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).
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