents and even helped him open manyang store. starting from here, we would be confused as to who was the culprit? as we saw it was dong sik that put the fingers in front of the store. even joo won found evidence that dong sik went up to the mountain where the body was found. 

but then dong sik managed to counter all the evidence and released from holding. and then the suspicion fell into jae yi who was the butcher in the area. they turned the place upside down and got jae yi reminded of the incident 20 years ago when her mother was gone. things became more complicated and after a few back and forth, dong sik told joo won that the real murderer of kang min jung was her father, kang jin mook. that caused a bit uproar when they found jin mook buried min jung at the back of their house. jin mook even confessed that he was the one that did all the killing, even from the 20 years ago. behind his imbecile appearance, he managed to disguise his cruelty. he killed all those women because he saw them as bitch. he killed min jung because min jung was about the leave him alone just like her mother. however, they couldn't punish him for his crimes because jin moo ended his life. but before that, he told dong sik that he killed all the women except for yu yeon.

things got more complicated when captain nam (chun ho jin) was accused of assisting jin mook's suicide. but he was released due to insufficient evidence. but the he got killed because he had something on someone. captain nam's death enraged dong sik, but due to that case, he decided to work with joo won in exchange for him to confess that he found min jung's fingers and didn't report it because he wanted to catch jin mook. joo won also agreed that he would turn himself in because of the sting case that caused his informant death. 

we became suspicious of jeong je because he forgot the detail of the night 20 years ago, and when he did remember, he remembered that he hit yu yeon with his car and asked his mother's help. his mother was the councilwoman that had some agreement with JI construction and she asked the CEO to get rid of the body. but he didn't do it so kang jin mook managed to steal back the body and put it in dong sik's house wall. we also became suspected of JI construction CEO, lee chang jin (heo sung tae) as well. but all were false because the real culprit was han gi hwan. 

back when he was a police officer in munju station, he was the one in charge of yu yeon case. he hid the fact that he was the one that hit yu yeon because of drink driving. back then, yu yeon was indeed in jin mook's car together with bang su jeon. her fingers were cut already, but she managed to regain consciousness. when she ran away from jin mook, she was hit by gi hwan's car (he's drunk driving after drinking with councilwoman park and lee chang jin). gi hwan then called chang jin to get rid of the body but he didn't do anything. yu yeon's body then got hit by park jeong je's car and the councilwoman called chang jin again to get rid of the body once again. however, when chang jin got rid of jeong je's car, jin mook found and moved the body already. 

at the end we saw that everyone kept their words. han gi hwan was apprehended by his own son for killing yu yeon. chang jin and councilwoman were caught as well. park jeong je turned himself in. even dong sik turned himself for not reporting when he found min jung's fingers (min jung was still alive then, but dong sik didn't know about it). joo won worked harder than ever since he only got disciplinary punishment. several years later, they met again in jae yi's place. all putting their past behind them. 

what i like:

- gee.. i really couldn't guess who's evil and who's right. they all seemed to have evil side. that means their acting are good. though i think the main one is a bit too much, but i guess he was supposed to do that.. to look crazy i mean.

- the story is pretty solid, though there's some questions though. why jeong je remembered deer just because he was kept in the deer farm when his mother got angry with him? and were all the bodies in found in the farm really kang jin mook's victim? 

what i don't like:

- how they all evil? like why do they have to make us going back and forth? but i guess that's what the twists are for. to make us confuse. 

rating: 8.5/10

binge worthy: yes

recommended for: those who like crime story/thriller, don't mind some gory details, and like some puzzle.

move to heaven

after finishing navillera, i already knew i wanted to watch taxi driver or doom at your service, but unfortunately both are not available in netflix, so i decided to give "move to heaven" a try. i knew that it would be another heartbreaking story, but i guess since i've watched navillera, so why not? in fact, it's quite interesting since one of the main casts is lee je hoon. he's the same main cast for taxi driver, so i guess it would be interesting to see him playing two different characters in such a short time.

title: move to heaven

cast: lee je hoon, tang joon sang, hong seung hee, ji jin hee

genre: life story drama

han geu ru (tang joon sang) is a 20 years old with asperger syndrome that works as trauma cleaner company named "move to heaven" with his father, han jeong woo (ji jin hee). a trauma cleaner is someone who works to clean up dead person's belongings and sometimes gives closure to their family. even though geu ru has asperger, he's really smart and his memory works perfectly but in different way. he's also extremely logical, which sometimes is hard to accept by others. he had lived with his father since his mother died of cancer and worked together. unfortunately, his father hid the truth about his cardiac disease and left geu ru on his own when suddenly he got cardiac arrest. fortunately, he managed to write a will before his death.

in his will, he stated that his brother, cho sang gu (lee je hoon) would be geu ru's guardian and he must stay and work with geu ru for a 3 month probationary period. the estranged uncle was totally different from geu ru's dad. he was an underground MMA fighter that went to jail because he put his opponent into coma after a fight. he smoked and looked reckless from the outside and made yoon na mu (im won hee) worried about geu ru's wellbeings. na mu was geu ru's neighbour as well as geu ru's long time best friend. she decided to join "move to heaven" against her mother's approval.

all throughout the drama we saw that their clients had a life lesson that we could learnt from. the first client from the drama that geu ru and his dad worked on was cleaning up a dorm room of a young man name kim seon woo (hong jin gi). he died in his own room because his company didn't allow him to go to the hospital and he didn't have the money to go to the emergency room. he was suffering from a workplace accident, he broke his foot, but the manager refused to let him see a doctor and he had to wait for the next day. the next day, he was died already. the company tried to cover the fact, but geu ru and his father found proof that the company was at fault. moreover, since both seon woo's parents were deaf and mute, the company manager looked down at them and just shoved some money to keep them quiet. but after some encouragement from geu ru and his dad, seon woo's parents decided to stand up against them. here we see seon woo's dream crushed. he dreamt of going to college and married the girl he liked, but it was gone since the company had a bad work condition. 

after his father death, geu ru's first case with his uncle was to clean up a room of an old lady, lee young sun (lee joo sil). she died in her room because she lived alone and her son didn't visit her often so she was found later one when her body has already decomposed. her son and daughter in law just wanted to know whether she kept some precious belongings and asked geu ru and his uncle to get rid the rest. but geu ru, being a stubborn head, proceed with the same method as he used to do with his father. he found some money under the mat but they were in bad condition as she died on the mat and the body has been decomposed. he wanted to give her precious belonging to her son, but he refused. at first the uncle didn't know anything and just tossed it at the back of the waste disposal truck owned by park joo taek (lee moon sik), a colleague of geu ru's dad. geu ru found a way to clean the money but he was puzzled by the story behind all that money. 

apparently, lee yeong sun withdrew the same amount of money every monday, wednesday and friday and then made a phone call from the bank. then she walked to a tailor before she went home. geu ru managed to solve the puzzle and excited to tell the son, but he couldn't find the box to give to the family. he became angry when he found out that his uncle had threw it out. geu ru, sang gu, na mu and even mr. park had to search the junkyard because geu ru insisted that it was important stuff and he had to give it to her family. later we found out that lee yeong sun had been withdrawing money to make a suit for her son. she never got the courage to tell her son whom she called from the bank. and the precious item inside the box was thermal underwear that her son gave her years ago but she never got the courage to open it since it was too precious for her. the truth broke her son's down as he didn't take care of his mother while she was still alive.

next was a young woman, lee seon yeong (park shin ah) that was killed by her boyfriend, kim yong woo (shin soo oh). he denied the charges obviously and everyone had known him as a loving boyfriend, so the detective and the prosecutor had a hard time proving that he's guilty. however, thanks to geu ru's diligence and this time sang gu helped as well, they found the evidence that proved that the boyfriend had abused seon young for awhile. he even abused her on that day and indeed killed her. grateful for geu ru's help, the prosecutor gave geu ru her contact so geu ru could contact her if geu ru ever needed help in the future.

their next client was a doctor that died in the emergency center because one of the patient forced them to give him drug while he was holding a knife to one of the nurse. he died for failing to save the nurse and got killed instead. unfortunately, his past was something else. the family tried to bury the truth but geu ru insisted that he should give the box to someone 's important in the doctor's life. it was a cellist that geu ru claimed as his "girlfriend". they went to the music hall tried to meet the cellist. there were three female cellist and one male cellist. however, all three female cellist didn't know the doctor. geu ru managed to uncover that the "girlfriend" was the male cellist. no wonder that the family tried to hide the truth because the parents didn't like their relationship. at the end, geu ru managed to give the box to the male cellist and gave consolation to him. 

last two clients were the ones that made them met social worker son woo rim (soo young). the first one was a couple that took their life together. however, the old man contacted move to heaven before so they were the one to find the body. since the couple had no offspring, there was no one to give the box to. and the old man had prepared everything. in fact, he even left a letter saying sorry for the trauma cleaners. when geu ru decided to keep on going, truth was revealed. the old man fired from his security job and had no money to keep her wife in the nursery, so they both decided to take their own lives. however, the sad ending took turn when at the funeral, a chairman happened to know the old man and wanted to pay his respect. such a lonely funeral turned into a solemn one when close people of the chairman decided to pay respect as well.

last client was matthew green (kevin oh). he was adopted since baby to the US but later he was left by his adopted parents thus he had no choice but to leave for korea again. unfortunately, he couldn't find his birth parents as his birth mother refused to meet him. he had heart disease as well and he stayed at a motel by himself so there was no one when he had heart attack. it was woo rim that found him since she couldn't reach him. when geu ru and sang gu cleaned his room, they found some truths about his past. apparently, he was in a halfway house before he was adopted and the daughter of his foster parents became a famous anchor. however, matthew thought that she was his birth mother that refused to meet him since she was famous now. such a sad truth.. but at last the anchorwoman decided to use matthew's death to bring the problem about adoption like matthew to the public and pushed the government to do something about it.

on the side, we also saw about sang gu's past. he was put in jail because he put his opponent into coma. apparently the opponent was his protege (lee jae wook). he decided to give up boxing because he suffered from punch drunk but he was planning to get some winning money for his parents. unfortunately sang gu managed to defeat him and at last he died. but we knew that sang gu was not 100% responsible for his death and the protege's sister also has accepted the fact too. at last sang gu asked the sister to clean the room as a trauma cleaner and gave the box to the sister. sang gu also found the truth about his own past. apparently, sang gu and jeong woo was brother for awhile because sang gu's dad married jeong woo's mother. but after they got divorced, sang gu was left with his father. after sang gu's dad died, jeong woo promised sang gu that he would take care of him, but before he could keep the promise, he was involved in the mall accident (the same one in "my love blooms") when he was buying shoes for sang gu's birthday present. sang gu then grew up resenting jeong woo. later one he found out from geu ru that every year, on his birthday, geu ru and his dad has been fulfilling jeong woo's promise to take sang gu to the amusement park and rode every ride in the park and then ate at three different places and bought a pair of nike shoes. all the shoes were kept in the basement of the house. another truth was geu ru was adopted as well. sang gu found the adoption paper in the basement as well. he tried to hide the truth but geu ru had found out that he was adopted but he knew that his parents loved him so. at the end, we saw that sang gu and geu ru had made a stronger bond, and when the probation ended, geu ru asked the lawyer to ask sang gu to be his permanent guardian, and sang gu agreed.

what i like:

- such a heartwarming story throughout the drama. so many life lesson here. from taking care of your old parents better to try looking each story from other side.

- all the actors and actresses are good. especially geu ru and sang gu. they both are really good.

- no plot hole. they close sang gu's story well and explain everything clearly.

what i don't like:

- they tried to bring up LGBTQ issue again as it's quite a hot topic nowadays. 

- some scenes might be gory so they blurred it. i think they should learn to cover it better and not blurring it.

- 10 episodes are too short. however, people have been saying that there might be a second season since the last scene from the last episode has an open ending.

rating: 9/10

binge worthy: yes

recommended from: someone who won't mind sad scenes and sad stories after stories. just prepare your tissue when watching this drama.