[Limelight] An Aging Detective Turned Suspect, Abandon Your Old Beliefs

Disney+ 'Hyeongsarok' Lee Sung-min, Forcibly Correcting 30 Years of Detective Career Mistakes
Multilayered Emotional Acting on Realizations of the Past... Family Love, Principles, Solitude, Trauma
"Acting as if Seeing Another Me... A New Awakening Like Kim Taek-rok"

Disney+’s Detective Log is like the memoir of Kim Taek-rok (Lee Sung-min), a detective in the violent crimes unit who is nearing retirement. It reflects deeply on the footprints left behind while catching criminals. This is not a self-directed act. He is framed as a murder suspect and threatened by an unknown figure called ‘Friend.’ "I killed, but in the end, you killed. If you don’t listen to me or reveal my existence, someone else will die again. You will keep being falsely accused, just like now."

Kim Taek-rok corrects the mistakes made during his 30 years as a detective, one by one, as demanded by Friend. He also investigates to identify Friend’s true identity. Paradoxically, his face and body, worn out by loneliness, fatigue, and helplessness, begin to regain vitality. Adding his seasoned and familiar skills, he starts to find clues to the cases.

Actor Lee Sung-min did not portray him simply as a spirited figure. He devoted great effort to the process of self-awareness and realization of his past self. Focusing on the fact that Kim Taek-rok’s investigation runs through his entire life, he expressed it as a mixture of layered emotions. Additionally, he left an impression as if Kim was opening his heart and confessing his entire life, guiding the audience to accept this special situation as something ordinary.

Kim Taek-rok is a middle-aged man who divorced after criminals he arrested threatened his family. Living alone in a goshiwon (small lodging), his stubbornness only increased. Wearing the tinted glasses of prejudice, he clings to his own investigative methods. As a result, he struggles to approach objective facts. His own faults go without saying. "I fear the mistakes of myself that I do not know."

Lee Sung-min consistently portrayed him with a pessimistic face. It is a convincing and refined expression. Everyone has beliefs. When those beliefs turn pessimistic, one becomes overly hurt and gloomy in daily life. They may even complain that living itself is painful. Kim Taek-rok is like that. He is constantly gripped by an unknown anxiety and restless. Even at crime scenes, he repeatedly asks himself, "What if that’s true?" It suits the police profession but is a useless habit in everyday life.

Lee Sung-min played Kim Taek-rok as someone endlessly ruminating like a cow chewing cud. "The situation where he cannot help but suspect every single person around him was appealing," he said. "He is a character who has kept a diary for a long time. He is so fastidious that he recorded things by year in a notebook. While reading the script, I felt that the detective profession suited him well, but there were points where it did not fit with myself. I thought that might be why he falls into the trap set by Friend. It’s a story about a personality that pursues perfection and thus falls into a dilemma."

Strong beliefs sometimes make certain incidents look like similar past cases. In a calm state, these can be easily corrected. But when the mind and body are exhausted or irritating events repeat, one clings to them and drags them out for a while. Ironically, Friend is the figure who rescues Kim Taek-rok from such danger. Sending threatening messages, Friend sharply points out past case manipulations and neglect.

Humans can feel the need to change beliefs just by awareness. The moment they recognize, "I have had this thought and have accepted things this way until now," the world appears differently. Lee Sung-min gradually shows this process over several scenes. Sometimes, he leaves room for various interpretations through ambiguous expressions. A representative example is the conversation with the new chief, Kook Jin-han (Jin Goo), on the fishing boat. Although suspecting he might be Friend, Kim sees himself as he is in a similar situation.

"Why are you here?" "What do you mean?" "No, why would an elite like you come to this backwater? What’s there to eat?" "Why the sudden interest?" "You said it’s voluntary, not a transfer, right?" "If you know that far, you must also know I lost my chief’s position when I was clueless. That I was branded a traitor at the company. I was constantly pressured to quit when I was at headquarters." "So why are you here?" "Actually, I’m a junior from Geumo Elementary School. I came down here for about two years when I was young because of family matters. Now, my relationship with my wife isn’t good, so I came down to rest, but thanks to this, I can’t even rest."

In the following scene, Kim Taek-rok opens up his inner story for the first time. Lee Sung-min said, "I acted as if looking at another version of myself." "Since his whole life is collapsing, I thought common traits would stand out. The guilt toward family, his own principles, loneliness, trauma... That sharing might be conveyed to viewers as hints or foreshadowing, but for Kim Taek-rok, it could have been a moment of awakening."

Kook Jin-han knows better than anyone what problems Kim Taek-rok’s cognition and behavior have. Kim Taek-rok also sees clearly what path Kook Jin-han should take for a better future. This is not a guess that goes against trauma or growth history. It is a conclusion drawn from objective cognition. Detective Log goes beyond this stage and illuminates the two men as mirrors of each other. It presents an environment where each can accurately see the problems before them.

Finding solutions in an unusual way requires courage. For Kim Taek-rok, it even means changing his beliefs. Beliefs accumulate meaning over time. They may have been a way to protect oneself in childhood. But it is difficult to apply them unchanged now. The situation of the past self and the present self are different. Lee Sung-min wants to use the late-realizing Kim Taek-rok as a mirror. He still cannot forget the line uttered in the rain: "Only a regretful and wounded old cop remains. You can go back. There is still a chance."