Reviewing Flower of Evil

PLOT

“I suspect that the husband I’ve loved for fourteen years is a serial killer.”

Do Hyun Su was living under someone else's identity which only few knew about. All was going well until his detective wife got involved with a murder case that had eerie links to his past.

Do Hyun Su is actually the son of a serial killer who allegedly committed suicide. However, his accomplice was never identified but many thought Do Hyun Su was the culprit. The case his wife was working on was similar to the serial killing method his father used, and now Do Hyun Su's name was being dragged in the mud and being suspected.

Quite early on into the show, Cha Ji Won, his wife is exposed to all the falsehoods and her life comes crashing down. She maturely accepts the reality and does her best to separate truth from rumours; her aim is to verify if her husband is a killer and after her initial doubts, she full heartedly accepts her husband is innocent. She never stops loving him or waiting for him. She does all she can to overturn every conviction she has regarding Do Hyun Su's past.

Along the way, numerous challenges from coworkers, the media, reporters, friends and family are faced. Betrayals occur, gut wrenching truths are uncovered - some too soon, and some too late.

In the end, justice does prevail but it's bittersweet.

CHARACTER BONDS I DIGGED

Do Hyun Su & Cha Ji Won

Cha Ji Won’s unwavering love and loyalty towards her husband is admirable. Despite this, she does remain grounded to reality and allows herself to embrace any doubts she may have regarding his innocence. I find it quite beautiful that this couple can endure the worst and the best and still remain in love.

Do Hyun Su, for the longest time believes he is incapable of love due to how his village branded him possessed and a psychopath due to his father being a serial killer. As a result, he believes he is void of any genuine emotions. However, through his instinctive based acts of service, sacrifices and actions, it is evident he does love, and when he loves, he loves deeply.

Also, for someone who thinks he can’t love or deserves to be loved, he is shattered by the idea of being away from or loosing his wife and daughter. It’s heartbreaking to see him breakdown and cry because the premise is set on all the rumours stating he is a psychopath that can’t feel.

It’s also upsetting and frustrating when we know that his wife knows his true identity, but he isn’t aware yet. This means at times she asks questions or makes comments with double meanings, and he’s clueless to it, or hurt by her statements without understanding why.

Do Hyun Su & Baek Eun Ha

Again, seeing how he interacts and behaves with his daughter is heart melting. His daughter views him as her sun and moon, and adores him to bits.

Do Hyun Su & Do Hae Su

After many years, he’s reunited with his blood sister and she is relieved to see him living a somewhat normal life. Although he’s adamant he’s incapable of love and good intent, she can clearly see it and is happy. Do Hae Su is selfless and her emotional side can often lead her to make rash impulse decisions. However, her brother, his wife and childhood friend, Reporter Kim, all do their best to protect her.

Do Hyun Su, took the blame and made himself look like the culprit in the manslaughter of the village chief. The real culprit was his sister, who was a young teen at the time. The reason why he took the blame without thought, and even engineered the evidence to point towards him was because he remains unaffected by people’s words, but his sister would break. Again, that proves that everyone was too harsh and wrong to taint the son of a serial killer with the same brush.

Do Hae Su also sacrifices herself to protect Do Hyun Su’s daughter. The way she does is brave and full of courage. She succeeds in keeping Baek Eun Ha safe and also survives the attack.

"The stuff you think are important end up becoming less important as time goes by, but when something is precious to you, it hurts you as time goes by." Do Hae Su

Hee Sung – the accomplice

This guy is pure evil. It is evident as a young boy he had violent tendencies, and a growing curiosity. This was picked up on by the serial killer and nurtured. The lack of empathy Hee Sung demonstrated only grew worse as he grew older. It’s debatable if his mindset could have been altered if his parents had interfered; instead, they turned a blind eye to it and allowed him to grow into a monster, with the aid of Do Min Seok, the serial killer. He shows no remorse and an entitlement to take away life. However, he does draw the line at killing young children it seems. It’s also eerie how he’s able to mimic others and mask his emotions – one moment his words send chills down your spine, and the next he’s almost normal.

Kim Moo Jin & Do Hyun Su

Kim Moo Jin has a somewhat dislikeable attitude at the start – I’d even go as far as branding him as slightly obnoxious. However, I start to grow fond of him as the episodes progress. It’s understandable where his fear and distrust of Do Hyun Su roots from. Initially, the way Do Hyun Su treated Kim Moo Jin had me convinced he was the bad guy.

Then it becomes evident, Do Hyun Su has never really demonstrated violence before. Unless something or someone he cares deeply for is threatened, he rarely tends to fight – he’s more so a flight kind of person. But now he’s got a his existence and future dreams with his wife and daughter to protect.

Turns out Kim Moo Jin, Do Hyun Su and his sister were all childhood friends – really good friends – until their dad turned out to be a serial killer. Now they regroup to establish the truths and figure out who the actual accomplice is so that they can all live freely under no false pretences.

Kong Mi Ja & Baek Man Woo

Unlike the father, who doesn’t display any signs of remorse or thought for the victims, the mother seems to know she is contributing towards further pain and her son is a monster, but she’s blinded by maternal love. These displays of contradictory emotions makes me appreciate her character.

These are the parents of the serial killer accomplice. They let Do Hyun Su live under their serial killer son’s identity (due to him being in a coma for a while and needing a coverup). The mother showed a visible struggle as she knew right from wrong, but often got coerced into supporting bad decisions. At other times, her unwavering love and hope her son would change or never kill again tainted her decisions.

She is the reason why her son fell into a coma; she accidentally stumbled across the fact her son is a murderer and couldn’t comprehend nor influence her son to not continue down that part. In a struggle where her son was trying to bury a breathing body (Do Hyun Su who’d just got accidentally hit by his car), and his mother finding souvenirs of past kills in his bedroom, the mother accidentally paralyses her son in a power struggle to regain control of a morbid situation.

Detectives at Work

Their banter but also love for each other is endearing. They choose to trust each other and be supportive in tragic times. Even when one member behaves questionably, they choose to see past it and trust in their genuineness.

As a team, they balance each other out with opinions and emotional responses. The work environment is not toxic either, and I love how the male dominated team doesn’t overshadow the plot and is free from sexism.

SOUNDTRACK

It sounds so melancholic and gets you in your feels. Yet powerfully uplifting too.

FINAL WORDS

I’m sobbing! I feel so empty and feel like I have zero closure. I really appreciate that there was a drastic plot twist in the final few minutes of the final episode; however, it was so brief that it didn’t allow me to process and be content. There was so much more I needed to see – I needed to see the rebuilding of bonds and see the happiness both Do Hyun Su and Cha Ji Won are able to experience now the shackles of the dark past have been broken. I also wanted to see Baek Eun Ha make more memories with her father. Kim Moo Jin and Do Hae Su progress their friendship; we see a slight tease of a romance pending but it cuts off before it materialises.
I loved how so much mystery surrounded Do Hyun Su, and at the start it was difficult to gauge whether he was truly wicked or falsely accused. Especially when he was dealing with the reporter Kim Moo Jin! At points, clues were thrown to us, and at points we solved the puzzle together with his wife so we understood and empathised with her heartbreak. At other points, it was frustrating. Cha Ji Won’s reactions and decisions were understandable, but we, as viewers knew more, so we knew just how much Do Hyun Su’s heart was aching.
Although being penned to be a psychopath devoid of feeling love, compassion, empathy, guilty, we see that is far from true. It’s truly heart warming to see the way Do Hyun Su behaves with his daughter, and how instinctively he goes to protect his sister and wife. However, he keeps dismissing it all as him being selfish or manipulative or calculative in his mind. It takes a long time for him to realise he is capable of being loved and loving others.
I’m not sure if I was the only one that was fooled, but for a while I had Baek Man Woo to be the real culprit and accomplice; however, it was much later that the penny dropped! I really liked that twist but also how everyone seemed to tie into each other’s past and present.
Detective Choi Jae Sub’s handling of discovering the true identity of Cha Ji Won’s husband and how she also knew for a while was stressful to observe. Initially I thought it was game over and numerous relationship broken beyond repair. However, this is far from the truth. After much consideration, Choi Jae Sub risks a lot by turning a blind eye, and later on Cha Ji Won’s entire team, embrace her back and trust her genuineness. I found that inspiring (although not professional) and thought it a nice touch to show how far trust can go.
The reveal at the end to as to why Do Hyun Su named his workshop “The Rising Star” had me balling. Like how romantic and cute!
I appreciated how this kdrama was free from love triangles, and just focussed on the raw traits of each character and how it contributed towards past happenings and bonds.
Some of the things characters say to each other just wrench at your heart and also made you think really hard.
At the start, I really wondered why the show was called Flower of Evil. Now, having watched it all, I think it reflects how as humans we can evolve both into evil and good. We’re not instantly born right or wrong; instead the core of our existence, our emotions and how we process it, influence whether we become good or evil.
I binged this show within a few (inconsecutive evenings) and would hundred percent recommend this to you! The performance of the main leads were memorable.
To conclude this show was tragic and unpredictable. The storyline had so much depth and the characters were three dimensional.