When renowned neurosurgeon Choi Deok-hee (Sul Kyung-gu) first meets prodigy student Jung Se-ok (Park Eun-bin), a torrential downpour sweeps through Seoul. Choi is fiercely confronted by Se-ok, who falls to her knees out of pure desperation as the rain soaks her completely. “I don’t want to learn in university, I want everything you know,” she cries out, begging the surgeon to take her in as an apprentice. Choi, despite being hesitant about becoming a mentor, recognises the fiery passion behind her eyes and agrees.
The pair’s relationship as mentor and mentee sparks unprecedented progress in Se-ok’s goal towards becoming an expert neurosurgeon. However, the veneer masking her twisted nature wears thin over time. Se-ok relationship with Choi grows increasingly sour, before it comes to a head when she is stripped of her medical license after she’s caught performing an unsanctioned surgery. Yet, this does little, if anything at all, to dull her desire to command the operating theatre.
With nowhere else to go, Se-ok is forced underground into the dingiest makeshift operating rooms, where she performs illegal procedures for all sorts of shady figures, including the mafia and the black market. When she crosses paths with her former mentor years later with a request for her to perform a near-impossible, life-saving surgery on him, the pair are forced to confront their dark sides.
Hyper Knife is anchored by its brilliant leads. Park Eun-bin channels the quiet insanity of Se-ok with an eccentric and realistic flair. She carries a frightening intensity, one that’s always on the verge of spilling out. It rears its ugly head in little moments: small, demented smirks as her scalpel pierces flesh, maniacal laughter, the twinkle in her eye when she dons the scrubs. Her scenes with Sul Kyung-gu are especially mesmerising – as two opposing sides of the same coin, the duo build a symbiotic, almost entrancing rapport.
Writer Kim Sun-hee’s story seamlessly treads both genres – medical procedural and bone-chilling thriller – with ease. Meanwhile, director Kim Jung-hyun experiments with the story’s sinister undertones through visual nuance. Their combined vision of what the medical world’s underbelly would look and sound like have culminated in a genre-bending work of art in the making.
As far as revenge dramas go, Hyper Knife might not reach the heights of The Glory, but it’s still great in its own right. If you have the stomach for it, Hyper Knife will put your own morbid curiosity about the limits of the human body to the test – but the urge to peel your eyes away from the screen is somehow always overcome by a sordid intrigue about the places this wild tale will end up.
‘Hyper Knife’ premieres March 19 on Disney+. The series will also be available to stream on Hulu in the US.