Mouse (Korean Drama on Viki)
I spent much of 2020 losing myself in Korean dramas and that has carried over into 2021. There are so many I love and have watched. I could write a post for each and every drama I have seen. Today I want to talk about one called “Mouse” which you can watch on Rakutan Viki, a streaming service for Korean and other Asian content. Spoilers follow.
What little I have seen of other reviews have focused on the twists and turns of the plot which admittedly are convoluted and seem like a ball of spaghetti. I am more interested in what the plot has allowed the lead actor to do.
Lee Seung-gi begins as a psychopath in hiding, but to the audience, he is just an extremely nice guy. He suffers a horrible head injury from the man the audience believes is a serial killer. When he wakes up he is a normal person with amnesia, who has received a brain transplant from the now dead supposed serial killer. Then he discovers he has what he believes are the serial killer’s memories invading his normal brain. In the most recent episode he gets his memory back and realizes that he was the serial killer all along. The supposed serial killer’s normal brain is what has been invading his own psychopathic brain. According the the scientist who is advising him, the donor brain will eventually take over In the past he thought that was the serial killer’s brain, but now we know that is the actual good guy’s brain. They haven’t shown the character realizing this yet but I wonder what he will do when he does. Right now he has a choice between turning himself in for his crimes, killing himself, stopping them. But then the only person who can prove he committed the crimes dies unexpectedly. It looks like someone is cleaning up after him, whether he wants them to or not. It’s been interesting watching him play the different versions of a character.
So to recap, we get to see him portray:
- Hero cop (while being a psychopath)
- Open Psychopath (practicing emotions in front of a mirror)
- Amnesiac struggling against psychopathic urges (Tortured nice guy being betrayed by his own body) Who then uses them to “kill killers a’la Dexter
- Horror stricken depressive (consumed by guilt at realizing he was the psychopath originally and not the good guy) But psychopaths don’t feel guilt, so he’s actually playing
- The other character- the Headhunter’s son, presumed to be a serial killer by public at large, also a doctor, trapped in the body of actual serial killer.
So in my mind the story is really who is Lee Seung-gi right now? And who will he be at the end? If it is true that the donor brain will take over, then by the end, the good guy will be in possession of the body and the serial killer will be gone. If that is the case, will he still deserve punishment since he didn’t commit the crimes? Will he just die like the mice in the study did?
