"Is it the same person?" Recently, in the ENA hit 'Scarecrow', actor Jung Moon-sung is astonishing viewers with a serial killer performance that swings between extremes, inspired by the Lee Chun-jae case, which was called the 'Hwaseong serial murders.'
The currently airing ENA Monday-Tuesday drama Scarecrow (written by Lee Ji-hyun, directed by Park Joon-woo) is being called an ENA success. It has risen to a Nielsen Korea paid TV household peak rating of 7.4% and is raising expectations that it could recreate the early ENA phenomenon sparked by Extraordinary Attorney Woo. At the center is actor Jung Moon-sung, who gave viewers goosebumps with dramatic twists.
Scarecrow is a drama inspired by the Lee Chun-jae case, which was widely known to the public as the 'Hwaseong serial murders.' The Lee Chun-jae case is the serial sexual assault and murder case in which Lee Chun-jae committed some 10 attacks from Sept. 15, 1986, to April 3, 1991, within a 3 km radius of Taean-eup, Hwaseong County, Gyeonggi Province.
Because the police failed to catch the real perpetrator at the time of the investigation, the case was called the 'Hwaseong serial murders' and terrified the nation as a series of heinous crimes that produced countless victims. Even after the investigation ended, the fact that it remained unsolved made it a frequent subject on investigative programs such as SBS's Unanswered Questions, KBS's Tracking 60 Minutes and MBC's PD Notebook, and it also served as a motif for director Bong Joon-ho's film Memories of Murder.
However, on Aug. 9, 2019, a prime suspect was identified as Lee Chun-jae after DNA comparisons, and on Sept. 24 of the same year, Lee Chun-jae confessed in an investigation that he was the real perpetrator of the 'Hwaseong serial murders,' ending the unsolved case after more than 30 years. Scarecrow draws viewers from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, when the nation was shaken by the unsolved case, by structuring the story as Detective Kang Tae-Ju (played by Park Hae-soo), who had long pursued the case, recalling events from the time when he meets the belatedly caught real perpetrator.
Like Lee Chun-jae, whose identity as the real perpetrator was finally revealed, in Scarecrow Kang Tae-Ju comes face to face with the real perpetrator only after becoming a white-haired professor. Worse, the real perpetrator in the drama turns out to be Kang Tae-Ju's childhood friend Lee Ki-hwan (played by Jung Moon-sung), shocking viewers.
Lee Ki-hwan is depicted in the early episodes as a quiet character who runs a small bookstore in his hometown of Gangseong. But when the serial murders stir his hometown and his younger brother Lee Ki-beom (played by Song Geon-hee) is even named a prime suspect, he becomes entangled at the center of the case. After Lee Ki-beom is identified as a prime suspect under the lead of prosecutor Cha Si-young (played by Lee Hee-jun) and suffers brutal torture, he dies from aftereffects. Lee Ki-hwan is portrayed as an ordinary citizen who quietly lived his life only to lose his only brother to the era's barbarity.
But in reality Lee Ki-hwan was the real perpetrator. Even more, his brother Lee Ki-beom, knowing the possibility that his brother had committed the crimes, was released from torture and was on his way home when he mentioned to his brother Kang Soon-young (played by Seo Ji-hye), who was Kang Tae-Ju's sister and his fiancée, saying, "Brother, Soonyoung can't be harmed," then died after uttering that single plea. Despite his brother's plea, Lee Ki-hwan never confessed. Instead, as time passed he became an old hardened prisoner, donned a prison uniform and, standing before his childhood friend Kang Tae-Ju, showed a chilling smile and displayed the extreme dual-personality aspects of a serial killer.
Jung Moon-sung's characteristically soft, steady speech and warm, considerate eyes highlighted Lee Ki-hwan's human side and made it impossible to suspect him as the real perpetrator. But as the serial killer Lee Yong-woo, he evoked a cold tension with a mad look in his eyes. The somehow elated yet unsettling demeanor even sent shivers down viewers' spines.
Same face, same voice, but completely different people. Lee Ki-hwan wearing Jung Moon-sung's mask and Lee Yong-woo naturally provoke the astonishment of "Is it the same person?" Jung Moon-sung's intense acting, which dramatically and tensely unfolds a well-known social case, seems to have added to Scarecrow's appeal. The most human yet ruthlessly trust-destroying serial killer, Jung Moon-sung's dramatic performance and the narrative he shows in Scarecrow make viewers look forward to the remaining episodes even more.
[Photo] Provided by ENA.
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