The Scarecrow (2026) A Recommendation
Park Hae-soo and Lee Hee-joon play two former school mates who become the centre point of a police investigation into a series of murders in a presumably fictitious regional area known as Kangseong. The real life stocking murders of Hwaseong which have been the inspiration of dramas the likes of Signal and Tunnel is also the source of this new crime drama. Competent detective Kang Tae-joo (Park Hae-soo), who is sent packing back to his hometown after making waves in Seoul, soon stumbles onto the trail of a home grown serial murderer. And since it’s a Korean drama, one can be sure that the police especially in 1988, would make a dog’s breakfast out of an already difficult situation. Former school chum Cha Si-young (Lee Hee-joon), an ambitious prosecutor cum social climber, is both ally and nemesis in Tae-joo’s search for the truth, depending on where his interests lie in the moment. Bedfellows are often made under duress and no doubt the show makes Tae-joo’s desperation a large part of the what drives him to act at times with reckless abandon. Aiding him is plucky journalist Seo Ji-won (Kwak Sun-young) who could be also a love interest except that everyone’s too busy trying to identify a killer in their midst.
Anyone who has seen the K version of Life on Mars or anything concerned with said period know that police brutality was par for the course. There are two types of investigators in K crime dramas — the type that wants to catch the killer and the other that wants to close the case — and never the twain shall see eye to eye. To the former, the truth and saving lives matter and for the latter, it’s about playing the political game of survival to get to the next promotion.
In a place where everybody knows almost everybody, the suspect pool should be small. And quite frankly it is. It’s not hard to guess the identity of the perpetrator and through a thoughtful process of elimination, he would have been nabbed sooner rather than later. At least that’s what the show implies. Tragically however, the police are the public’s own worst enemy. A case that could have been resolved in months or years, takes decades because of internal corruption. Technological advancements certainly help but when the approach taken in an investigation is wrongheaded to begin with, a kind of hell on earth breaks loose to muddy the waters.
From over a decade of watching K dramas, I’ve observed that Korean crime shows aren’t really into police procedurals as much as they create allegories of the political and moral decay that’s prevalent in their social order. Serial killers in these types of stories are, to use an organic metaphor, a symptom of a deeper malaise. As was in Beyond Evil, serial killers thrive because of the corruption in the system. Heinous evil begins with the smallest acts of evil: small moral compromises, turning a blind eye, the abuse of authority, even the desire for recognition can seed an unhealthy ambitious nature.
More than a police procedural, this is a psychological study of three men: the cop, the prosecutor and the culprit. All three come from the same town and their lives intersect from their earliest days. Tae-joo and Si-young are offspring of adultery and dysfunction — a baggage they carry around with resentment that seeps out in different ways. On hindsight it seems they are destined to be lifelong adversaries because their choices lead them onto opposite moral trajectories. Si-young can never acknowledge his culpability making a bad situation worse because it would mean accepting that his career and success has been built entirely on on single very big LIE.
The ending of the show marks beginnings — beginning of the end for some, the beginning of restoration and healing in relationships torn apart by deception as well as corruption. The show is fortunate to have the calibre of actors such as Park Hae-soo, Lee Hee-joon, Jung Moon-sung and a whole host of seasoned performers to carry the full emotional force of the narrative. It’s a familiar tale told in many ways before but the experienced cast and competent director still manage to breathe new life into a well-worn path.
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