Lee Jong Suk is undoubtedly one of the most beloved actors in the Korean entertainment industry today. In his long career, spanning more than a decade, the most prominent projects are romances, which include dramas like W: Two Worlds, Pinnochio, and Romance Is A Bonus Book.
His most recent drama, Big Mouth, was a crime thriller, and though the character of Park Chang Ho is often morally grey, he was still the hero who viewers rooted for. But that doesn’t mean Lee Jong Suk is limited to portraying only likable characters. In the 2022 movie The Witch Part 2, he gave a chilling performance as the eerie character of Jang.
However, his first role as a villain was in a 2017 crime thriller called V.I.P. The movie was released on August 23, 2017, and despite its success at the box office, the public reception of the movie was highly negative.
The story of V.I.P revolves around a psychopathic criminal, Kwang Il, who was portrayed by Lee Jong Suk. Kwang is the son of a high-ranking North Korean official who is being chased by South Korea, North Korea, and Interpol for committing serial rapes and murders of women all across the globe.
After the film hit the theatres, criticism kept flooding in, mostly directed at the director. The character of Kwang Il was shown to take pleasure in the violence he committed against women, but the graphical representation was deemed disturbing by most viewers. By August 25, 32% of the movie-goers had rated this film with 1 star on Naver, writing that the content was unnecessarily violent.
The main concern surrounding the movie was unanimous- that it used its female characters only to portray them as the target of violence and develop the male character’s cruelty. Viewers felt that the director exposed his lack of imagination by treating the women in the story as one-dimensional victims or dead bodies.
In fact, the end credit scene of the film became a point of discussion for this very reason. Nine rookie actresses who were a part of the movie were credited as “female dead body” or “Hong Kong victim,” which clearly supported the criticism that the movie used its female cast only to portray sexual violence and nothing else.
Though the credits were later changed to phrases like “Hong Kong student” or “woman,” it did nothing to sway the public’s opinion of the movie. Though Lee Jong Suk gave a worthy performance as an actor, overall, the project left a sour taste in people’s mouths.
