We are fascinated with serial murderers, whether they’re fictional fiends or real world pattern killers. We’ll show up for a documentary on Jeffrey Dahmer or a sequel about Hannibal Lecter, a gritty true crime series or a baroque, gothic horror, and countless podcasts as long as the bodies are dropping. What that says about us is up for debate, but it’s clear that the fascination crosses cultural and national boundaries, as evidenced by this latest thriller from South Korea, Through the Darkness.
Based on the best-selling memoir co-written by South Korea’s first criminal profiler, Kwon Il-yong, and journalist Ko Na-mu, and originally under the evocative title Those Who Read the Hearts of Evil, this 12-episode, Korean-language urban drama follows the establishment of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Criminal Behaviour Analysis Team back at the turn of the 21st century, the first unit in the country dedicated to the psychological investigation of serial crime – analogous to the FBI’s old Behavioural Science Unit as seen in The Silence of the Lambs.
The project is spearheaded by driven detective Gook Young-soo (Jin Seon-kyu), but our protagonist is Song Ha-young (Kim Nam-gil), an investigator possessed of unusual insight and empathy. We first meet Song in an opening flashback sequence where, as a child, he’s involved in a boating accident and sees the drowned body of a young woman floating beneath the surface. The incident traumatises him, of course, but a psychologist explains to his mother that his response is not born out of fear, but empathy; the sensitive Song can read the hearts of others (hence the original title), and it’s that gift that makes him a formidable detective.
Kim Nam-gil as Song Ha-young. Source: Studio S
It’s also what sets the series apart from its genre-mates. While Through the Darkness has echoes of American dramas like Mindhunters, which also features a team of detectives interviewing imprisoned killers, and The Wire, with its focus on police procedure and the pitfalls of bureaucracy, it makes a point of forefronting the emotional impact of these crimes on victims, families and cops alike. Kim Nam-gil anchors this theme with a nuanced, subtle performance, a charismatic turn that nonetheless reveals the pain his gift of extreme empathy gives him. Fans of Thomas Harris’s protagonist Will Graham will note the similarities.
We also see a menagerie of murderers, each with their own modus operandi and motives. Gu Young-chun (Han Joon-woo), who starts his criminal career with killing dogs before graduating to preying on the elderly, is modelled on Yoo Young-chul, who ate the livers of some of his victims (there’s that Hannibal connection again), while Nam Ki-tae (Kim Jung-hee) is based on the real-life monster Jeong Nam-gyu, a knife-wielding rapist and murderer. Through the Darkness is relatively light on gore for the subgenre it occupies, but it never shies away from taking us uncomfortably far into the mindset of men capable of committing such acts, and leaving us to ponder the implications.
Kim Nam-gil and Jin Seon-kyu. Source: Studio S
Police procedural aficionados and fans of the macabre will find a lot to love with this one. While we’re steeped in true crime culture at the present moment, Through the Darkness’s South Korean setting, real-world roots, and oblique approach to the subject at hand set it apart from its stablemates. And, given Kwon Il-yong’s prolific career as a profiler, there seems a strong chance we can look forward to returning to the Seoul’s urban sprawl with the Criminal Behaviour Analysis Team sooner rather than later.
