Actor Wi Ha-jun is firmly holding the center of the story in tvN's Monday-Tuesday drama 'Siren' with deeper acting skills and an unassailable charisma.
In episode 3 of 'Siren,' which aired at 10 p.m. on the 9th, Wi Ha-jun (playing Cha Woo-seok) officially reported to work at Royal Auction as an art insurance officer to investigate mysterious incidents, announcing the beginning of a full-scale "internal pursuit." Wi Ha-jun delivered intense immersion in every scene he appeared in, from his playful charisma in the first half to the chilling twist ending in the latter half, overwhelming the living room audience.
In that broadcast, Wi Ha-jun confessed the reason why he is so obsessed with the case. In his past as a detective, the pain of losing his younger sibling to insurance fraud turned him into a relentless pursuer. Wi Ha-jun, in the scene where he downs soju saying, "Because another victim like my sibling appeared, I won't let them go again..," projected Cha Woo-seok's human side with a lonely look of regret and pain.
Cha Woo-seok, who went to work at Royal Auction as an insurance officer, began a dangerous accompaniment with Han Seol-a (Park Minyoung). In particular, the scene in which the two stand close together and talk inside the dark storage room was the highlight of episode 3.
Wi Ha-jun pressured Seol-a, asking, "What exactly was Kim Yoon-ji trying to reveal when she was murdered?" and blocked Han Seol-a as she tried to leave, forming tense banter with the provocative question, "Is there perhaps another man next?" But unmoved by that, he revealed his flustered feelings when he came so close to Seol-a's breath as if about to kiss her.
After Han Seol-a pushed him lightly on the shoulder and left, the expression change of his embarrassed disbelief delicately captured Cha Woo-seok's feeling of unintentionally falling for Han Seol-a and perfectly expressed the relationship of "suspicion and attraction" toward her.
Wi Ha-jun cleverly adjusted the tone of the drama, which could have become heavy. The scene where he visits the insurance fraudster Yoo Sa-jang (Ppalrayu), whom he once put away, and makes a threatening request is where Wi Ha-jun's brazen acting shone. He saw through the medical certificate hidden under Yoo Sa-jang's buttocks and proposed to give him a chance; the process of mobilizing dozens of delivery drivers to find Kim Yoon-ji's secret residence provoked cheerful laughter and injected energy into the drama.
Toward the end of the broadcast, Wi Ha-jun once again delivered an epic ending. He discovered that Kim Yoon-ji had secretly been using an officetel across from Han Seol-a's home to surveil her. Wi Ha-jun expressed embarrassment with just a look without lines, and completed an overwhelming ending scene with an expression of being overwhelmed by complex emotions at the sight of Seol-a as if she were looking at him.
Through this third episode, Wi Ha-jun perfectly digested everything from the playful "Cha Seung-saja" persona to the obsessive pursuit of the truth, and the wobbling descent into the quagmire of emotions from a strange attraction to Han Seol-a. Viewers reacted with comments such as "I forgot how to breathe during the storage room standoff scene," "Wi Ha-jun can do everything from comic to melodrama to thriller," and "The ending gave me goosebumps."
[Photo] 'Siren' broadcast capture
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