April 13, 2021
Shin Ha-kyun in a still from Beyond Evil.
Viu
4.5/5 stars
Like the best Agatha Christie whodunits, rural murder mystery K-drama Beyond Evil has given us a circus of colourful characters and fed us a steady stream of juicy red herrings during its endlessly taut and surprising 16-episode run.
The show started with a few crimes in need of solving – one in the present, another a 20-year-old cold case – but each hard-fought-for revelation unearthed a new surprise and a deeper crime. As new strands of deceit emerged, criss-crossing over the last, a larger tapestry came into focus, one intricately threaded with a spectrum of dark moral shadings, and musty from its decades of wear.
March 03, 2021
Shin Ha-kyun in a still from Beyond Evil.
Viu
K-dramas often come armed with big budgets these days but, for the most part, there’s still a fairly clear distinction in production quality between Korean film and TV. Every so often, however, something comes around that blurs those boundaries magnificently.
Despite having a smaller budget than most of the primetime K-dramas launched in February, Beyond Evil, a slippery and dread-fuelled new serial killer drama from JTBC, is the most cinematic K-drama we’ve seen so far this year.
Shin Ha-kyun plays Lee Dong-sik, a washed-up detective now working as a substation cop in his hometown of Manyang, a small rural community. He mostly completes his work without any hassle, but every so often he gets a mad glint in his eye and goes a little off the rails.