Squid Game Villain’s New Mystery Thriller K-Drama Is Spring’s Next Must-Watch

Park Hae-soo stunned audiences in his critically-acclaimed role on Squid Game season 1 as Cho Sang-wook, an investment broker and childhood friend of the protagonist. But while his initial appearances in the series were sympathetic and even exemplary, in the eyes of Seong Gi-hun and those close to him, the reasons why he wound up participating in the show’s death games. Sang-wook’s secretly heavy debt led him to make underhanded moves against Ali Abdul and Kang Sae-byeok turned him into a dark antagonist, one not inherently villainous, but desperation begotten by his mistakes and a broken system. Now, Park stars in a new thriller where he strives to catch a grotesque serial killer.

The Scarecrow is a brand-new K-drama with 12 planned episodes, airing in the traditional format of two episodes weekly every Monday and Tuesday, with simulcast episodes streaming on Rakuten Viki. The series follows a decades-long mystery inspired by the landmark case in South Korea, the Hwaseong Serial Murders of the 1980s and 1990s. Park’s role is of Kang Tae Joo, an uncompromising detective who is demoted to his hometown and jurisdiction of Gangseong. But as he helps exonerate an innocent man from a heinous murder case, he soon discovers it’s part of a series of abductions, assaults, and strangulation murders of local women between 1986 and 1988, with the killer at large and more to come.

Squid Game’s Park Hae-soo Hunts a Heinous Serial Killer in The Scarecrow

While a man’s return to a quaint Korean hometown in 1988 might conjure up images of an untold side story of Reply 1988, The Scarecrow is a far darker affair. Tae Joo, originally working as a detective in Seoul, was certainly unafraid to make his arrests as public and humiliating as possible when it came to taking down corrupt cops. But as he’s sent back to Gangseong, to the chagrin of family and encountering some old wounds from his childhood in the past, his ruthless competence soon lands him the case that’ll haunt him for the rest of his career.

Amusingly, much like Reply 1988, Tae Joo’s story is actually told in retrospect by him and journalist Seo Ji Won, with him working as a professor in the present day before being confronted with a jarring truth. The Scarecrow’s Kangseng Serial Murder Case’s real culprit was seemingly confirmed as Lee Yong Woo, having already been sentenced to life in 1994 for killing his sister-in-law, with them awaiting his confession on the rest of the crimes. As the viewer goes back in time to 1988 while Tae Joo sees the killer make their next moves, it’s unnerving to see the rural Gangseong locals, particularly the women targeted by this killer, as the attacks rage on. The result is all the tension of a serial killer series, but with the contemplation and complexity of a cold case being re-explored.

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The Scarecrow features the appropriate tension of a mystery thriller, with characters like Yu Jeong Rin pining after Lee Ki-beom, a handsome local, with her name being etched into his memory as well as for the audience when she’s the killer’s next target. The killer stalking lone women after dark, going motionless in a scarecrow disguise among the nearby crops. While abusive husbands and innocent-yet-easy targets for law enforcement get in the way of real justice, Tae Joo soon finds out how quickly a situation can get desperate as he finds himself on the trail of the killer in the first two episodes released so far.

The Scarecrow’s Mystery Thriller Is Based on a Chilling Real Case

While there’s certainly a vicarious thrill for international viewers and true crime aficionados to be found in The Scarecrow, especially with welcome returns like that of Lovely Runner’s Song Geon-hee, the show’s inspiration paints a dark picture of what’s ahead. Tae Joo has so far identified three murders matching a serial killer pattern, namely a strangling via women’s stockings to prolong their suffering, alongside sexual assault, binding and gagging. But for those who know about the Hwaseong Serial Murders, this case perhaps hits close to home.

The Scarecrow is based on the actions of Lee Choon-jae, whose crimes spanned 1986-1994, with 15 confirmed murders to his name and multiple additional confessions. His case, much like that of The Scarecrow, went unsolved for 30 years, only to resurface in 2019. While the series may not follow its original inspiration precisely, it’s a somber notion for fans to see Park’s character confronted by what’s essentially his biggest lifelong regret. This all comes as his character is returning to a hometown where he was bullied as a child, with his bully being the local prosecutor and persistent nemesis, Cha Si Young.

The Scarecrow thus uses an intentionally similar pattern of crimes across a timeline starting in 1986, with three identified bodies so far:

• October 8, 1986: Choi Min Ja, 30 years old
• June 11, 1987: Hwang Kang Ae, 21 years old
• April 29, 1988: Im Bok Hee, 29 years old

With Yu Jeong Rin joining this unfortunate ascending body count, it’s pretty chilling to see the obvious parallels and, as a viewer knowing the historical inspiration, multiple years’ worth of strangulation murders to follow. But Park’s portrayal, much like in Squid Game, shows itself to be one fueled by desperation to catch this killer before they can do more harm, all while trying to navigate daily life, creating a thriller by night, and charming K-drama in the daylight, with particularly strong shots depicting chillingly desolate hallways and crime scenes. But with a dozen more likely cases ahead, the light might be fading fast in The Scarecrow.

Release Date

2021 – 2025

Network

Netflix

Showrunner

Hwang Dong-hyuk

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  Lee Jung-jae

  Seong Gi-hun / ‘No. 456’

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  Wi Ha-jun

  Detective Hwang Jun-ho

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