What does it mean to be human? If a pig is genetically modified to have human organs inside of its animal exterior, is that then a pig or a human? If a human embryo has the DNA of multiple animal species written into its own, can the resulting foetus and eventual baby be considered a human or is it a chimera? What are the limits of scientific research and how moral is it for scientists to play God? These are all questions that L.U.C.A.: The Beginning sought to answer and while this science fiction crime thriller does its best to do justice to these philosophical ideas, the potential exploration of far more interesting and thought-provoking concepts are stopped short by typical drama tropes. Let's dive in.
SERIES RETROSPECT AND REVIEW (SPOILER ALERT)
Most of the drama revolves around male lead Zi O, the genetically modified "child" of mad scientist Joong-kwon and cult leader Hwang Jung-ah, and his struggle to cement his human identity. He was the product of Joong-kwon's crazed belief that humanity needs to evolve to prevent their own extinction and thus embarks on all kinds of unethical scientific experiments to create the next step of human evolution. As an embryo, Zi O's DNA was spliced with that of an immortal jellyfish, a sturgeon, a bat, a fruit fly (all of which gave him superhuman physical attributes) and finally an electric eel, granting him his most distinctive electricity-generating powers. Initially, his electricity manipulation comes at a price, as Zi O's weak cells are killed every time he uses too high a voltage, resulting in amnesia as his old "memory cells" die and are replaced.
A good part of the drama depicts the conflicting attitude that humans have of Zi O. Jung-ah's cult and Joong-kwon's research team treat him as either some kind of heavenly saviour or the next step of human evolution while others think of him as a half-breed monster who shouldn't exist. Throughout the drama, Zi O treads that fine line, usually behaving more like a human but oftentimes reverting to more animal-like instincts when cornered. As I mentioned in my initial thoughts post, Joong-kwon wants the escaped Zi O to return to his lab so that he can create more beings like him and rule over humanity, functionally playing God (more on this later). At the same time, the drama has a concurrent plot line of female lead Goo-reum trying to solve the mystery of her parents' disappearance and as the drama progresses, these two plot lines intertwine as she believes Zi O to be her parents' murderer.
Up till this point, this is what I found to be the drama's most interesting elements. The moral discussion of scientific ethics, the engaging and blood-pumping nature of the crime scenes, it's super intriguing stuff and for all intents and purposes, these parts of the drama are very similar to Memorist, another drama that touches on many of the same ideas (less the scientific ethics part). Even though there was no love lost between our leads, with Goo-reum having a lot of animosity to Zi O, it provided for a very interesting story exploring topics that I haven't really seen in the dramas I've watched prior (I'm sure there are other dramas that have done something similar but nothing I've seen).
K-dramas also tend to include a lot of political and corporate corruption, with this being no different. It's to the point where I often question really how corrupt South Korea really is but that's beside the point. As I mentioned in my initial thoughts post, NIS Deputy Chief Kim Cheol-soo is mired in this scandal, using his government power to frame highly skilled soldiers and get them imprisoned for life before pretending to "save" them by getting them out of prison only if they work under him. In this way, Cheol-soo hired second male lead ex-Special Forces soldier Lee Son, who killed nine fellow soldiers in a training exercise when he threw a live grenade instead of a flare, and Choi Yoo-na, who had her blank rounds replaced with live ones, causing her to kill five soldiers by accident as well as shooting her leg off in the process. There were others but these two are the most important. Cheol-soo is arguably one of the biggest villains in this series, being the one who killed Goo-reum's parents.
At this point, this drama is perfectly fine, purely as a crime thriller with heavy focus on science fiction. It could've ended there and been such a unique product. Unfortunately, things went downhill pretty fast. While again on the investigation trail, Goo-reum is framed for a large-scale murder and has to go on the run, with Zi O by her side. They ultimately are able to find refuge on a farm, with no one being able to track them down and while initially Goo-reum plans on leaving after a few days, she ends up staying with Zi O for a very long time and over the course of their time together, they end up getting closer and eventually fall in love, going so far as to get "married" and have a daughter. You heard me right, Zi O, who might not even be really human, impregnates a completely human woman. God knows what will come out but the pair believe that they can face anything in the world.
This is where the drama's problems begin. Our leads have zero romantic chemistry with each other and I would've far preferred it if they went the Memorist route where the leads don't end up in a relationship but yet still have some form of chemistry because that makes for an interesting watch. The drama then doesn't have to focus on a love story and instead be pushed forward by deeper topics. At first I put it down to animal instinct, with the pair becoming attracted to each other because of the innate need for all organisms to procreate but no they actually fall in love and that's super weird to me because there was very little build-up. While they do warm up to each other, there's little evidence that Goo-reum no longer resents Zi O for any possible connection to her parents' disappearance. At the same time, while Zi O is still on his journey to embrace his humanity, he has shown no indication prior of being attracted to Goo-reum. The romance feels very forced and in many ways, I can kind of understand it because it's a fairly important plot device so moving on.
Eventually, their daughter is born and everything seems peachy. They've gotten new IDs and are ready to live the rest of their lives freely. Of course, reality is often disappointing and Lee Son's team has once again been sent to apprehend Goo-reum and the baby, in a bid to capture Zi O once more. A lot of shenanigans ensue and Zi O's family all end up in the cult's custody. However, Cheol-soo has been removed from the equation, with cult leader Jung-ah deciding that his services are no longer required and hiring Director Jung (played by Jung Eun-chae), another Deputy Chief in the NIS. This creates yet another plot line, with Lee Son staying loyal to Cheol-soo while Yoo-na heads off and seeks "asylum" in the cult. This separation is somewhat important because it's quite obvious that Yoo-na develops feelings for Lee Son and it's heavily implied that he feels the same way, although he expreses it differently.
I don't particularly mind this other love plot line because it adds more to Lee Son's character, building him up as a tragic antagonist whose actions are all misguided. Initially, bringing Zi O in is just his job but after getting his arm ruined by our hero's electrical discharge, Lee Son now has a personal vendetta and does all the dirty work just so he can get his arm back. As we neared the end of the drama, Zi O ends up killing Yoo-na purely because she was in his way to rescuing Goo-reum, which only makes Lee Son even more vengeful. He no longer has any reason to live except to kill Zi O and by the end, he still fails and is killed, putting an end to his painful existence. I do wish they delved a little more into Lee Son's story because our end product was a one-note character that could've been so much more. Shame.
Back to Zi O and Goo-reum's story. While she initially believed that both Zi O and her daughter weren't monsters and would love them no matter what, Goo-reum ultimately cracks when her daughter demonstrates the same electrical abilities as Zi O as well as being tricked to believe that Zi O did indeed kill her parents. The weight of the situation bears down on her and she snaps, even going so far as to call Zi O a monster and shunning him just like the rest of the world. On the other hand, Zi O starts to go down a dark path, starting to believe Joong-kwon's ideas of evolution and deciding that in order to give his daughter a normal life, he must start to create a new world, one with more people like him who'll end up ruling the world, with the genetically modified superhuman beings lording over the humans. This drives an even deeper rift between Zi O and Goo-reum, with the latter believing that Zi O is becoming what he hated the most, a monster. Everything comes to a head when Goo-reum escapes from the cult with her baby, prepared to clear her name and live freely with her daughter.
Unfortunately, she's hunted down by the cult's men, who chase her all the way to an abandoned stone structure. This leads to that very first scene of the drama, which I thought was a flashback of someone dropping a baby Zi O in order to save him but in actual fact was Goo-reum dropping her daughter in order to protect her. Zi O reunites with Goo-reum, with her wanting him to stop before he descends completely to the dark side. They're at a standstill, neither wanting to give in but everything really goes down the drain when Cheol-soo attempts to snipe and kill Zi O. Goo-reum jumps in the bullet's path and gets hit, with the life slowly ebbing out of her. Zi O desperately tries to revive her like in episode 1 but this time he fails. As the love of his life dies, so does his last shred of humanity and Zi O fully embraces the monster, deciding that all of humanity is like Cheol-soo, incomplete beings who don't deserve to live. With that, he kills Cheol-soo, shocking him in the heart and sending him off the edge of a building, only to be impaled on some rebars.
After Goo-reum's death, Zi O decides to work with Joong-kwon and Director Jung, cloning his cells and growing his progeny in artificial wombs in the hopes of creating an apex species to rule over the humans. A construction worker chances upon Zi O's daughter and raises her as his own, only for her electricity powers to re-manifest a few years later at a family photo-shoot and presumably destroy the studio. At the same time, we see that Zi O's clones are all almost ready to be born, with all their powers manifesting at the same time and shooting bright blue bursts of energy to the sky. The drama ends on a very dark note, with a now villainous Zi O announcing the end of the Holocene (Earth's current geological epoch) and ushering in a new age of superhuman beings just like himself.
I'm not really disappointed by the drama's ending per se, in fact I believe that this was the only way that it could've panned out to not fall into the typical K-drama tropes. Instead of the usual happy ending, what we got was a cliffhanger of a dark future, where for the first time our male lead has descended into villainy all because of the actions of a select few evildoers. Did we really think that Zi O, Goo-reum and their daughter could live happily ever after in a world where humans would always shun them for being monsters? Of course not. Even if the cult had been taken care of, there will always be others wanting to experiment on Zi O and his daughter to push the human race forward, whether it's the NIS or some foreign organisation. Humanity is flawed and we fear what we don't understand, so even if there was no one chasing after their family, they'll always be treated like monsters and shunned the moment their powers appear again. There was no way for their family to live freely and they would've always been on the run.
My biggest gripe with this drama is that they focused way too much on Zi O and Goo-reum's love story, especially when the leads didn't have chemistry as a couple. Was it somewhat necessary in order to achieve the drama's ending? Yes, the screenwriters needed Zi O to have a reason to embrace the monster and that reason is losing both his lover and his daughter. At the same time, it's a shame because I really wish they had expanded a lot more on the philosophical elements of the series, like what's the limit to scientific experimentation and development? I guess with the shorter 12-episode length, they needed to wrap up a lot faster than if it was 16 episodes so they glossed over those points in favour of the love story.
While the criminal and ethical elements of the drama were the standouts for me, I thought that Kim Rae-won's portrayal of Zi O was also a very big part of why this drama was so popular with audiences. Zi O spends the entire series as a tortured soul who just wants to be accepted and loved like a normal human. He even gets so close to achieving that, starting his own family and on the path to happiness but that ideal is just out of his grasp and everything crashes down around him. Zi O is very much a personification of that "one bad day" that creates the distinction between heroism and villainy, where
all it takes is one incident for someone to go over the edge and become a
villain. In Zi O's case, it was Goo-reum's death and the disappearance of his daughter that transformed him.
The drama has ended on a completely ambiguous note, with Zi O spearheading a new age for humanity with seemingly no one standing in his way. It would seem like there's a perfect setup for a season 2, with someone coming in to stop Zi O but if you think about it, what kind of story can they tell? As far as I can tell, with the deaths of Cheol-soo and Lee Son, there's no one to stand in Zi O's way and even if there was, there's really nothing to expand on in that aspect. I don't see a happy ending in the universe this drama has painted and that's fine because rather than a conclusive ending, the drama has left us with a thought-provoking discussion about morality and ethics.
While L.U.C.A.: The Beginning is heavily steeped in science fiction, I can't help but wonder if this is a future we're heading towards in real life. Gene therapy and genetic modification aren't new scientific ideas, with the former being used as cancer treatment while genetically modified food is becoming increasingly common in our lives. Some people find genetic modification to be unethical, with the common argument being that humans aren't meant to play God. Scientific research has floated the idea of "designer babies", which will allow people to customise their unborn child's DNA to eliminate any genetic shortcomings and acquire more desirable traits. People argue that that's no different from allowing only the rich to engage in what's effectively selective breeding, since they're the only ones capable of accessing such undoubtedly expensive technology, and that humanity shouldn't wreak such havoc on the ecosystem like this. These ethical arguments are all ongoing and while we may not reach the extent of creating an entire population of electricity-manipulating superhumans like the drama depicts, it's indeed an interesting concept presented to us, allowing us to form our own thoughts on the ethics of scientific experimentation. Maybe as you watch this drama, you'll reach your own decision as well. Thanks for reading.
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