Is a monster born or made?
That was the query Ban Ji-un requested herself whereas adapting her webtoon “Expensive X” right into a Tving drama.
By the fourth episode of the thriller-romance, it’s clear: Baek Ah-jin (Kim You-jung) wasn’t born a monster. She turned one.
As a toddler, Ah-jin endured brutal abuse — first from her alcoholic mom, then her father and stepmother. By the point she reaches adolescence, the principles of life have been clear: Nobody will shield you, so use them earlier than they use you.
Behind her flawless magnificence and sharp intelligence, Ah-jin hides psychopathic tendencies and talent in manipulation, which she makes use of in her profession as an actress in addition to when the cameras are off.
Kim performs Ah-jin with unnerving restraint, with a chilly gaze and voice. She exploits and discards folks, particularly males, watching their lives collapse with a smile.
Yoon Jun-seo (Kim Younger-dae) is her keen sufferer. Conscious of Ah-jin’s cruelty, he nonetheless devotes himself to her, even aiding within the homicide of her father.
“If God existed, I’d ask why I fell in love with this devilish woman,” he says in a haunting monologue.
One other sufferer is Choi Jeong-ho (Kim Ji-hoon), a restaurant proprietor who hires Ah-jin out of kindness and is destroyed for his decency when she frames him for homicide. His tragedy underscores one of many present’s darker ironies: Goodness isn’t simply powerless towards evil, it’s ammunition for it.
Within the fourth episode, Ah-jin confirmed glints of humanity, confessing to Jun-seo that her cruelty stems from the love she by no means obtained.
“I couldn’t also have a regular life like everybody else. Since I used to be a child, I spent daily questioning once I’d get kicked out, how a lot I’d get hit. I used to be simply attempting to get via it. And now you anticipate me to care about different folks’s ache?”
It’s a quick, virtually reluctant admission — and the one trace up to now that there could also be one thing human left inside her.
Kim You-jung, proper, and Kim Younger-dae in ascene from Tving’s drama “Expensive X” / Courtesy of Tving
Drama critic Yun Suk-jin mentioned “Expensive X” depicts the brutality of home violence with virtually cinematic realism.
“Scenes of fogeys whipping kids and abusing them are portrayed vividly, which units this work aside from different dramas,” Yun mentioned. “Nevertheless it additionally reveals how violence might be instrumentalized by producers working after excessive viewership, and that’s regarding.”
“Expensive X” at the moment tops Tving’s recognition chart, ranks first on HBO Max in seven Asian international locations and holds third place on Disney+ Japan.
The sequence pushes viewers, particularly mother and father, to confront how home violence can completely scar kids. Research have discovered hyperlinks between emotional neglect and bodily violence by mother and father towards kids and the event of psychopathic traits.
The fourth episode ended with Ah-jin taking up the largest position of her appearing profession, but the second feels extra like foreshadowing. A lady who has constructed her life on appearing could lastly be stepping onto a stage she will’t management.
“I had goosebumps whereas writing Baek Ah-jin’s scenes in Episode 5,” Ban mentioned in a latest interview.
The 12-episode drama drops two episodes each Thursday till Dec. 4.
