Evilive: When the Evil Awakening Within the Disciple Outshines the Master

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ENA, Genie TV / 2023 / 10 episodes
Genres: drama, film noir, crime, thriller
Written by Jung Seo-hee, Lee Seung-hoon
Directed by Kim Jeong-min, Kim Sung-min

You can find the original article in Hungarian here →

(Author’s screenshot from Evilive.)

It is a rare occasion when I find the English title of a drama much more fitting than the original Korean one, but that is precisely the case here. The original title, Biography of a Villain, sounds decidedly dull compared to EVILIVE, even though such a word does not officially exist. First and foremost, it is a palindrome: whether read forward or backward, it remains EVILIVE. It is easy to see that this is a visual fusion of two words—properly, EVIL LIVE—suggesting that evil exists, that it awakens.

Beyond the linguistic play, there is another vital characteristic to the word being its own mirror image: it becomes the perfect expression of the imagery evoked by the title, summoning the drama’s two protagonists. We see lawyer Han Dong-soo (Shin Ha-kyung) staring down mobster Seo Do-yeong (Kim Young-kwang), and after a while, we cannot decide which of them is the monster and which is the one fighting it—who is dragging whom into the dizzying abyss, or who is falling in of their own accord—as we will eventually hear in the famous Nietzsche quote cited in the series.

(Author’s screenshot from Evilive.)

(Author’s screenshot from Evilive.)

"Small-time"—that is what they call the lawyer who, exhausted after a three-year suspension, begs for assignments from jailbirds. "Small-time"—that is what they call the gangster just thrown into the slammer, unable to step out from the shadow of the big dogs who exploit him. These two people meet in a somewhat awkward but seemingly ordinary client-attorney relationship. However, neither of them suspects the forces brewing within the other. The film itself foreshadows something of the expected events: let us observe the rhyming scenes involving the flies. The gangster terrifies the lawyer with the way he strikes down the loathsome pest. Later, the lawyer is most surprised by himself when he manages to catch the buzzing beast annoying him. But he smashes it against the windowpane as if it were not a fly in his grip, but his employer.

Han Dong-soo was sidelined precisely because of his sense of justice, and as if fate had conspired against him, he suffers one humiliation after another—affecting not only him but his wife as well. When it becomes clear that the tools of the law will get him nowhere, after an initial attempt to flee, he says yes to the gangster’s commission. From the first moment, he is aware of Seo Do-yeong’s aggressive nature, which initially fills him with dread.

Their first operation ends in a blood-curdling yet almost tragi-comic fashion due to the carnage unleashed by the now-released Seo Do-yeong, a massacre that nearly claims the lives of the lawyer and his younger brother. Han Beom-jae (Shin Jae-ha) did nothing more than recommend his Big Bro to Seo through a friend and assist the cornered Dong-soo as a technical expert. Yet, through this, he becomes irrevocably entangled in an affair that could not be further from his nature. However, for the lawyer, terror brought out a level of creativity that allowed him to convince Do-yeong that he could still be of use to him.

Though the characters of the two protagonists are like fire and water, they are mutually fascinated by each other, even if they won't admit it to themselves. Within the endlessly fastidious, hardworking, and duty-bound lawyer—who is professionally on solid ground—Do-yeong sees the missing link for his plans and takes him under his wing. Meanwhile, through his connection with the gangster, Dong-soo gets a taste of a life he never even dared to dream of—until now. The common denominator of their alliance is that both want to break out of their circumstances, and individually, they have already gathered enough painful motivation to do so. Moreover, their enemies are the same.

(Author’s screenshot from Evilive.)

Seo Do-yeong is an exceptionally fascinating character. Most of the time, he shuffles around sloppily in his slippers and is hardly what you’d call talkative. He is a handsome young man with an athletic build, but behind his apparent nonchalance, he is always ready to strike or defend. He explodes at the most unexpected moments, his every sense relentlessly attuned to everything and everyone around him; as a result, he recognizes danger from the slightest cues. He is a rather clever strategist, yet you can never tell what he is thinking, and he usually comes up with quite startling ideas. At his core, he is as motionless as a sphinx; the most terrifying thing about him is that it's nearly impossible to distinguish his rare friendly expression from his more habitual threatening one.

Han Dong-soo, meanwhile, quickly realizes that Do-yeong needs him, as he manages—somewhat on a "blind luck" basis—to wring out an idea that secures the financial foundations for the gangster's independence. The business takes off, and everything could even end well if the lawyer didn’t waver in his intention to quit once his task is done—especially since even the mafia boss would let him go.

However, it is the sense of inferiority, experienced as a shared grievance by both, that eventually triggers their conflict. While Do-yeong is in the process of overcoming this, relishing his newly acquired power, he confesses to Dong-soo how frustrated he felt being exploited by bosses who owed everything to him. He has no inkling that Dong-soo feels exactly the same way toward him and perceives his own position as undignified.

The lawyer gets a taste of blood. Every perk or obtainable opportunity pushes him toward wanting more, but more importantly, toward wanting everything only for himself. Do-yeong does not lose sight of this slow transformation, and despite showing almost no outward sign of emotion, we somehow feel his disappointment. Do-yeong is an infinitely lonely figure who could never trust anyone. Perhaps it isn't even written into the script, but Kim Young-kwang portrays through tiny tremors that the lawyer could have been his friend. But Dong-soo turned against him, so Do-yeong shows him his place using a horrific mafia method: a unique blood pact is sealed, in which the lawyer’s hands are bloody while the mobster’s remain clean.

(Author’s screenshot from Evilive.)

In the meantime, power struggles naturally unfold, focusing on individuals from state administration, the political elite, or the law and police force, who are simultaneously part of the underworld. Retributions and gang wars color the internal struggles, in which Dong-soo increasingly finds himself—or rather, a newly discovered self, at whom his family gazes with growing estrangement.

(Author’s screenshot from Evilive.)

The gangster Do-yeong is a terrifying figure without inhibitions, while Dong-soo, in his relationship with him, is nothing more than the dog that bites the hand that feeds it. It is sickening to watch how he utilizes his legal knowledge and what remains of his outward humanism to drive Do-yeong out of his own domain. In truth, there is no longer a difference between them; both are infinitely corrupt. Or rather, perhaps there is one distinction: the story suggests that Do-yeong has an innate antisocial personality, entirely insensitive to human relationships and rules (for instance, he invades and takes possession of private living spaces without a second thought), which, of course, is not an excusable sin. Dong-soo, however, steps out of the human normative system he previously accepted and represented; moreover, he tramples over his loved ones and those who helped him—initially using his own grievances as self-justification for his transformation, but eventually ceasing to care about absolution altogether, embracing the darkest territories of his being. The double life of the lawyer that we see at the end of the story is truly stomach-turning, and we feel it is a touch of poetic justice that the warning of the Nietzsche quote is delivered from Do-yeong’s mouth.

The writing duo, Jung Seo-hee and Lee Seung-hoon, have delivered an excellent, twist-filled, and detailed screenplay rich in well-developed characters—remarkably so, considering this is the first series for both. The directors, Kim Jung-min and Kim Sung-soo, made excellent use of the material, filming a fast-paced and tense production. Relying on great actors, they told the story of internal shifts through sensitive close-ups, often signaling the story's changes in direction through these alone.

(Author’s screenshot from Evilive.)

Shin Ha-kyun’s lawyer undergoes a slow but massive transformation, every element of which is infinitely deliberate—from his voice and movements to his attire—all precisely aligned with the stages of his change. Kim Young-kwang has simply perfected the character of Seo Do-yeong; whenever he appears, he dominates the screen. His charisma is incredibly powerful; the glint in his eye commands authority and, when necessary, evokes terror. The slowed-down manner of speaking that Kim employs fits him perfectly. I wrote about his sloppiness, but he can be exactly the opposite—who could forget that entrance at the head of his army when he goes to offer his condolences? We see him in numerous action scenes as well, in which he is swift and ruthless, always possessing a certain animality, but with the commanding dignity characteristic of apex predators. Torn between the two is the drama's only decent character, the lawyer's younger brother, played by Shin Jae-ha in a sensitive performance.

(Author’s screenshot from Evilive.)

(Author’s screenshot from Evilive.)

Most of the many supporting characters are given individual identities; among them, I would highlight only one. Within the ranks of the mobsters, it was interesting to see Bae Na-ra, who looked very much at home in the role of an elegant and firm gangster—a role that contrasts sharply with his soft and sensitive debut character in D.P.

There are no lulls in the ten episodes of Evilive; it maintains our excitement throughout. Of course, we can roughly guess what must happen, but fortunately, we do not foresee everything. The drama does not moralize; it leanly demonstrates the awakening of evil through events, leaving us to draw our own conclusions from this story devoid of positive heroes.

Disclaimer: All images used in this article from Evilive are owned by ENA / Genie TV and are used here under Fair Use for the purpose of criticism and scholarly review.

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This article was originally written in Hungarian for Ricemegatron Expert Film Blog and subsequently translated into English for Ricemegatron Expert: Korean Screen Insights. The English version was created with the assistance of Gemini AI, focusing on preserving the original tone, structure, and critical style of the author.