Episodes: 20, Action/Mystery/Thriller/Romance
Cast:
NSS:
Lee Byung Hun as Kim Hyun Joon
Oh Eun Chan as Hyun Joon (child)
Kim Tae Hee as Choi Seung Hee
IRIS:
Jung Joon Ho as Jin Sa Woo
Kim Young Chul as Baek San (NSS vice-director)
T.O.P as Vick
North Korea Party:
Kim Seung Woo as Park Chul Young
Kim So Yun as Kim Sun Hwa
This drama boast big actors such as Kim Tae Hee and Lee Byun Hun (G.I.Joe); you knew it would be a good drama to watch as the acting would be awesome. These 2 big stars came back to the small screen from a few years hiatus from filming movies. This drama budgeted 16.7 million US dollars to film and was filmed on international locations such as Hungary (Budapest, Balaton, Tihany), Russia, Japan, US, and China.
I have to say watching this drama once, you wouldn't be able to get it entirely. If you want to be able to understand it fully and get all the details, you may have to watch it a second time, or watch the movie which was what I did :)
Kim Hyun Joon and Jin Sa Woo were best friends training in the South Korean army's 707th Special Mission Battalion. They were scouted (head hunted you could say) by the beautiful Choi Seung Hee to later work for National Security Service (NSS) which was a secret
South Korean black ops agency. They both fell in love with her immediately which is to be expected. Seung Hee fell for Hyun Joon maybe because he took action and was overly confident of himself? Maybe he had more charisma?
Their role within NSS was to preempt foreign threats and to protect the country's interests, even if they had to do assassination projects of anyone who could be a threat to South Korea.
Everything was going smoothly until Baek San, the NSS director asked Hyun Joon to do a solo mission to kill the North Korean Minister Yoon. Baek San is a double agent, who also secretly works for another organisation called Iris who likes to create political turmoil so they can profit from a country's strife and downfall. After Hyun Joon was successful in killing Minister Yoon, he was wounded and was chased by the North Korean agents. He rung Baek San for backup & help but was told that he was on his own. Later his best friend Sa Woo came to his relief but unfortunately, Sa Woo was manipulated by Baek San to kill off Hyun Joo and recruited in to work for Iris. Why was he so easily manipulated? I had wondered. Perhaps he was really jealous of Hyun Joon because he got the girl? Sa Woo was in love with Seung Hee and he was shattered that Hyun Joon and Seung Hee got together.
Still wounded and running for his life, Hyun Joon managed to find Seung Hee and they wanted to elope after Hyun Joon told her what happened with Baek San. At the train station when he was buying tickets for them to elope together, she was waiting inside the car for him. The North Korean agents found him at the station and was searching for him. As Hyun Joon made his way back to the car, the car exploded in his face. He was devastated, thinking that Seung Hee had died. Unbeknownst to him, it was a set up. Sa Woo had given her a call and she had escaped before it blew up.
With nothing to go back to at NSS, thinking that Seung Hee is dead, Hyun Joon defected and joined the North Koreans, hoping to revenge against Baek San. He joined their black Ops team. The black ops team's mission was to create a bomb and to nuke South Korea. This was the doing of Iris. Hyun Joon didn't want the bomb to go off but had to gain the North Korean's trust so went ahead with it in the mean time.
To build the bomb, they had to get special equipment from NSS headquarters. So with Hyun Joon's help, they were able to infiltrate NSS to steal the required equipment. During the raid, Hyun Joon was wearing a mouth wrap and scouting for the equipment when Seung Hee pointed a gun at him. He was shocked and surprised to see her since he thought she was dead and she didn't know who he was because he had a mouth wrap on, and also the fact that she was told that he was killed in a plane crash (while he was trying to get away from Sa Woo). This was a memorable scene for me. The acting in this scene was electrifying!
The North Koreans captured Seung Hee to try to get her to tell them the code so they can utilise the equipment but she didn't know the password. She was beaten by (shock horror) Hyun Joon to get the code. He had to put up an act so the North Koreans didn't know that they were lovers and also if he didn't beat her, they would've given her the lethal injection. This was another memorable scene. Amazing acting.
Hyun Joon met with the South Korean president Cho Myung-Ho to explain what was going on and that he was a double agent. His interest off course lies with South Korea. They had to stop the bomb from going off. Meanwhile, they found evidence of Baek San and Sa Woo's conspiracy with Iris and they were arrested. The bomb, Hyun Joon, along with NSS's help was able to be stopped and the North Korean agents who wanted to set it off were all killed at the scene.
Baek San was captured and locked in a remote area. Hyun Joon and Seung Hee went on holiday. The last scene was with Seung Hee waiting at Jeju Island at the lighthouse and Hyun Joon driving towards her with a ring ready to propose. Alas, he was shot by a sniper shooter while he was driving. They showed blood running down from his head as he was shot in the head, head rested on the steering wheel, looking at Seung Hee who was happily waiting and anticipating to meet up with him. It was so sad! Such a miserable ending.
This drama was really good. Choi Seung Hyun, aka TOP from boy band Big Bang played Vic, the cold blooded assassin. He was nasty but very cool in drama. Acting performances were excellent as we have a stellar cast here.
Questions that were not answered were who is this Mr Black that gave all the orders to kill? What part of Iris was Baek San involved in? Who was part of Iris besides Baek San, Sa Woo and the North Korean commander? Who Killed Hyun Joon at the end? Why was Seung Hee always being freed and not harmed seriously?
I wouldn't recommend that you watch Iris, The Movie before watching the drama. The movie is very confusing if you have not seen the drama. The movie is literally snippets from the drama and there are missing scenes where things do not make sense if you have not watched the drama. However, the movie Baek San tells Hyun Joon that his life was controlled by him from a very young age. He had to die because he had "eaten the unforbidden fruit" meaning his involvement with Seung Hee. Is Seung Hee's Mr Black's daughter? or someone high up in Iris's daughter?
The movie shows extra scenes at the end. It shows who kills Hyun Joon and it's a shocker! I won't say who it is if you are going to watch it. I was shocked to find out who it was!
I didn't like the OST in this drama very much except for the song "Don't Forget" by Baek Ji Young.
This drama was awesome! I'm only giving it a 4 because there are too many unanswered questions. I'm currently watching Iris 2. It's a different cast, and I'm sure the cast won't be able to match the cast of this original drama. We'll see. Hopefully, we'll be able to find out Seung Hee's true identity, and find out what this Iris organisation is all about.
Rating: 4/5
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