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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | My sister and I loved each other, despite everything. Can you two do the same? | „ |
| ~ Lee Woo-jin's last words to Dae-su after revealing that Mi-do was his daughter. |
Lee Woo-jin, also known by his codename Evergreen. is the main antagonist in the 2003 South Korean action and psychological thriller film Oldboy. He is a wealthy businessman who seeks out extreme revenge against his former classmate Oh Dae-su for playing an indirect part in causing his sister's death from suicide. He is hellbent on not killing, but ruining the lives of all those who wronged him in order for them to suffer as he has.
He was portrayed by Yoo Ji-tae in his adult self, while his younger self was portrayed by Yoo Yeon-suk.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
- After his sister killed herself in front of him as a result of an out-of-control rumour of her pregnancy, the grief-stricken and utterly sociopathic Woo-jin devised an immensely elaborate and abhorrent plot to mentally break the man who started the rumor - his classmate Oh Dae-su. The atrocities he committed as part of his years-long vengeance are as follows:
- Had Oh Dae-su’s wife murdered and framed him for it.
- Took Dae-su’s daughter and secretly raised her.
- kidnapped Dae-su off the streets, and imprisoned him in a hotel room for 15 years, Which caused him to imagine things and even when he tried to commit suicide they won’t let him die because they wanted him to finish the full 15 years as they proposed Lee Woo-Jin.
- Brainwashed Oh Dae-su to fall in love with his daughter.
- When Dae-su and Mi-do made love, after which Woo-jin gassed the room and visited them to make sure his plans were working out, he slept beside and touched Mi-do while she was sleeping and naked.
- Threatened to kill Mi-do who is actually Dae-su's daughter if he didn't find out who he was by July 5th.
- Brutally killed Joo-hwan for insulting his sister as he was talking to Dae-su on the phone.
- Killed his minion when he didn’t listen to him.
- When Oh Dae-su finds out the truth he started begging to not tell his daughter and started also to have a mental breakdown, which only made Woo-Jin laugh.
- Dae-su sliced his own tongue towards the end of the movie as a result of him.
- As Dae-su made the last effort to kill him by stopping his heart through pressing his pacemaker, he discovered that it was in fact a remote that activated a tape Woo-jin recorded Dae-su and Mi-do having sex with as a final perverse act of Woo-jin's grand revenge against Dae-su that finally left him completely helpless and broken.
- While he has a genuinely tragic backstory of losing his sister to suicide as a result of a false rumor regarding her pregnancy, it doesn't hold up since he still destroyed Dae-su's and Mi-do's lives despite them holding no malice to him.
- His suicide is not entirely meant to be sympathic. While he kills himself, it's not out of remorse or to redeem himself but out of self-pity and cowardice to not live with his consequences unlike Dae-su.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- He still genuinely loved his sister, even if his relationship with her was incestuous. This is best supported by the fact that he experienced memories of said suicide.
- Once he left the utterly broken Dae-su in his office, he returned to the scene of his sister's suicide in his mind, feeling just as grief-stricken by her death as before. That made him realize even though his plan of destroying Dae-su beyond all repair has worked, it brought him no happiness nor did it bring back his sister. Once the grief he repressed for so long and the feeling of no purpose after completing his plan (that had still left him unfulfilled) struck him, he shot himself in an act of despair. This shows he still hid some humanity and deep sorrow for his sister's death despite pushing it aside to unleash the revolting monster inside of him.
- He didn't reveal the truth to Mi-do when he saw what he had done to Oh Dae-su, showing some honor, even to his nemesis.
Trivia[]
- While Lee Woo-jin is Near Pure Evil, it's still unknown if his original manga counterpart, Takaki Kakinuma, as well as his 2013 remake counterpart, Adrian Pryce, qualify.